So long, farewell

I was in Wales all day today visiting my aunt and will likely not see all of you in the morning before we leave, so good-bye electronically! It has been a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed meeting all of you. I will look forward to receiving your journals over the next little while — those who are writing them — and would appreciate it if you could drop me a line with your mailing address so I can return them to you and send you a course evaluation.

Hope to see some of you again soon; best of luck in your travels, those who are continuing on; and a safe journey home to everyone.

Don’t forget to post those photos!

Handel’s Rodrigo

Wanted to address one question that some of you may have had about last night’s (wonderful) performance: why were all but one of the male roles performed by women? Simple: castrati, who performed those roles in the first production of the opera, are now in short supply. So while the number of women onstage was unusually, and to my mind, refreshingly, high, it was a practical necessity.

Some links:

• Farinelli, a lush film of 1994 about a famous castrato (clip on YouTube; for more, follow links. Image, above, is of Stefano Dionisi in the title role. But don’t worry: no actors were harmed in the making of the film. Handel is a central character.)
• “Singing in the pain: Castrati were the singing superstars of the 18th Century. But, as a new exhibition illustrates, theirs is a tale with some modern parallels,” Sean Couglan, BBC News Magazine (29 Mar/06). Includes link to a recording of the “last castrato”, Alessandro Moreschi (1902).
• Website of Elsa Scammell, musical scholar
• Selected literature on the male high voice: a bibliography by Dorothe Kugler
• YouTube: Alessandro Moreschi – Crucifixus (Rossini), 1902 (follow links for more)
• Arias for Farinelli and Castrato
• Portrait of Farinelli and friends by Jacopo Amigoni

Portrait of Farinelli

British Library

The British Library Reading Room was long a symbol of literary culture in the U.K. Virginia Woolf, Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, Mahatma Gandhi, Rudyard Kipling, George Orwell, George Bernard Shaw, Lenin, Arthur Rimbaud and H. G. Wells all visited, wrote, and read there. The Library subsequently moved to their new location, but its significance is undiminished. We saw a display of some of the major items in their collection, many of which seem to have been chosen to press people’s hot buttons. I myself had forgotten that the Beowulf manuscript was there, and I found it intensely affecting to see it: there is only the one manuscript, and that was partially damaged by fire. It is a potent symbol of the fragility of texts. To think that one of the foundational narratives in English literature has come down to us practically by accident. It begs the question, what has been lost?

What did you find most interesting, or affecting, in the exhibition?

What “story” does the exhibit tell about English literature?

Museums

Been reading P.D. James’ The Murder Room, a mystery novel about a series of murders in a small museum on Hamstead Heath (sound familiar?). The premise is that the museum has three trustees, siblings, who must agree on all major decisions. One of them, however, does not agree with the purpose of the museum and it’s focus on the past. Here are two characters talking:

She said, “I suppose a museum is a celebration of death. Dead people’s lives, the objects they made, the things they thought important, their clothes, their houses, their daily comforts, their art.”

“No. A museum is about life. It’s about the individual life, how it was lived. It’s about the corporate life of the times, men and women organizing their societies. It’s about the continuing life of the species Homo sapiens. No one with any human curiosity can dislike a museum.”

She said softly, “I love it, but then I think I live in the past. Not my own past, that’s verty unexciting and ordinary — but the past of all the people who have been Londoners before me. I never walk there alone, no one can.” (85)

On the other hand, here are two different characters talking:

She went on, “Neville thought we were too obsessed with the past — history, tradition, the things we collect. He said we clutter ourselves with dead lives, dead ideas, instead of coping with the problems of the present.” (257)

You have been to lots of museums lately; what do you think?

More questions for possible journal entries

Things nautical:

• Has learning about British naval history — the scope and the realities of British imperialism, the lived experience of those many Britons involved with the sea in one way or another — had any impact on the way in which you might now interpret literary or cultural texts?
• Readers of Jane Austen: several of her characters (notably Captain Wentworth in Persuasion) are naval officers; has learning more about British naval history had any impact on how you view these characters?

Things theatrical:

• You have seen two plays, Joanna Baillie’s De Monfort, and Shakespeare’s King Lear. Baillie, as I mentioned, was highly regarded in her lifetime and some compared her with Shakespeare. What might have prompted such comparisons, at the end of the 18thc? Why is it, do you think, that one of these playwrights still famous while the other has languished in obscurity? How would you compare the two plays?

Pepys, the theatre, the Great Fire of London

Samuel Pepys is a central figure in the literary culture of the 17thc. Not during his own time, but later, once his diary was discovered and translated from the cryptic shorthand in which he wrote. From him we have much of our information about the central place of the theatre in late 17th-c London. We also have his first-hand accounts of the ravages of the plague, and the Great Fire of London.

So get at those journals, you modern-day Pepyses.

Gardens

Possible journal topic:

Gardens figure prominently in literature of the period, plays, novels, and poems. They were places where Londoners could take fresh air, but more importantly, they were places where they could meet, sometimes across social boundaries. In this sense they were sometimes places of risk and adventure, somewhere outside the more circumscribed world of the drawing room. Novels like Frances Burney’s Evelina use the public gardens to good effect, as when the naive heroine is accosted by a man and so takes refuge with two women, not realizing that they are women of dubious reputation (i.e. sex trade workers). She is seen by the hero, who is both worried and flabbergasted, and complications ensue.

We have visited a couple of gardens, at Chiswick House and Kenwood House. There are no longer the great public pleasure gardens in London, notably Vauxhall Gardens and Ranelagh Gardens, which is a great shame, but one can still feel an echo of what they must have been like in the (formerly) private gardens we have visited. Read a little bit about Vauxhall, Ranelagh and others from these and other links (Google is your friend) and compare them with what you have seen.

Here is a brief video about Vauxhall Gardens from the Victoria and Albert Museum.

De Monfort

In the late 17th and throughout the 18th century, actors customarily stepped out of character to deliver prologues and epilogues which may have been written by the playwright, or by a guest writer. Here is the epilogue spoken by Sarah Siddons, the famous tragedienne who played Jane De Monfort in the 1800 production of De Monfort at Drury Lane:

EPILOGUE [spoken by Mrs. Siddons]

Ere yet affection’s Tears have ceas’d to flow
I come to cherish, not forget my woe.
No kindred heart will bid me check the tear;
A Sister’s love may claim protection here.
Dire is the passion that our Scenes unfold
And foreign to each heart of British Mould
For Britons sons their generous code maintain
Prompt to defend and slow in giving pain.
Warm in the Battle, yet the contest o’er
They deem the vanquish’d to be foes no more.
Sure with compassion then this night they’ll view
De Monfort’s fate, its ruthless court pursue;
And mourn a nature once by honour grac’d
By one foul deed’s atrocious guilt defac’d.

To court your smiles and win your hop’d applause
Ah! let me proudly boast my Sex’s cause.
A Female Muse triumphant has design’d
A paragon indeed of woman kind!
Has in this fair majestic portrait wove
Commanding Wisdom, and devoted Love
And bade e’en strength and tenderness agree
In maiden meditation–fancy free.

Yet, tho’ she fail’d a Brother to controul
And soothe the frantic troubles of his Soul,
Still be the Lesson of to-night imprest
To wake the judgement and to calm the breast,
To check by strong example’s potent spell
And each advance of subtle passion quell.

E’en in those happier times where restless rage
Nor dark revenge, no fatal conflicts wage,
Where mild reflection heals the transient strife
And smoothly flows the tranquil stream of life:–
Yet may our Muse with timely voice impart
Some wholesome lesson to the erring heart,
May check full vengeance for a past offence
And from the suff’ring mind remove suspence.

Thus turn not heedless from the Scene tho’ pass’d
Nor view in vain destructive passion’s blast,
But cherish ties, for which ’tis life to live;
Enjoy the good your love and kindness give;
banish from Friendship each offending fear,
And from confiding Love the doubtful tear.

Such the bright picture which the contrast shews,
Such the reverse of hatred’s deadly woes.
Thus let us bid the scene’s dread horror cease
And hail the blessing of domestic peace.

[source]

Here is the Wikipedia entry on Baillie. I know professors don’t normally refer their students to Wikipedia, but a graduate student of mine worked on this entry as part of a course requirement (the course was on women playwrights in the period and one of the assignments was to write or edit a Wikipedia article on one of our authors).

Here is the Orange Tree Theatre page on the play.

Here is a negative review, another negative review, yet another, and a really nasty one. Here is a (tempered) positive one (scroll down).

What do you think?

Here is

a page of excellent links to sites that focus on print culture. If you have a chance you might want to browse some of them before we visit St. Bride’s. Or, if you find that visit interesting, you could use these links to do some follow-up.

I will post the schedule

soon; meanwhile, here is a place we won’t be going.

(Though you are of course free to go yourselves during our down time.)

Some interesting on-line exhibitons:

• The Cavendish Gallery of Print and Typography

From the Museum of London:

• London’s Burning: the Great Fire of London 1666
• Satirical London: 300 years of irreverent images
• London before London
• Pepys’ London
• Bedlam

From the UK Parliament:

• The Gunpowder Plot: Parliament and treason, 1605

From the British Library:

• Shakespeare in Quarto
• Images online

From the Victoria and Albert Museum:

• Fashion
• Corsets and Crinoline
• Thomas Hope, Regency Designer
• Videos. In particular, The Adam Interior, Country Houses, An Evening at Vauxhall Gardens, Jacquard Weaving, Martha Edlin’s Casket, Painting Portrait Miniatures, A Printed Book, A Rococo Writing Table, and Taking Tea

Getting in the mood

Have been doing some background reading to get in a London frame of mind. At the moment am reading Peter Ackroyd’s Thames: Sacred River. Yes, a whole book about a river. And it’s fascinating, a combination of flights of fancy with layers and layers of information. A short while ago I re-read Maureen Waller’s 1700: Scenes from London Life, a good introductory description of various aspects of everyday life at the turn of the century.

Other titles which look good, some of which I have seen and some of which I haven’t:

• Imagining Early Modern London: Perceptions and Portrayals of the City from Stow to Strype, 1598-1720 by J. F. Merritt
• Underground London by Stephen Smith
• Tyburn’s Martyrs: Execution in England, 1675-1775 by Andrea McKenzie
• All About The Great Fire Of London by Pam Robson
• Hubbub: Filth, Noise, and Stench in England, 1600-1770 by Emily Cockayne
• London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd

I would suggest that you get hold of a guide book. The Lonely Planet series is good, but there are others. The bigger bookstores usually have a selection. They tend to be quite general but they are tailored, to an extent, towards different sorts of travellers.

There are some web-based resources listed here.

Packing!

There is an old adage, from Ann Landers I believe: when packing for a trip take half as many clothes and twice as much money as you think you’ll need. Now most of us can’t do anything about the latter, but the former: these are wise words.

• Weather in the UK at this time of year can be quite variable. Clothing that can be layered is optimal. You will probably want to bring a windbreaker or other water-resistant jacket or coat: something light that won’t be a burden to carry. A travel umbrella is a good idea, though you may want to pick one up over there.
• The Highbury Centre advertises laundry facilities, which I understand includes industrial-sized washers and dryers, and irons. If you are choosing between two similar items of clothing, I would suggest going with the quicker drying, more wrinkle-resistant one.
• You will not likely need too much in the way of dress-up clothing. We’ll be walking around and jumping on and off transit most days. Perhaps bring something less scruffy for the concert and the plays, but in practical terms, no-one has very high expectations of tourists in terms of wardrobe and its best to aim for practicality. Remember, you can always buy clothes there.
• Further to that last, try not to absolutely stuff your suitcase, especially if you are a shopper. The less you bring and the smaller your suitcase, the better. When packing don’t think in terms of what you might need, but rather, what’s the least you can get away with.
• Some of the rooms, I gather from reading the website, don’t have toilets or baths en suite, so be sure to bring a house-coat or other cover up for those late-night trips down the hall.
• Be sure to have comfortable walking shoes!
• If you are buying a suitcase, one word: wheels.
• If you wear glasses or contacts, try to bring a spare pair or, at least, your prescription.
• If you are bringing prescription medication, be sure it is in the original container with the label (with your name on it) attached. Make sure you have enough for the trip and a small margin of error.
• If you haven’t been on a plane in awhile you may not be aware of how stringent the rules have become. No liquids are allowed in your carry on, with the exception of a very small amount (for example, a 100 ml bottle of hand lotion). You will be asked to put any liquids or creams in a plastic bag at the security check-in and anything too large, such as a bottle of water, will have to be left behind. You may also not bring anything sharp in your carry on, so put all scissors, nail files, etc., in your checked luggage.
• Despite the forgoing, I would recommend not putting anything crucial in your checked luggage because it does, sometimes, get lost. I speak from experience. So keep all glasses, medication, important papers, etc., in your carry-on.

A mundane post about appliances and electronics

Some of you are seasoned travellers, but those of you who are not may be wondering about different things, particularly with questions of what to pack. Here is some minor advice on appliances and electronics:

• You can buy an adapter to use your North American appliances. One thing to consider, though: according to some people switching currents makes appliances wear out sooner. You might want to consider buying small travel-sized blow dryers or hair straighteners that allow you to switch the current. Alternately, you might want to wait until you are in the UK and pick up an inexpensive model there. (Or, I suppose, we could all go au naturel).
• You will still need an adapter for your laptop, if you have one. If you do have one, you should consider bringing it as our residence is apparently wired. Laptops are more resilient than cheaper appliances and so handle the switching back and forth more easily. You don’t need anything more than a standard cheap adapter for most models.
• Phones: Aliant-compatible cell phones are not easily adapted to the UK system, though I believe some others are (Telus, I think). However, it is not too exorbitant to buy a cheap handset over there and a pay-as-you-go plan that can be topped up automatically with a charge card, or in person in one of the ubiquitous cell phone shops. (Cell phones are even more popular in London than in North American: they are everywhere.) I will have a cell phone.

All for now; throw out any questions, suggestions, or concerns!

Just ran across

some interesting material on street advertising in London, historical and contemporary. The nineteenth- and early-twentieth century people shown here would have been the descendants of the street hawkers of the earlier periods in which I am interested: here are some sites that offers images of 18thc street hawkers. Interesting, for us, are the ways in which such images of street life have long figured in the ways in which Londoners themselves understood, and represented, their city. In the 18thc one could buy booklets of the “Cries of London” (the various calls of different street hawkers), while in the 21st century someone posts a slew of photos online.

Welcome

to London Calling, the weblog of the UNB London Intersession Travel Study programme 2008. Here you will find information about the programme, updates and news, and a forum for discussion. Blogs are interactive and most posts allow for comments so please, join the conversation. You don’t have to be signed up for the programme; this is also a place to learn about what we offer so that you can decide whether or not the London Intersession is a good fit for you. So come in, have a look around, and take a load off your feet.