Compos Mentis

On Inspiration

Yesterday the study abroad program with which I participate sponsored a trip into London. As I had little need or desire to go on the tours that were planned, I treated the trip as merely a free bus ride into the city. The last times I have gone into London I have not had very much time, and I've found myself doing some of the same things more than once, something that I think is a shame in what might be the world's most diverse city. So, though I did go with some of my new friends into the National Gallery, when they left to go with the rest of the group to another museum, I headed off on my own and made my way on the tube to the British Library.

I've seen the British Library once before, but I did not remember very much of it, merely that it contained a section of George III's library and a collection of some old manuscripts and such like. On this trip, having experienced the Bodleian library here in Oxford, I think I could appreciate the British library more. They are built in the same regard; by built I mean the system is developed in the same manner. Entrance for actual reading is controlled carefully, but anyone can come in and read essentially anything. Like the Bodleian, there is very little that you cannot find in the British Library.

Unlike the Bodleian, the British Library keeps a display of some of their more precious possessions. These include original Gutenberg bibles, the common indicator of a worthwhile collection. But there are things on display that are literally unique to the world's historical collection. They have, for example, the second oldest record of the book of Hebrews. Next to that, they have a codex of the New Testament from a century later. The distinction is obvious, and connects the museum visitor to the past: "see how Christianity began to flourish between the third and fourth centuries A.D.?" These records had a profound effect on me, something I've mentioned before. But this was a double jolt. On the one hand, reading the Latin in the original hand made me feel a connection to this otherwise anonymous monk copying out the codex. But then the two of us are connected in a different way when I think about the theological nature of the bible, and wondering how they play out with a different emphasis in a different tongue. The two of us are then looking back even further together, connected in purpose.

One part of me wants to shrug this off as nonsense. I've put a lot of thought into arguments to the effect that such a work is not attached to its author. But the idea is still seductive, that we can live on in our works. The idea was further enhanced by the handwritten notes of more modern authors kept by the Library; notes written by Austen, Auden, handwritten compositions by Britten, Vaughn Williams, and even Handel. The thing that struck me is how ordinary they looked. You couldn't tell at a glance the difference between genius and scribbles. To me, this was the most inspiring thing of all. Seeing these things connected me to their authors; they showed me that I could be like them.

England, in this respect, is a little different than America or France. In those two countries, the original copies are usually not given to museums, but to colleges and family. This is, in my way of thinking, a mistake, but I won't go into that here. The landscape here is inspiration. In earlier times, biographies of great men were inspirational to generations of artists and thinkers. Plutarch's Lives inspired people all the way to Napoleon. I can understand why such things are not quite as effective as they used to be, but what I presumed was that the nature of inspiration was the same. Having these things on display would seem to me to be inspirational for people in the classical way.

It seems to me that either people are not rising to the occasion of being great thinkers on the model of the past, the model has changed, or they are rising to the occasion and I'm just not aware of them. I can't say which one is more likely. But if it's the first, I think that we have reason to be worried.

posted by Emmett @ 13:03