Trampled under footnote

The paper lumbers on, though I'm nearly finished. Just tidying up loose ends. I ended up with 100 footnotes. Triple digits at last! For a taste of the world of pain I brought upon myself, here is my bibliography (works cited - I used even more works than are listed here):

Books
Baker, Herschel. The Race of Time: Three Lectures on Renaissance Historiography. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967.

Bentley, Michael, ed. Companion to Historiography. London: Routledge, 1997.

Butterfield, Herbert. The Whig Interpretation of History. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1965.

Ferguson, Arthur B. The Articulate Citizen and the English Renaissance. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1965.

Ferguson, Arthur B. Clio Unbound: Perception of the social and cultural past in Renaissance England. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1979.

Fussner, F. Smith. The Historical Revolution: English Historical Writing and Thought 1580-1640. New York: Columbia University Press, 1962.

Fussner, F. Smith. Tudor History and the Historians. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1970.

Gransden, Antonia. Historical Writing in England, c. 1307 to the Early Sixteenth Century. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982.

Hay, Denys. Annalists and Historians: Western Historiography from the Eighth to the Eighteenth Centuries. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1977.

Herendeen, Wyman H. William Camden: A Life in Context. Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press, 2007.

Hill, Christopher. Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965.

Kelley, Donald R. Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship: Language, Law, and History in the French Renaissance. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970.

Kelley, Donald R. Versions of History from Antiquity to the Enlightenment. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.

Levine, Joseph M. Humanism and History: Origins of Modern English Historiography. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987.

Levy F. J. Tudor Historical Thought. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.

McKisack, May. Medieval History in the Tudor Age. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.

Patterson, Annabel. Nobody’s Perfect: A New Whig Interpretation of History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.

Pocock, J. G. A. The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law: English Historical Thought in the Seventeenth Century. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1967.

Woolf, D. R. The Idea of History in Early Stuart England: Erudition, Ideology, and ‘The Light of Truth’ from the Accession of James I to the Civil War. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990.

Woolf, D. R. Reading History in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.


Articles
Aston, Margaret, “English Ruins and English History: The Dissolution and the Sense of the Past.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes (1973).

Berman, Harold J., “The Origins of Historical Jurisprudence: Coke, Selden, Hale.” The Yale Law Journal (May 1994).

Clark, Stuart, “Bacon’s Henry VII: A Case-Study in the Science of Man.” History and Theory (May 1974).

Colie, R. L., “Review of The Historical Revolution by F. Smith Fussner.” Political Science Quarterly (June 1963).

Douglas, David, “Review of The Historical Revolution by F. Smith Fussner.” The English Historical Review (April 1964).

Eisenstein, Elizabeth L., “The Advent of Printing and the Problem of the Renaissance.” Past and Present (November 1969).

Elton, G. R., “Review of Tudor History and the Historians by F. Smith Fussner.” History and Theory (1971).

Elton, G. R., “Review of Clio Unbound by Arthur B. Ferguson.” History and Theory (1981).

Farnell, James E., “The Social and Intellectual Basis of London’s Role in the English Civil Wars.” The Journal of Modern History (December 1977).

Ferguson, Arthur B., “The Historical Thought of Samuel Daniel: A Study in Renaissance Ambivalence.” Journal of the History of Ideas (April-June 1971).

Ferguson, Arthur B., “The Non-Political Past in Bacon’s Theory of History.” The Journal of British Studies (November 1974).

Ferguson, Arthur B., “Review of Tudor History and the Historians by F. Smith Fussner.” Renaissance Quarterly (Winter 1971).

Finlayson, Michael, “Clarendon, Providence and the Historical Revolution.” Albion (Winter 1990).

Fussner, F. Smith, “Review of Tudor Historical Thought by F. J. Levy.” History and Theory, Vol. 8, No. 3 (1969), pp. 371-387.

Kelley, Donald R., “History, English Law and the Renaissance.” Past and Present (November 1974).

Kelley, Donald R., “Review of Clio Unbound by Arthur B. Ferguson.” The American Historical Review (June 1980).

Lang, Timothy, “Review of The Historical Imagination in Early Modern Britain by Donald R. Kelley.” The American Historical Review (April 1999).

Lewin, Joan, “Review of The Historical Revolution by F. Smith Fussner.” British Journal of Educational Studies (May 1963).

MacCaffrey, Wallace T., “Review of Medieval History in the Tudor Age by May McKisack.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History (1972).

MacCaffrey, Wallace T., “Review of Tudor History and the Historians by F. Smith Fussner, Political History: Principles and Practices by G. R. Elton.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History (Winter 1972).

Mendyk, Stan, “Early British Chorography.” Sixteenth Century Journal (Winter 1986).

Nadel, George H. “Review of The Historical Revolution by F. Smith Fussner.” History and Thought (1963).

Pocock, J. G. A., “The History of British Political Thought: The Creation of a Center.” Comparative Studies in Society and History (January 1962).

Preston, Joseph H., “Was there an Historical Revolution?” Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 38, No. 2, (April – June, 1977): pp. 353-364.

Schiffman, Zachary Sayre, “An Anatomy of the Historical Revolution in Renaissance France.” Renaissance Quarterly (Autumn 1989).

Southgate, W. M., “Review of Tudor Historical Thought by F. J. Levy.” The Journal of Modern History (March 1964).

Stearns, Raymond P., “Review of The Historical Revolution by F. Smith Fussner.” History and Theory (1963).

Sypher, G. Wylie, “Similarities between the Scientific and the Historical Revolutions at the end of the Renaissance.” Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 26, No. 3 (July – September, 1965), pp. 353-368.

Thomas, Keith, “Review of Tudor Historical Thought by F. J. Levy.” The Review of English Studies (February 1969).

Tinkler, John F., “The Rhetorical Method of Francis Bacon’s History of the Reign of King Henry VII.” History and Theory (February 1987).

Trevor-Roper, H. R., “Review of Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution by Christopher Hill.” History and Theory (1966).

Woolf, Daniel R., “Speech, Text, and Time: The Sense of Hearing and the Sense of the Past in Renaissance England.” Albion (Summer 1986).

Woolf, Daniel R., “Erudition and the Idea of History in Renaissance England.” Renaissance Quarterly (Spring 1987).

Woolf, Daniel R., “Review of Humanism and History by Joseph M. Levine.” Albion (Autumn 1987).

Woolf, Daniel R., “The ‘Common Voice:’ History, Folklore and Oral Tradition in Early Modern England.” Past and Present (August 1988).

Woolf, Daniel R., “Review of Utter Antiquity by Arthur B. Ferguson.” Albion (Winter 1993).

Woolf, Daniel R., “A Feminine Past? Gender, Genre, and Historical Knowledge, 1500-1800.” The American Historical Review (June 1997).

Woolf, Daniel R., “The Writing of Early Modern European Intellectual History, 1945-1995.” Companion to Historiography. London: Routledge, 1997.

Woolf, Daniel R., “Review of Historiography and Ideology in Stuart Drama by Ivo Kamps.” Modern Philology (November 1999).

Woolf, Daniel R., “Historiography.” New Dictionary of History of Ideas. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2004.

Historical Revolution Revisited

My blogging has been limited due to this enormous Gorgon (thanks, Antoine Blanche!) of a paper that I'm desperately trying to finish by tomorrow afternoon to wrap up my MA in history. It's titled "Historical Revolution Revisited: The Waning Influence of F. Smith Fussner in Tudor-Stuart Historiography." Yeah, exciting!


To sweeten my labors, I've been listening to Fleet Foxes, who are amazing.

Back to ye olde grinde...

Notes from the front porch

You'll notice this blog's name change. This blog was formerly titled "Bill's Reading Habits" - a bit pedestrian. I preferred pedestrian at the time, given the personal, provincial nature of my posts. Actually, I just couldn't think of anything else to call it. Recently, however, I ran across a mix-cd I made called "Notes from the Front Porch," a title meant to signify my current life in the Trailer of Paradise. Wendy and I have a magnificent front porch (for a trailer). I sometimes even take notes on it. There you have it: examinations of life and literature from the front porch of an inconspicuous trailer in the middle of Pensacola, Florida. The musings of a history grad student soon to be unleashed upon the world like a GI Joe action figure flung casually from a school bus as it winds through the wild backwoods.

Common Sense

Cliftons strike again! My brother Josh contributed an article to a recent issue of his base magazine at Yokota Air Base, Japan, for a safety awareness series. He wrote a great piece called "Common Sense" in which he describes his acrobatic prowess as a busboy in Destin, Florida. My favorite phrase: "Physics prevailed..." Indeed, as I can testify! Josh trumpets the virtues of common sense (I typically gravitate to the uncommon variety) in true Chestertonian fashion (though I think Josh had that reprobate Thomas Paine in mind).

Coincidentally, today is Hunter S. Thompson's birthday. (Thanks, Garrison Keillor/"Writer's Almanac," for the tip.) Thompson got his start writing for his base paper as an airman. Hey Josh, when are you gonna write Fear and Loathing in Fort Walton Beach?

La Cucaracha (Paradise Lost)

When Wendy and I first moved into our current (mobile) home, I dubbed it the Trailer of Paradise. We're located on a small lot behind a house in a subdivision (I certainly wouldn't grace this lifeless, sociopathic suburban wasteland with the title of "neighborhood") in the middle of Pensacola. Yet, upon arriving, it almost seemed as though we lived in a little cottage in the country (that is, once the sewage spill beneath the trailer was cleansed). Trees and vegetation abound, with an ancient oak quaintly surrounded by ferns looming over our yard. Squirrels and blue jays and cardinals play. Best of all, our back fence bordered a densely wooded lot that gave the impression that a busy thoroughfare does not in fact run two-hundred yards south of us.

We can see the busy road very clearly now. Construction vehicles ripped nearly every single tree out of the ground in the wooded lot behind our house. We were told that the lady who owns it wants to sell it, and she feels an empty dirt lot would sell more quickly. She may be right, but no one's bought it yet. Nice dirt lot, lady. Nice.

I can put up with a trailer's typical technical problems: broken toilet handle, fridge on the fritz, etc. One expects it. But the vanishing forest quickly diminished our trailers paradisiacal status. That's fine. We still have our front yard, and the variety of woodland creatures still cling to what few trees ring the dirt lot (they kindly left those that pose a threat during hurricanes). It's still fairly quiet around here. But our neighbors have proved increasingly inhospitable. Paradise dwindling.

This morning, paradise lost! We were invaded. I was personally violated! The culprit? Cockroaches!!! I woke up this morning to find a big roach running laps all over my body. It's not a very pleasant experience. I still feel its little feet moving around my neck and down my side. I killed it instantly, of course. And then we changed the sheets. Then I killed another, very big creature-from-hell in the living room closet. The first one woke us up at 6:30 this morning, so after the clean-up, we went to Wal-Mart to buy traps (and groceries). (7am is a good time to shop at Wal-Mart.)

"But are these not also woodland creatures?" one may ask (rather annoyingly, I might add). Yes, but these creatures are supposed to stay in the woods! Oh, we've had cockroaches in the trailer before, but they had never personally violated me. They had not defiled the purity of my flesh with their filthy being as they did this morning. Two other times have I felt the decaying-compost-like touch of their nauseating little feet: in Taiwan (I saw one on my back in a mirror - traumatizing!) and at the B-Side in Valparaiso (I felt one run across my face - or was that my brother Josh's face?). That is one thing I will not abide - cockroaches on my person. I declare this: in this trailer, cockroaches will be hunted down like dogs! There shall be no quarter for cockroaches in this house. I don't care how essential they are for the local ecology; if they stay in their ecology, they won't get smashed. That's the deal, and any cockroach that has a problem with it can taste the underside of my shoe!!!

Wendy and I are moving first chance we get. Here is our new home:

My Pensacola parks article in the PBJ

Breaking news: The Pensacola Business Journal published my Pensacola parks article five days ago. I thought it would be published in July, so I totally missed it. However, fret not - it's online at the Pensacola Business Journal site.

This article provides a brief overview of Pensacola's earliest amusement parks: Kupfrian's Park (1880s-90s), Palmetto Beach (1905-1910), and Bayview Park (1905-no longer amusing). I'm presenting a paper on Palmetto Beach at the Gulf South History & Humanities Conference in October in Galveston, Texas, and the Pensacola Historical Society will publish an earlier incarnation of that paper later this year.

Oscar for Ledger?

Since this blog chronicles my reading habits, I should mention my love for Batman (platonic, of course - sorry, Joel Schumacher). I spent many a high school party reading all my friends' comics, and Batman was a mainstay. I haven't kept up with the comics, unfortunately, but Christopher Nolan's new Batman franchise is a welcome relief to the previous Batman films. The forthcoming Dark Knight looks pretty amazing, and critics are already promising that it won't fail expectations. In fact, some even suggest that the late Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker may be worthy of an Oscar. Coupled with his role in Terry Gilliam's new film, it seems that Ledger's tragic death cut short an artful career that was just beginning to bloom.

In my dreams

Seriously, I have a post nearly ready to go for Prince Caspian! I have been altogether too busy trying to crank out my paper (an historiographical essay on 20th-c. historians perspectives on 16th-c. English historians, if you must know) between Starbucks shifts.

Here is how much this paper weighs upon me: I dreamt last night that I was working at some generic coffee bar. Intriguingly, a computer wire ran directly from the register to the office of University of West Florida Interim President Judy Bense (erstwhile chair of the anthropology dept.), so she could keep an eye on our profits and our work ethic. (Social scientists kind of creep us historians out.) While trying to maintain my dignity and my job behind the counter, I received a call from a woman in England who wanted to know why Richard III couldn't successfully conquer London in the mid-1500s. I said I had no idea, and why in the world would a British person randomly call an American coffee kiosk with a question about British history? How should I know!

Then it struck me like lightning: I did know the answer! I read it in Joseph Levine's masterful Battle of the Books! I explained that London withstood this attack thanks to the careful preparations of Edward VI's defenses. Problem solved and another happy customer!

Reminder: this was a dream. Edward VI's grandpa Henry VII defeated Richard III in the late 1400s for the English throne (War of the Roses). Ed VI lasted a very short time on the English throne and was certainly not a brilliant tactician. The Battle of the Books covers scholarly debate in the Stuart Era, i.e. 17th-c. England.

And, as far as I know, Judy Bense is not spying on me.

Mythopoeic Society

I am still writing my full review/analysis of Prince Caspian (movie vs. book). Yes, it is taking a long time. I spent much of this past month writing an article for the Pensacola News Journal, arranging an academic lecture in the fall for the history department, working on my final graduate paper, and of course serving up confectionary coffee concoctions and generally being a nuisance at Starbucks.

So I should post my voluminous thoughts on Prince Caspian soon. In fact, I plan to break the whole thing down into multiple posts.

In the meantime, considering much of my reading revolves around C. S. Lewis and the Inklings, readers of this blog may find the Mythopoeic Society of great interest. The Mythopoeic Society "is a non-profit organization promoting the study, discussion, and enjoyment of fantastic and mythic literature through books and periodicals, annual conferences, discussion groups, awards, and more," with a special interest in the Inklings.

Clive Staples is rolling in his grave.

Wendy and I just returned from watching Prince Caspian on the big screen. It's passable entertainment for what it is, but it is regrettably not Prince Caspian. A more apt title would be Lord of the Harry Potter. Director Andrew Adamson's screen adaptation is a complete travesty. Adamson is a Hollywood-wannabe buffoon whose ham-fisted attempts at "character development" and plot contrivances have betrayed C. S. Lewis' vision and ethos - indeed, the very story of Prince Caspian. I suppose one shouldn't expect serious filmmaking from the creator of Shrek (which was far better than this tripe). And was that a Hannah Montana song at the end of the film?

Oh, by the way, Adamson was also the special effects supervisor for Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin. That was the one with George Clooney. Didn't his Batman outfit feature erect nipples? Ah, that special Adamson touch.

I finished Prince Caspian (the book) recently, which certainly didn't help matters. It's a brilliant story, however. In the next post, I will go toe-to-toe with the cud-chewing simpletons who made this pile of refuse, er, film possible. Bill vs. the Philistines. And they thought Samson was trouble.

Qualifications

I should say at this point that I don't intend to write book reviews in this blog in terms of comprehensive and learned analysis or literary style. These posts consist merely of my unprofessional, personal musings. Most readers' experiences of these books will likely be quite different than mine - so beware!

Book #7: War in Heaven

Charles Williams published his “theological thriller” War in Heaven, his first novel, in 1930, but Eerdmans mercifully reprinted it in 1991. I borrowed the term “theological thriller” from some commentator, I can’t remember who, but it sums up Williams’ novels very well (those that I’ve read, at least). The novel is shrouded in mystery from its very arresting beginning to its mesmeric ending, complicated and somewhat obscure, but it is an action/detective story and packed with adventure throughout. It begins with a murder victim and rushes into a struggle of good against evil and a race against time, but it is swathed in both the myth of the Holy Grail (“Graal” as Williams spells it) and of Prester John. Prester who? Exactly. This is part of Williams’ mythopoeic genius, in my opinion – a detective story of epic proportions.

In War in Heaven, a holy alliance comprised of an Anglican archdeacon and two unlikely allies struggle against a cabal of occultists for possession of the Graal. The bad guys seek to use the Graal for various wicked ends, and the good guys attempt to preserve its sanctity. Williams does a good job of demonstrating the parasitical nature of evil – the paths to God made crooked – and the utter banality of nihilism at the bottom of it all. For instance, the archdeacon’s nemesis and chief antagonist, Gregory Persimmons, owner of an obscure publishing firm in London (Williams himself was a publishing agent in London), conspires to use the Graal as a vessel of spiritual power to destroy the lives of several people and enter the Black Sabbath (apologies to Ozzy Osbourne) hosted by Satan himself. Persimmons craves power, but he also wants to be part of something greater than himself and to enjoy the satisfaction of sacrifice that leads one to the steps of this forbidden fruit. As Prester John explains, Persimmons ultimately and unknowingly desires “the God of all sacrifice and sacrifice itself.” The very same crooked paths that hitherto led away from God, once straightened, lead directly to him.

Persimmons’ sinister cohorts, on the other hand – two mysterious figures from the East – seek nothing less than the destruction of all things, even desire and power themselves. They embody the pure essence of sin and evil, which result in a lifelessness of utter abhorrence. Surely none but the most mindless haters of God and celebrators of evil would find this limpid nihilism attractive.

Speaking of mysterious figures from the East, Prester John is really, delightfully, eerily strange. Not too dissimilar from Sunday in Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday.

Williams skillfully portrays the inner experiences of spiritual lives. He was an erudite literary savant who wore his romanticism and mysticism on both his sleeves. It’s no accident that the reader finds the archdeacon reading Julian of Norwich at one point. (I rode my bike to Norwich once, by the way. Great castle and cathedral.) The only other work I’ve read by Williams is Descent into Hell. In both this and in War in Heaven, Williams adeptly illustrates the reality and meaning of the interior lives of his characters. Ironically, it’s this very facet of his work that I think makes his novels prime candidates for translation to the big screen. Trust me on this one, but don’t hold your breath.

Catching Up

Not only did I finish War in Heaven last week, but I just wrapped up Prince Caspian, too - just in time to be severely disappointed by the film. I'm now onto Jack Kerouac's Town & Country. Full commentary to follow.

Getting behind

This post catches me up to speed. I am near finishing this thriller by Williams. He is something of an obscurantist - intentionally difficult prose through which one must wade to catch a cosmic glimpse of meaning - but the denseness adds to the allure for me. I first read this in a wonderful class on C. S. Lewis and friends by the baffling, delightfully eccentric Dr. John Pilkey back in, what, 1996? Wendy read this recently, so I look forward to discussing it with her soon.

Book #6: The Fifth Elephant

I finished Brideshead Revisited shortly before the end of the semester. With finals and the semester-end crunch at hand, I needed something light and uplifting to buoy me through yet another academic endurance test. Terry Pratchett's wildly imaginative humor (or wildly humorous imagination?) was just the tonic. Another Sam Vimes triumph.