Cliopolitan: "Our hearts are broken..."

Monday, December 17, 2012

"Our hearts are broken..."

He who learns must suffer, and, even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

Rest in peace, little ones and the heroes who gave their lives to protect you.

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Three cities in Italy...

Each had their unique charms—the decadent, serpentine beauty of Venice, infernal Naples with its buried poisons—but Rome, old, old Rome affected me the most. Walking along the banks of the Tiber up which sailed pirates and apostles and queens, standing atop Capitoline Hill and observing the Temple of Saturn where the ancients prayed, and the Coliseum where they died. Keats’s room overlooking the Spanish Steps, where he breathed his last. The ecstasy of Bernini’s fountains and plazas, culminating in the literal embrace of St. Peter’s Square. Every street was a poem dense with meaning, an opportunity to close my eyes and realize—those people were here. These are the stones upon which they walked, this is the air they breathed, the water they drank. We were here. We lived, loved, died here. We are just like you.

This is why I study history—to hear those voices from generations ago, millennia ago. People change so little; history teaches the same lessons again and again. The past illuminates the present. And the lessons are manifest in other disciplines; art, drama, literature, music, philosophy, all contribute to this continuum. A few years ago I performed the role of Helen in Trojan Women and in preparation I reread The Iliad. Afterward I thought—this work appeared 2800 years ago, and the story takes place some 500 years before that. And yet it could be told today. A wife runs off with another man. Young men are dazzled by the glamour of conquest. A father mourns his son. We were here.

As the title indicates, I write about history. But I can't ignore Clio's fellow Muses--Calliope, Melpomene, Thalia, their sister musicians. So--also poetry. And theater, and music. My favorite periods are the Middle Ages, the English Renaissance, and the American post-WWII era, but I also have a fondness for ancient civilizations.

I have a B.A. in English/music and am currently studying history at Columbia to prepare for grad school. Comments are welcome but I reserve the right to delete/ban trolls.