Sabbatical Projects

Our sabbatical travels allow us to visit friends and sites along the way, but we have three academic destinations in New York, Jerusalem, and Florence. I’ve completed part of the New York segment, so I can report on that and also describe what I anticipate in the weeks ahead.

1. New York

I’ve just attended the annual meeting of the International Conference on Romanticism, which I have enjoyed for fifteen years, and through my participation have had several articles published. The theme this year is “Romanticism and the City”— no doubt in honor of the host city, possibly the greatest city in the world. The title of the paper I presented is “Byron’s Celestial City: Childe Harold in Rome.” Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage ends in Rome, and since I am also working on Byron for the Florence symposium on the Romantics and Dante (see below), it seemed a good idea to focus for this conference on what Rome—once the greatest city in the world—represents to Byron.

I wanted to understand what “the city” has meant historically to its citizens, and thus also what is significant about the condition of exile from one’s city. Byron himself was exiled from London and England, traveling through Belgium and Germany to Switzerland, and then to Italy. His travels in exile are, of course, the background for the fictitious Harold’s own travels. The idea of exile also is a significant connection to Dante, who was banished for his entire adult life from his beloved Florence. What is significant about the condition of exile?

I developed a theory of the city and of exile through Bernard Henri-Lévy’s The Testament of God. Debby Middelmann recently encouraged me to re-read it (it is one of her favorite books), so this project gave me the opportunity to read it carefully, take notes, and then fit it into my own interests. Lévy contrasts the radically different understanding of the city seen in classical Greek literature with that of the Hebrew Scriptures: the Greeks found their self-identity only as citizens of the polis; thus Socrates chose death in the city over exile from it. Both the Greek city-state and the Roman Empire demanded a religious allegiance to the city and its gods. In contrast, the Jews mark their origin as a people with Abraham, called out of the city, out of Ur of the Chaldees. Abraham becomes the first instance of the exile, the individual who chooses wandering over rootedness, a de-sanctified universe over pagan veneration of the local gods. What follows, in the Hebrew Scriptures, is the record of individuals rising up in prophetic denunciations against the injustice and evil perpetrated by the city.

Yet, while a corrupt Jerusalem is subject to prophetic critique, it is also portrayed in exilic writing as the hope of the future—Jerusalem rebuilt and restored. Zechariah envisions a time when “People will live in Jerusalem as though in open country” (2:8)—that is, when the old boundaries of pagan cities, with their blind loyalties, will be no more. Instead, Zechariah says, “There shall yet come peoples, the inhabitants of many cities; and the inhabitants of one city shall approach those of another, and say, ‘Come! Let us go to implore the favor of the LORD’; and, ‘I too will go to seek the LORD.’ Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem” (8: 20-22). This is the Hebraic idea of the city: the new Jerusalem, a city without walls and open to the world, a meeting place of individuals from multiple cities, who, like Zechariah himself, are free citizens, seeking justice and peace.

I then traced the historical developments that allowed Dante and, later, Byron, to have an identity as an exile. Dante wrote a wonderful letter in defiance of Florence in which he rejects the indignity of returning to Florence as a penitent in what he calls the “abject self-abasement of a soul of clay.” “What then?” asks Dante, “May I not gaze upon the mirror of the sun and stars wherever I may be? Can I not ponder on the sweetest truths wherever I may be beneath the heaven, but I must first make me inglorious, nay infamous, before the people and the state of Florence? Nor shall I lack for bread.” This declaration of independence from his native city shows a remarkable personal integrity: wherever he may be, he is himself, standing without fear beneath the canopy of the heavens—he is, we might say, a citizen of the universe. And furthermore, he need not depend on Florence for his life sustenance, but rather on a truer solidarity built between individuals.

I love and admire Dante’s sense of independence, the selfhood that allows him to stand alone. It is important to recognize that such a freedom is biblically-derived; you can’t get it from classical Greece and Rome. I suspect that even the modern freedom to travel, to immigrate, is a legacy of Abraham. America as a country is established on just such a view of community: not through blood or sacred soil hallowed by the gods, but a community of free individuals.

While in NYC I'll also be lecturing at King’s College for Udo Middelmann, the director of the Francis A. Schaeffer Foundation in Switzerland. I will speak on Harold Fisch, the Israeli literary critic/scholar, who is the focus of my sabbatical research in Israel. I’ll also be demonstrating how his literary hermeneutic works by analyzing three of my favorite poems, Blake’s “The Sick Rose”, Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale”, and “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” More on that later.

2. Jerusalem

I plan to study the papers of Harold Fisch, the Israeli literary scholar and critic whose work has inspired my own thoughts and writings about literature over the past fifteen years. Our schedule will afford me plenty of time to examine his lecture notes, unpublished writings, and whatever else I may find. I also want to use some of our time in Israel to write up my thoughts for future publication. Of course, Libby and I are also looking forward to exploring more of Israel.

3. Florence

In late January I’ll be one of the participants in a week-long symposium on "The Romantics in Italy: Dante, Italian Culture, and Romantic Literature" at the Romualdo Del Bianco Foundation. Scroll down the website and click on my name to see more on my paper. This is a unique opportunity to engage in a sustained discussion with other scholars on the relationship of Dante to the Romantics while simultaneously enjoying the life of Florence. It will be a great conclusion to my sabbatical before flying home.