"Scholarship doesn?t need to wriggle out of it with a joke. It?s
where we?re nearest to our
humanness. Useless knowledge for its own sake. Useful knowledge is
good, too, but it?s for
the faint-hearted, an elaboration of the real thing, which is only to
shine some light, it doesn?t
matter where on what, it?s the light itself, against the darkness,
it?s what?s left of God?s purpose
when you take away God. It doesn?t mean I don?t care about the
poetry. I do. Diffugere nives
goes through me like a spear. Nobody makes it stick like Horace that
you?re a long time
dead?dust and shadow, and no good deeds, no eloquence, will bring you
back. I think it?s
the most beautiful poem in Latin or Greek there ever was; but in
verse 15 Horace never wrote
?dives? which is in all the texts, and I?m pretty sure I know what he
did write. Anyone who
says ?So what?? got left behind five hundred years ago when we became
modern, that?s why
it?s called Humanism. The recovery of ancient texts is the highest
task of all?Erasmus, bless
him. It is work to be done. Posterity has a brisk way with
manuscripts: scholarship is a small
redress against the vast unreason of what is taken from us?it?s not
just the worthless that
perish, Jesus doesn?t save."
So says the young Housman in Tom Stoppard's "The Invention of Love",
in a speech of passionate self-justification, to his friend Pollard.
Just what is it that Housman is claiming here? Is his speech only
self-justification, or is there a wider significance or validity in
what he says? |
