You know what's great about today? (Well, besides the fact that it's Monday and a lot of clergy -- and half of the Supreme Executive Committee -- have the day off). We begin an entire week of Saintly Sixteen match-ups! We kick things off with a 19th century laywoman taking on an 8th century deacon. Harriet Beecher Stowe and Alcuin vie for a spot in the Elate Eight.
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Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life among the Lowly, got an early start in her literary career. When she was 13, she graduated from the local girls' school in Litchfield, Connecticut. Her composition, entitled, "Can the immortality of the soul be proved by the light of nature?" was read aloud at the ceremony. Her father, Lyman Beecher, at the time the most famous preacher in the country, wanted to know who the smart aleck was, and was shocked to learn it was his daughter. Harriet was thrilled with herself.
Initially content to stay out of the argument over slavery in the mid-1800s, two events changed Harriet's mind. The first was the death of her 18-month-old son, in the Cincinnati cholera epidemic of 1849. Cholera was new to the United States at the time, so there was no medical treatment. Afterwards, Harriet wrote that she didn't think she could ever be reconciled to the child's death, unless it allowed her to do some great good for others -- but that the loss also helped her empathize with slave mothers who lost their children on the auction block.
When the Fugitive Slave Law was passed the next year, directly implicating even those in Northern states in the institution of slavery, Harriet knew she needed to do something. She said later: "I no more thought of style or literary excellence than the mother who rushes into the street and cries for help to save her children from a burning house, thinks of the teachings of the rhetorician or the elocutionist."
She approached the editor of the anti-slavery paper, the National Era, proposing that she write three or four short sketches, which grew into a serialized form of Uncle Tom's Cabin.
The intense popularity of the book enraged the slaveholding establishment, causing them to accuse Harriet of fabrication and lying through her teeth, but Harriet was prepared. She published A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, in 1854, in which she directed her white audience to the numerous slave narratives that she had used in her research for her novel, essentially arguing that, if she had lied, it had been to tone down the horrible truth about slavery. It had the added benefit of bringing the first-person slave narratives of Solomon Northrup (of “12 Years a Slave” fame), Frederick Douglass, and many others, to a wider audience.
"What makes saintliness in my view, as distinguished from ordinary goodness, is a certain quality of magnanimity and greatness of soul that brings life within the circle of the heroic," she wrote. Very appropriate for such a feisty character.
Alcuin
This quirky 8th Century teacher, theologian, liturgist, and bad poet was responsible for the Christian-based European renaissance that went hand-in-hand with the reign of Charlemagne, a program that was especially focused on educating the clergy so they could educate the people. One of his most notable achievements was to convince Charlemagne that forcing people to accept baptism or be executed was not good Christian policy.
He was also the inventor of the Carolingian miniscule, a form of writing that allowed so many ancient texts to be quickly and clearly reproduced. He may even have been the inventor of the question mark, which, in addition to inspiring the 60’s band ? & The Mysterians to challenge us all to cry 96 tears, was prominently featured in his discourses and other teaching documents.
Here is such an example, a discourse between Pippin, Charlemagne’s son, and Alcuin:
P. What is life?
A. A delight to the blessed, a grief to the unhappy, an experience of waiting for death.
P. What is death?
A. An inevitable happening, an unpredictable journey, the tears of the living, the coming into force of a testament, the robber of human beings.
P. What is a human being?
A. A slave to death, a traveller passing through, a stranger in the place.
P. To what is a human being similar?
A. To a fruit tree.
P. What is his or her situation?
A. Like that of a candle in the wind. (translated by Gillian Spraggs)
Alcuin wrote many textbooks, including the Propositions for Sharpening Youth that included problems like this one:
A certain man needed to take a wolf, a she-goat, and a load of cabbage across a river. However, he could only find a boat which would carry two of these [at a time]. Thus, what rule did he employ so as to get all of them across unharmed? (Translated from the Latin by Peter J. Burkholder) (Post your answer in the comments!)
His Bible translation (an update of Jerome’s Vulgate combined with the Northumbrian Ceolfrith Bible) was produced in volumes that contained both illumination (sometimes with gold letters on purple vellum) and illustration and text arranged in cartoon-strip-like registers, thus bringing the Irish tradition of illuminated Gospels to the European continent.
Toward the end of his life, he wrote this about his career:
In the morning, at the height of my powers, I sowed the seed in Britain, now in the evening when my blood is growing cold I am still sowing in France, hoping both will grow, by the grace of God, giving some the honey of the holy scriptures, making others drunk on the old wine of ancient learning…
-- Penny Nash
Vote!
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160 comments on “Harriet Beecher Stowe vs. Alcuin”
Seasick goat. Yipes. Not a pretty sight.....poor goat......
Stowe's efforts to expose the horrific practices of slavery are strong arguments for her advancing, but Alcuin laid the groundwork for much of what became the enlightenment that eventually brought us to ending slavery (among many other things) as a practice in Western Civilization - so he gets my vote
I believe the "rule" followed by Alcuin was Tre'maux's rule or T-trip. That is the question. The solution was not asked for.
Harriet Beecher Stowe was the mother of seven children. That alone qualifies her for sainthood in my book. Plus, she wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin" while still actively parenting most of those children -- and without electricity or a computer. Her work galvanized the North against slavery, and helped bring it to an end in this country. She gets my vote.
Easily Alcuin, of course.
But again I rise to protest that yet another modern American woman has been described in terms of her humanitarian usefulness rather than in terms of her possibly exemplary inner life as a Christian. We seem to have had no modern American woman in contention this year primarily for her spirituality (cf Phillips Brooks, Thomas Merton). This inequity is politically incorrect-- which is fine-- but surely also not in the spirit of Lenten Madness, which seems to respect gender parity for the excellent substantive reason that saints are exemplars, and we need exemplars of both sexes.
Stowe-- more even than Bedell, Cooper, and Emory-- is likely to have been informed and interesting: she was the daughter of a seminary president with literary gifts of her own and... transited... from her early Congregationalism to the Episcopal Church. The well-done bio is not, alas, a hagio. It has convinced busy me to download her book and its key, but not to think that there is anything about her that is especially halo-worthy.
Alcuin.
In their ways, both of these folks are quite remarkable people, and both deserve the halo.
However, if I may borrow the clairvoyatron to channel The Spirit of March Madness:
GO, HARRIET! K I L L THE LITTLE WORTHLESS BEGGAR!!!
Ahh. It's off now.
Hard to decide, but I think I have to side with Harriet. A truly remarkable individual indeed.
Worthless?!?! I think not.
First - I voted for Alcuin. His impact on Christendom was formative, and his humility was worth emulating. Plus, I'm a guy - so what do you expect? But when trolling the internet for information on HBS I came across this quote. It gives good advice for Christian living. It also speaks volumes as to HBS's spiritual depth and commitment to her Savior.
"How, then, shall a Christian bear fruit? By efforts and struggles to obtain that which is freely given; by meditations on watchfulness, on prayer, on action, on temptation, and on dangers? No, there must be a full concentration of the thoughts and affections on Christ; a complete surrender of the whole being to him; a constant looking to him for grace. Christians in whom these dispositions are once firmly fixed, go on calmly as the sleeping infant borne in the arms of its mother. Christ reminds them of every duty in its time and place—reproves them for every error—counsels them in every difficulty, excites them to every needful activity."
Harriet Beecher Stowe - Introduction to Christopher Dean’s "Religion as it Should Be, or, The Remarkable Experience and Triumphant Death of Ann Thane Peck"
http://www.path2prayer.com/article/579/victory-overcoming-temptation/harriet-beecher-stowe-how-to-live-on-christ
Wavered briefly at the thought that Alcuin was responsible for Elton John's candle in the wind but won back by question marks, education, 'The honey of the holy scriptures' and the'wine of ancient learning.' Oh and the suggestion that he might not have been a great poet, no one can expect to excell at everything. Alcuin gets my vote.
I live in Kansas where the Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight and Final Four are far more sacred than anything that has appeared on this site so far. I can’t tell you what a relief the humor, the snark, etc. are. (Lose a game in that arena and the mourning goes on for weeks.) Someone said he/she thinks the game will wear itself out eventually--please, NO! We need it. (I voted for Harriet all the way, by the way. Feisty women unite.
I'm perplexed how it is that Alcuin is behind since he is getting most of the comments?!--
Yes, that is puzzling isn't it?
Some of us are being sneaky! Lol
However, he's not behind by much. And it ain't quite over, he can still come from behind. Come on, Alcuin, GO! GO! GO!
No great surprise about the pairing of Harriet Beecher Stowe and whatshisname.
Hey Bob, whatshisname ? That's A-l-c-u-i-n.... yoo as in hoo!
I am getting worried for Alcuin....
Bonnee, me too. But it ain't over till the fat lady sings, and I ain't sung quite yet!!
I still wish in a sense that I could have voted for both Harriet and Alcuin, I am glad there is less than 140 votes difference, because I am just not sure -- even about my own vote. Harriet Beecher Stowe's book certainly stirred the pot, but even she had never written it, the Civil War would have still happened. Others likewise stirred the pot. The abolitionist movement actually goes way back. It was never very active in the early days, unfortunately, going back to the first slaves brought to this country in 1620. However, shortly after the Constitution was ratified, no less than Benjamin Franklin presented a petition from Pennsylvania to abolish slavery. It was tabled, and that started the whole bit of not talking about the "problem." If anything that result allowed things to fester. I am not discounting the role Harriet's book played, merely pointing out that the whole issue of slavery was like a boulder rolling downhill gathering snow and moss and everything else as it goes. No one event or work like Uncle Tom's Cabin was the thing, it was a whole lot of things, and even if one was left out, the end result would have been the same! I wish there had been a little more on Harriet.
On the other hand, there was not a whole lot on Alcuin that said I have to vote for this guy either. I am glad that he worked as a mathematician/logician trying to teach the youth how to think -- the whole point of the puzzle even though to us it may seem silly (many of the ersatz solutions here are funny! Thanks for the laugh!). That is something that is truly missing in our educational system in my opinion. I was an associate editor for the law review when I was in law school and because of my MD and PhD, I have also been a referee editor for various medical and biomedical scientific journals as well. One would think that medical scientists and lawyers would be taught to think and write logically. Unfortunately, there is a lot left to be desired in that arena. One could make some snarky remarks about that, but I will refrain. I guess that gives Alcuin some credence in a way in this contest, as do his thoughts on forced baptism by law. But I am not sure it's enough to distinguish Alcuin from a lot of others.
So I was left with picking one of the two, without any rhyme or reason really! And for those who voted for Alcuin, I could just as easily voted for him, but didn't for no good reason. ..... Sorry, if he loses! I could have voted for either one!
Today is difficult, because both candidates are remarkable persons of faith. My vote will be for Alcuin, as he seems to be the more original in thought and application; whereas HBS was espousing already popular, though extremely vital, causes.
I could care more about goats and cabbages if there happened to be a famine on the other side of the river. The wolf at the door pun certainly not intended.
Today is difficult, because both candidates are remarkable persons of faith. My vote will be for Alcuin, as he seems to be the more original in thought and application; whereas HBS was espousing already popular, though extremely vital, causes.
I could care more about goats and cabbages if there happened to be a famine on the other side of the river. The wolf at the door pun certainly not intended.
I found myself utterly unable not to vote for the man who could "...convince Charlemagne that forcing people to accept baptism or be executed was not good Christian policy."
Alcuin, people. Harriet is a worthy contender, and doubtless I should empathize with her as a female writer, but precisely because I am a writer, I wonder what Uncle Tom's Cabin would look like without question marks.
And the whole not killing people for not converting. That is a spirit so desperately needed in our own time.
how could we, any of us live without the "?" question mark. Seems to me its the why most of us are Episcopalians and not Baptists..... its because we don't check our brains in the Narthex and we believe in the question mark!
Alcuin is the greater saint as much as we may love Harriet. She should not win this.
revision: Goat eats Cabbage. Wolf eats Goat with Cabbage inside. Man and Wolf with Goat and Cabbage inside cross over the river.
So....wolfgoatcabbage melange? Somewhat reminiscent of the " Turducken " thought to be so good at thanksgiving....
For those of you who are unfamiliar with a "turducken", it is: a chicken stuffed into a duck, which is then stuffed into a turkey, with dressing stuffed between the birds. I dare you to eat one ha ha!
There was an old woman who swallowed a fly...
Could she have been HBS?
Perhaps I'm influenced to be dismissive of her because my American Lit class made much of the late antebellum miscegenation porn.
Take the wolf and the cabbage and then return for the goat. In other words take the vegetables with the carnivore and return for the herbivore.
Thus, what rule did he employ so as to get all of them across unharmed?
'So God led the people by the roundabout way of the wilderness'
I left a comment earlier today about the rule and it has been ignored. I'm surprised I am the only one to bring it up. Is this thing on ?
So you should know the name of the RULE .right?
EEM, it makes sense. Lets hope though, that the wolf doesn't suddenly decide to become a vegetarian ha ha! 🙂
Wow... My productivity at work sunk to an all-time low as I kept sneaking peeks at the commentary which is as enlightening and fun as the match-up. I am worse than my younger colleagues with Facebook, Twitter and the blog on three separate hidden devices. Alcuin for me.
Thanks everyone for your answers to Alcuin's river-crossing problem! Here is his own answer (again from the original, translated by Peter Burkholder):
"I would first take the she-goat and leave behind the
wolf and the cabbage. When I had returned, I would ferry over the wolf.
With the wolf unloaded, I would retrieve the she-goat and take it back
across. Then, I would unload the she-goat and take the cabbage to the
other side. I would next row back, and take the she-goat across. The
crossing should go well by doing thus, and absent from the threat of
slaughter."
Many of you posted the correct answer! Congrats! I hope the SEC will send you all prizes.
The question was what rule did he use. I'm the only one to answer that question.
So clever, LM poet laurette!
I would take the goat over to the other side, go back and get the wolf. I would take the wolf over to the other side, get out myself and make the wolf go back to pick up the cabbage. I think that makes the fewest trips. I have that much power over animals. And I voted for Alcuin.