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Essays for Introductory Humanities Courses

The Open University (UK)  AA 100 The Arts Past and Present

And

The New Zealand Open Polytechnic 74104 Introducing Humanities and Arts and 74105 Tradition and Dissent

Copyright Graham Mc Cready

ISBN: 978-0-9876627-0-5

Publication date: 3 February 2012

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We thank you for your support. Enjoy the book.

Index

Essay 1           Part 1 Reputations of Sir Robert Muldoon and David Lange

Two Alcoholic New Zealand Prime Ministers

Part 2 The Reputation of Cleopatra

Essay 2           Part 1 The Reputation of Christopher Marlowe and Art analysis

Part 2 Cezanne’s Jug and Fruit and Zurbaran’s Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose

Essay 3           Comparison of the Reputations of Stalin and Michael Faraday

Essay 4           Part 1 “According to Plato and Socrates, what is courage?”

Part 2 Reading Poetry: The Faber Book of Beasts.

Essay 5           Tradition and Dissent in English Christianity

Essay 6           Tradition and Dissent in Music:

Dmitri Shostakovich

Essay 1

Assignment One

Introducing Humanities and Arts

74104

Grade 75% A-

Acknowledgements

In picking two New Zealand historical figures two stood out that I had personal contact with and had a strong influence in my life.

Sir Robert Muldoon and I had a conflict over the “Growth Strategy” or “Think Bid Projects” of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s and my allegations of corruption in the State Services Commission tendering process for Government Computers.

Sir Robert responded in typical fashion to my public criticism by having me banned from holding any Government position for life. This was a demonstration of the exercise of “unbridled power” (Palmer) held by Muldoon.

It was David Lange in 1982 as deputy Leader of the Labour Party who received my 22 pages of hand written questions to ask the Minister of State Services about the Government Computer Systems. To my surprise he didn’t throw the untidy pile of paper into the rubbish. Instead he had Michael Cullen ask the questions in Parliament every day for a month.

Lange’s Office provided me with the written answers. Using these I drafted more questions. Brendon Burns then a reporter for the Sunday Times wrote the stories.

The final questions were:

“Mr. Minister, are you aware the commissioning report for the power supply for the Wanganui Police Computer System is written in Swedish untranslated on the project file. Would the Minister please have it translated so this House can understand if it actually meets the project specification and if the Minister correctly paid $1,000,000 for it when he cannot know if it actually works?”

I acknowledge the insight of my daughter Heather Katherine Mc Cready, then five. Sir Robert came on National TV in early 1981 just before the election and stated “Social Credit is like the Tooth Fairy. It is just a myth and does not really exist.”

Heather as usual was watching the news. She turned to me and said “If the Prime Minister does not believe in the Tooth Fairy, he is like an ice cream and is about to be licked.”

I phoned the Evening Post and they photographed Heather licking an ice cream. She went on to earn a Masters degree in Political Science and a double Law degree from McMaster University in Montreal.

My response was to send my “Tooth Fairy” telegram to Muldoon and all media that read, “Mr. Prime Minister. Having run out of ways to divide the new Zealand population you are now picking on blue eyed blonde pig tail five year old girls. Your Government is like a turkey at Canadian Thanksgiving. It is overweight, clucks, struts and is about to loose its head.”

This assignment is written with the above background.

After thirty years I have enjoyed revisiting and researching these two political giants. They had many differences but in the end many similarities as flawed human beings.

I acknowledge the assistance of the staff of Wellington Public library and the Open Polytechnic Library for their assistance in obtaining source material for this assignment.

Part 1Two Historical New Zealand Figures

This essay examines the reputations of Sir Robert David Muldoon (1921-1992), (Grant, 2003, page152) and David Russell Lange (1942 -2005) (Grant, 2003, page 159) and (Bassett, 2008, page 549). Both were famous as New Zealand Prime Ministers but had different reputations of political and leadership style. In the end they were both lonely men, flawed human beings with heath problems and alcoholism.

Muldoon was seen “swaying down the corridor from his caucus room an inebriate Prime Minister” (Basset, 2008, page 95) as he appeared to the press to announce the snap election on 14 June 1984. Lange joined Alcoholics Anonymous after he resigned as Prime Minister. `I went to my first AA meting in a Baptist church hall.” (Lange, 2005, page285). Bassett in the Lange biography said, “He turned to alcohol” (Bassett, 2008, page 12).

Muldoon was the last Prime Minister born just after the WW1 who went through the depression of the 1930’s. and served in the NZ Army in WW2. (Gustafson, 2000, page 6) His studies as an accountant were part time by correspondence. (Gustafson, 2000, page 31). He is of my mother’s generation.

Lange was of my generation, born during WW2, never going to war and enjoying the benefits of zero fees University Education.  He earnt an LLB and a Master of Laws from Auckland University. He was the first Prime Minister of the post war generation.

Both came from poor backgrounds. Muldoon’s father was confined to a mental institution from his service in WW1 (Gustafson, 2000, page 20-21). His mother sewed curtains and garments to make ends meet. Lange’s father was a GP in South Auckland who provided medical services to disadvantaged patients in that area. It was not a way to become wealthy.

Both had weight and eating problems. “Muldoon for the rest of his life ate the wrong foods…”  (Gustafson, 2000, page 22). Lange was morbidly obese and suffered from diabetes when he entered Parliament as MP for Mangere. He was famous for having a stomach stapling operation. Neither were the physically strong athletic outdoor males synonymous of “Kiwi blokes” such as Jack Lovelock, Sir Edmond Hillary and Wilson Winneray of their era.

Muldoon had a reputation for concentration and abuse of power as Prime Minister and Finance Minister, “Muldoon had too much power” (Gustafson, 2000, page 9) and “.. the concentration of power is overwhelming”, (Palmer .1987, page 67).

Lange was active in Civil Liberties and an advocate for the underdog taking on hopeless cases in the Criminal Courts in Auckland. He challenged the power of the police and the state.

Both were effective orators but had different styles. Muldoon was abrasive and sarcastic relying on fear to win the argument. “He did not cultivate a ‘nice guy’ image”. (Gustafson, 2000, page 15)  Lange had a devastating wit and was the first Labour MP who was more than a match for Muldoon. The TV debates during the 1984 election campaign were won by Lange. He is also famous for the Oxford Union debate in 1985.

“And I’m going to give it to you if you hold your breath just for a moment….. I can smell the uranium on it as you lean forward!” (Lange, 2005, page 208).

While Muldoon had strong political views Lange had none. ”He never possessed more than the haziest of political philosophy”. (Bassett, 2008, page 10).

To the end Muldoon thought he could maintain the status quo Keynesian economics (Gustafson, 2000, page 4) by tinkering and controlling the economy, borrowing large amounts of money to invest in his Growth Strategy program. That strategy was doomed to failure due to the lack of national Quality Assurance Standards. (Mc Cready, 1982. pages 1-12)

Gustafson  quotes Professor Gary Hawks who described Muldoon “as an inveterate meddler” (Gustafson, 2000, page 110) Lange was the salesman for the extreme right wing Rogernomics that opened up the New Zealand economy and sold of assets to reduce debt. When Rodger Douglas went too far Lange abandoned his Government.

Muldoon as Prime Minister awarded himself a knighthood while still in office. (Lange, 2005, page 161-162). This was contrary to convention where it is up to a successor to make such awards. From this act Muldoon earnt the reputation as self seeking. Lange refused a knighthood offered by Geoffrey Palmer his successor. (Lange, 2005, page 273). Just before his death he finally accepted the Order of New Zealand on 1 August 2003. (Basset, 2008, page 548).

Both reputations evolved as public figures. They were earnt by their public acts in the public eye. As quoted by Gustafson Eric Olsen noted in 1984 that politicians have a vested interest in projecting a public persona.” (Gustafson, 2000, page 14). It is often that public face that comes through in the research. I found that to get the private face an autobiography is useful. Both groomed their public face for TV. That media itself has its own spin and bias.

I disagree with  Bassett that Lange’s relationship with Margaret Pope was the prime source of the disintegration of his Government. I agree with Gustafson that alcoholism played a significant part in Muldoon’s decision making. The same applies to Lange. The difference was that Lange sought help whereas Muldoon apparently did not

“History is written by victors and survivors. Muldoon became every ones scapegoat” (Gustafson, 2000, page 8)

As quoted by Gustafson, Muldoon had the potential to go down in New Zealand’s history as a great prime minister but fell short because of flaws in his personality” (Gustafson, 2000, page 7)

In my view for all his flaws Lange remains the ordinary mans hero. His reputation has suffered from spin from Douglas who continues to blame Lange for not allowing him to complete his monetarist policies.

Part Two - Cleopatra

This essay analyses Plutarch’s view of the effect of Cleopatra on Mark Anthony and its relationship with the wider Roman perspective on Cleopatra and Egypt.

The passage infers that Cleopatra had such an effect on Anthony that she was able to “carry him off to Alexandria” where he wasted his time and talents “in amusements and diversions”.

Plutarch’s account is based on what his grandfather told him of what Philotas the physician told his grandfather about what one of the royal cooks had said about the royal banquets. In other words a chain of what lawyers would call “hearsay” and we normal mortals would call gossip. It was written years after the event and is a recital of the story according to Octavia who defeated Anthony and Cleopatra.

The inference is that it was all about sex. This is a myth. Research reveals it was most likely about the money. Antony needed money to finance his wars against enemies of the eastern Roman empire he ruled and his ongoing disputes with Octavius who ruled the western empire. He travelled to Alexandria with Cleopatra to raise money for those wars. “Military expeditions require lavish funding… Anthony .. resolved to draw on the wealth of Egypt. (Huges-Hallet, 1990, page 20).

Cleopatra and Anthony were a natural military alliance. The combination of Egyptian money and materials with Anthony’s military skills made the combination a force to be reckoned with.

Cleopatra’s reputation with Rome was that she used her sexual  talents to undermine Anthony’s duty as a Roman console and general. This sexual conduct was part of her many sexual partners. The evidence is more likely she had only two intimate relationships. (Huges-Hallet, 1990, page 22 ).The first with Julius Caesar who she had a child with (Fletcher, 2008,121) and Anthony who she has two sons and a daughter.

There is a double standard operating. As a woman seeking interment relationships she is labeled a temptress. For a man such as Caesar to do the same thing was seen as normal behavior for soldier and world traveler. “Promiscuity was indulged in a man”, (Huges-Hallet, 1990, page 55 ).

As stated by Fletcher of Caesar in her in depth research into Cleopatra, “his affairs with woman are commonly described as numerous and extravagant” and the ditty his soldiers sang as they returned to Rome:

“Home we bring our bold whoremonnger,

Romans lock your wives away!

All the bags of gold you lent him went to his Gallic tarts to pay! (Fletcher, 2008,111). Huges-Hallet quotes the same script.

Again it is all about the money.

Profit from waging war = Booty less entertainment expenses.

“According to Octavia’s story, Anthony’s love for Cleopatra reduced and degraded him” (Huges-Hallet, 1990, page55).

Octavius used a poet Virgil to write and circulate his version of Cleopatra. In his Aenied made public in 19 BC provides a myth about Cleopatra’s reputation that  was acceptable in Roman eyes. It does not mention Cleopatra directly just by inference. (Huges-Hallet, 1990, page59-61 ).

Another poet who put the Roman spin on the Cleopatra story was Horace

“.. while the mad queen with her contaminated flock of men diseased by vice, was preparing the ruin of the Capital..” (Open University, 2000, page 28).

Roman spin on Cleopatra’s reputation was that she wasted the wealth of Egypt on opulent parties such as the banquet described in Plutarch’s account. The research suggests she was very skillful in restoring Egypt’s finances after her father had borrowed 6,000 talents from a Roman money lender to pay to the Roman’s to ensure they recognized his right to his throne.

“This prodigal hospitality is indecorous, uneconomic and self-indulgent that Octavius leveled against Cleopatra”. (Huges-Hallet, 1990, page 65). However in Hughes-Hallett’s account “She appears to have been a tactful and efficient ruler, a tough negotiator and a thrifty manager”. (Huges-Hallet, 1990, page 23 ).

Queen Cleopatra opened the seaway to India bypassing the agents and middlemen of the land route securing wealth for Egypt by trading. It was all about the money.

A series of Roman consoles came to Egypt to ask for aid in their various wars and civil wars. Again it was all about the money.

Queen Cleopatra VII was the ruler of Egypt by right of birth but ruled by permission of Rome. As her power and wealth increased the Roman’s were erked by the title. They had rid themselves of their kings. Now they had a woman who had built up a fleet that could challenge Rome itself. (Open University, 2000, page 13).

The Roman view of Cleopatra was she was depraved like the rest of Egypt for the incestreus marriage to her brother. But it was Julius Caesar who forced that marriage and degreed she would rule jointly with her brother and husband.

It was Octavius the victor in his war against Cleopatra that created the reputation of Cleopatra as a temptress.

”it was her opponent, Octavius, who in his campaign to discredit and defeat her, ascribed to her persona of a beautiful and ingenious temptress) and  “It is the story of a great but flawed hero undone by his passion for a cunning queen” (Huges-Hallet, 1990, page 38).

Cleopatra was the victim of a vicious propaganda campaign” (Open University, 2000, page 7).

“The Cleopatra of the story, by contrast, is cunning and manipulative. She knows a thousand kinds of flattery. She is a deceiver whose every apparent ambition is feigned for a purpose” (Huges-Hallet, 1990, page 41).

“Octavius and his allies suggested that Cleopatra’s court was a site of barbarism, where a depraved subhuman race worshipped grotesque gods” (Huges-Hallet, 1990, page 71).

It is this reputation that that is the myth of Hollywood films.

Octavius as victor carried away the spoils of war back to Rome.

“Cleopatra’s vast wealth and funerary equipment were displayed in a parade”.. Again it was all about the money.

It was all about the money with a bit of “hot” entertainment on the side.

References

Bassett, M, (2008). Working with David: Inside the Lange Cabinet. Auckland

New Zealand, Hachette Livre.

Chambers, E and Northedge, A, (2008). The Arts Good Study Guide, 2nd ed). Milton Keynes, England, The Open University.

Fletcher, J. ((2008). Cleopatra the Great: The Woman behind the Legend, London, England, Hodder and Strougham.

Grant, I.F. (2003). Public Lives: New Zealand’s Premiers and Prime Ministers 1856-2003, Wellington, New Zealand, New Zealand Cartoon Archive, Alexander Turnbull Library.

Gustafson, B, (2000) His Way: a biography of Robert Muldoon, Auckland, New Zealand, Auckland University Press

Huges-Hallett, J. (1990) Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions, Fome and London, England: Butler and Tanner

. Lange, D, (2005).  My life. Auckland, New Zealand, The Penguin Group

Mc Cready, G, (1982). GEM1 On QA. Wellington New Zealand. Self Published.

Mc Cready, G, (2010). My Name is Graham and I am and Alcoholic. Unpublished, part of Advanced Diploma in Creative Writing Non Fiction, Whitireia Community Polytechnic, 2010.

The Open University. (2008). The Arts Past and Present: Book One Reputations. Milton Keynes, England.

Palmer, G, (1987). Unbridled Power, (2nd ed). Oxford, England, Oxford University Press.

Essay 2

Assignment Two

Introducing Humanities and Arts

74104

The Reputation of Christopher Marlowe and Art analysis

Grade 74% B+

Acknowledgements

I acknowledge the collection of material in the Wellington Public Library. Through this collection I was able to research in depth the subject material for this essay. Some of the reference books were very badly written with paragraphs that go on for more than a page. Reading this poorly written material as a writer I was dismayed at the poor writing.

The assignment was for me one of the most difficult but most interesting academic exercises I have ever attempted. I came from a back ground of narrow technical education with no classical studies before I was compelled to take a Social Science and a Humanities course at age 48 as part of a degree in management at York University I Toronto Canada in 1992. I obtained the magnificent grade of 35% in School Cert English.

It was the compulsory arts course that gained my interest in liberal arts education. I acknowledge the encouragement of my tutors at York University for that interest. It was Learning Support at York University who diagnosed my mild to sometimes severe form of dyslexia.

I found the language in the plays difficult at first by kept at it. Hopefully the result will come up to standard.

I identify with the reputation of Marlowe. Today he would be labeled as having a “checkered history”. This parallels my own eventual life. The assignment has increased the understanding of my own career that included activity similar to Marlowe in going undercover for the RCPM in Canada to gather evidence in Software Piracy cases. The requirement is to go undercover, earn the trust and confidence of t he target and turn them in to the authorities.

I acknowledge the teaching of John Drawbridge who taught art at Thorndon Primary School. He encouraged my attempts at landscapes and a copy of a still art master.

Assignment Two

Part One

The Reputation of Christopher Marlowe

Play write, Poet, alleged criminal and spy.

This essay examines the literary reputation of Christopher Marlowe and describes how that reputation has been shaped by the play Doctor Faustus. The argument is that while the first part of Dr Faustus follows the style of a morality play with good competing with evil, it develops into a tragedy with the protagonist failing to realize his aims from making a pact with the devil and loses everything. It is stated by Dame Helen Gardner as Marlowe’s greatest play. (Farnham page 2) In Farnham’s work, Richard Sewall states it is the first major Elizabethan tragedy (Farnham page 60)

As a poet Marlowe was the first to use blank or unrhymed verse of ten syllables. The early reputation was clouded by allegations of atheism/heresy and criminal activity by detractors and his role as a spy. (Wraight and Stern page 69), (Steane page 12).

“..the pious moralism of his survivors who saw God’s avenging hand in his tragic end.” (Masinton page i4)

Modern research focusing on the works of literature reveals a genius. In writing Dr Faustus Marlowe is influenced by his own role as a humanist (Farnham page 61) that is:

“A person holding a secular ideology which espouses reason, ethics, and justice, whilst specifically rejecting supernatural and religious dogma as a basis of morality and decision-making.” (Wilkapedia).

As such he sees religion as a constraint on the development of human beings.

“The central themes in Marlow’s plays reveal a preoccupation with the limitations inherent in man’s abilities and with the corruption in both public and personal affairs” (Masinton page 4)

Marlowe was born in Canterbury in 1564 (Wraight and Stern page 2) the son of a cobbler (Wraight and Stern page xi). As such he was of humble working class stock. His plays reveal strong biographical elements (Wraight and Stern page vii).

“..his natural gifts raised him to the circles of the greatest in the land, nobleman of Queen Elizabeth’s court, intellectuals, university wits, poets, and the aristocracy of the Inns of Court.” (Wraight and Stern page xi).

He was fortunate to be given a scholarship to Kings College, ((Wraight and Stern page 40).went on to earn a BA at Cambridge and an MA. The University was instructed to award the MA by the Privy Council (Wraight and Stern page 71).apparently as a reward for his spying activity for the Crown (Wraight and Stern page 69).that took him to Rheims in France a centre for Catholic activists hostile to Queen Elizabeth. (Wraight and Stern page 87).

While he was at Cambridge in 1585 he wrote was probably his first play Dido, Queen of Cathage (Masinton page ix) and (Wraight and Stern page 71). Two years later “brilliant success of the production of Tamburlaine the Great in London established Marlowe’s reputation.”

The play is stated by Steane as being “the most solid and unflawed of Marlowe’s plays.” (Steane page 62). He probably also started writing it while at Cambridge. (Farnham page 1).

Marlowe wrote several notable poems including The First Book of Lucan, Ovid’s Elegies Hero and Leander. These were often based on translated from ancient texts

“Marlowe, 23 years old… became a man of mark well before Shakespeare” (Farnham page 1) and “Faustus, Tamburlaine and The Jew of Malta were all exceptionally popular” (Steane page 15) are evidence of this.

Tamburlaine, the Jew of Malta and Dr Faustus were popular (Steane page 15) and financially rewarding plays at least for the actor Edward Alleyn who retained personal ownership of Marlowe’s plays. (Wraight and Stern page 113)

“.. we forget that they were once amongst other things, sensational stage-shows for ordinary people” (Steane page 15)

Marlowe though educated by “six years of cloistered university study, was never destined to be a blunt blade left to itself” (Wraight and Stern page 132).

“..we are told that even at Cambridge ‘the fiery spirit of the youthful Marlowe was already in fierce rebellion against every restriction of any kind what so ever.” (Steane page 17)

He formed an association with Sir Walter Raleigh’s “little academie” a school of free thinkers. (Wraight and Stern page 132).  They “met behind closed doors to discuss such subjects that were proscribed by the mediaeval university curricular” (Wraight and Stern page 133).

From this association Marlowe was continuing to explore and push the limits of human capacity unfretted by church dogma. It shows in his plays. He was a rebel allegedly making atheists speeches, charged but not convicted of murder and had a reputation as a counterfeiter. (Riggs).

In Dr Faust the protagonist has studied a wide variety of subjects but rejects that knowledge. He wants power and pleasure and makes a pact with the devil that in return for 24 years of super powers his soul will be forfeit and he will be damned in hell. Dr Faustus does not believe in Hell and can see no way the devil can collect. It is just a fable.

“Come, I thinke hell’s a fable “. (II.i516)

In response Mephostophilis says “I thike so still, till experience change thy mind” (516)

And

“This word ‘damnation” terrifies not me,

For I confound hell in Elysium”

(Liii, 56-60), (Masinton page 121-122).

The Chorus in the Prologue compares Dr Faustus with the Icarus myth, “that is pride – the rebellious spirit of self-glorification – that leads Faustus to throw over his theology and proceed to black magic” (Masinton page 116).

“Til, swollen with cunning of a self-conceit,

His waxen wings to mount above his reach” (11-27)

The Chorus is saying Dr Faustus is going above his station seeking extraordinary powers.

After making the contract he commands the devil in the form of Mephostophilis to provide him with a wife.

To his dismay the Devil cannot provide a wife since marriage is a covenant under God. The Devil can provide harlots to attend him but not what he wants.

Faustus quizzes Mephostophilis about Hell.

Faustus. “Where are you dammn’d?

Mephostophilis. In Hell.

Faustus. How comes it that you art out of Hell?

Mephostophilis. Why this is hell: nor are I am I out of it.

(I.iii 300-310).

From this Hell is not portrayed as a place but in the mind of the damned. It is internal to the inflicted.

There are comic scenes where Faustus mocks the Pope by becoming invisible and striking the Pope. Reading that scene brought back memories of several invisible man movies of childhood. Research on the Internet revealed an array of works of that genre starting with HG Wells of the late 19th Century and continuing to the current era. It may be that Marlowe was the first to use this device. The slapping of the Pope is an insult to the Catholic religion.

“First weare this girdle, then appeare

Invisible to all are here

(III.ii 998)

And Faustus hits him a box of the eare (Instruction III.11 1066)

In the final scenes Dr Faust is torn limb from limb and is damned.

Marlow was stabbed to death in a tavern in Deptford on 30 May, 1593 at the age of only 29. His early death had an impact on his literary reputation because he did not live to develop the tragic gene.

Faustus has several versions of the A and B scripts. “The play is rarely if ever, claimed for Marlow in its entirety”. (Steane page 119). Steane states that “Sir Walter Greg comes closest to doing so … but cuts down Marlowe’s share in the writing to not more than 825 lines”. . (Steane page 119). The problem is that if Marlow did not write all of Dr Faustus which parts did he write and how do these parts add to literary Marlowe’s reputation.

.

Part Two

Cezanne’s Jug and Fruit and Zurbaran’s Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose

This part of the assignment compares the two paintings. The first was painted in 1893-94 the second in 1633. The first is the modern style of the impressionist painters who “believed that art should represent and stimulate a specifically contemporary sensibility.” (Open University page 3.1) while the second is a painting by a traditionalist “who looked to established principals of training, technique and composition”. (Open University page 3.1)

Paintings are compared by Delineation, Modeling, Tone, Picture Pane, composition, literal surface and brushwork, (Open University 3.2)

Cezanne represents the shapes by blurred and imperfect images while Zurbaran has clear shapes with sharp edges of almost photographic quality. In terms of interpretation Cezanne is portraying an uncertain society while Zurbaran portrays a society of stable strong structures.

Cezanne models the painting with the fall of light apparently directly in front of the viewer’s position with no shadows. Zurbaran models with the light coming from the left. There are shadows on the right of the objects. In the case of the basket the right side is in darkness. The result is a sharp contrast between the lit side and the dark sides of the objects. There is also a view inside the cup of water. Cezanne has no such shading. All the objects are equally lit.

An interpretation is that Cezanne is portraying a society where all people are equals reflecting the era of Rousseau and the French revolution. Zurbaran portrays a society with wide variation in light interpreted as power and wealth. Another interpretation is the dark is fandangos to evil and the bright fruit and shining surfaces goodness. A reminder of in Dr Faustus of the good and bad angels.

Cezanne has a moderate amount of tone from the white table cloth to some black and dark green while Zurbaran’s tone goes from a mass of a black background to bright yellow of the fruit and white and reflective silver of the cup and plate.

Again an interpretation is of equal and unequal societies.

Cezanne’s picture plane is very close to the table with the draw appearing in reach while Zurbaran puts the viewer further back. The viewer appears to be about one pace away from the darkened table.

Cezanne’s brush work is prominent particularly at the edges of the white table cloth. There are layers of brush marks on the mottled green, white and purple background. There is a white brush marks on the jug. There are few brush marks on Zurbaran’s painting. On first examination it looks like a photograph. The give away are the leaves and white flowers. Other wise it is crisp and clean.

Cezanne’s table is a rough unfinished piece of furniture that stands out from the background. Zurbaran paints a smooth highly finished table that is either made of dark ebony or French polished with a dark stain. It disappears into the background leaving the objects almost floating in space.

References

Bowers F (editor), (1973). The Complete Works of Christopher Marlow Vol I and II. London, England, Cambridge University Press.

E and Northedge, A, (2008). The Arts Good Study Guide, 2nd ed). Milton Keynes, England, The Open University.

Farnham, W. (editor) (1969).  Twentieth Century Interpretations of Doctor Faustus. New Jersey, USA. Prentice-Hall Inc.

Masinton, C.G. (1972). Christopher Marlowe’s Tragic Vision: A Study in Damnation. Athens Ohio USA. Ohio University Press.

Morris, B, (editor), (1968). Mermaid Critical Commentaries: Christopher Marlow. London, England, Ernest Benn Limited.

Riggs, D. (2004). The World of Christopher Marlow. England, Mackays of Chatham.

Shiach, D. (2007). How to Write Essays. Oxford, UK. How to Books

Stean, J.B, (1964). Marlow a Critical Study. London, England, Cambridge University Press.

The Open University. (2008). The Arts Past and Present: Book One Reputations. Milton Keynes, England

Walker, K, (editor), (1973). Marlow: Doctor Faustus. Edinburgh, Oliver & Boyd.

Wraight A.D, Stern, V.F. (1965) In search of Christopher Marlowe. London, England, Macdonald & Co.

Essay 3

Assignment Three

Introducing Humanities and Arts

74104

The Reputation of Stalin and Michael Faraday

Grade 73 % B+

Acknowledgements

In writing this essay I had the benefit of the extensive resources of the Wellington Public Library forte Stalin section. However there was very little on Faraday.

To extract the references from the research material I purchased a hand scanner on Trade Me. Unfortunately it did not work and was thrown into the rubbish.

I had the benefit of my former Russian partner who was a Concert Master and lived in Riga Latvia until she came to New Zealand in 2006. In November that year I followed her to Riga and travelled by train from Riga to Moscow where we visited the various way museums. I same the places where the German advance on Moscow was stopped by the Red Army in November 1941 and saw a T34 tank. Traveling in the Moscow Metro my partner pointed out the work done by slave labour. I was warned to stay close to her while walking in the corridors connecting the stations with  the street as the corrupt police would pick me up as a terrorist and not let me go until I had paid a bribe.

We lived together in an apartment, one of 36 in a nine story block. Apartment buildings in the former Soviet Union are either nine stories or five stories with four entrances per block through a steel door and a security system. We went up the small elevator to her apartment on the ninth floor. There are four apartments on each floor, two at each end. The corridor to each pair is blocked by a steel grill opened by a large key with large wings on it like a butterfly. The entrance to her apartment has a steel outer door with three locks and a normal inner door with a single lock.

There are rarely any fixed beds in these apartments. Instead there fold down beds from couches. When we travelled to see her brother 3 ½ hours by train South West of Moscow his family lived in a similar apartment only five stories with no elevators.

The kitchen is very small. It has a fold down Formica tabled and wooded stools.

In Soviet times these apartments were owned by the State. Now they are privately owned. My partner purchased three in Riga.

Her family was one of the colonist families who were bough in from Russia at the end of WWII. Thousands of Latvians were deported to Siberia to make way for them. I stayed with the General Service Officer of Alcoholics Anonymous for Latvia for Christmas eve and he pointed out to me the large apartment blocks empted by the Russians.

My partner as a Russian was accustomed in Soviet times to go to the front of quews in the Post Offices etc. But now the Russians have gone and she does not have such privileges. She went to the front of the quew in the local Post Office in Zolitude where we were living and there was much discontent amongst the Latvians. I though she would get rouged up by the Latvian ladies.

The issue of food and starvation is engrained in the mentality of Russians. Here in New Zealand Larisa would make me breakfast. If II did not eat all the toast it would be reheated the next day and served again. On one occasion the same piece of toast was put before me four times. While Larisa was out of the kitchen I put it in the rubbish. On her return she noticed it was gone. Her search of the rubbish bin found the four day old piece of toast. She ran out of the room and came back with her massive Russian- English phrase book. Franticly turning the pages she thrust a page towards me and ran her finger along a phrase.

It read “mortal sin”

Through the Hikers One kitset radio I purchased and built from the Lamphouse in Manners Street through the earnings as a Telegram Boy with NZ Post at age 13, I was familiar with capacitors and the Farad unit of capacitance. I am grateful for the first class Mathematics and Science education I was given at Wellington Technical College from 1958 to 62 and was familiar with the work of Michael Faraday. We built electric motors in Physics class. Through the RNZAF the hobby became a career and I ended up working on Nuclear Power Stations in Ontario.

At the Central Institute of Technology, I studied the electrical engineering mathematics that calculates the forces in electric engines and generators involving the use of complex numbers and the square root of minus one.

Assignment Three

The Reputation of Stalin and Michael Faraday

Fact and Myth

This essay compares the reputations of two historical figures and the facts and myths surrounding those reputations.

Stalin is recognized widely and immediately as the Soviet leader of the 30’s to early 50’s by most adults. His reputation is that of a ruthless leader responsible for the murder of millions of citizens and as the war time leader who lead the Soviet peoples to victory over Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

The myth created by his own personality cult is that of an almost god like deity worshipped by citizens. Even those about to be shot died praising his name.

Michael Faraday is probably less well known except to those in Science and Engineering. I spoke to several people about this essay. All recognized the name of Stalin. None knew who Faraday was including a University educated Socialologist. The disparity in recognition of the two figures is mirrored in the amount of material available. There were 15  volumes read on Stalin and the Soviet Union but almost none were listed in the WCC Library on Faraday and none of these were found.

Faraday’s name is memorialized in the Farad, the name of the unit of capacitance or storage. He is responsible for very positive applications of Science behind the electric generator and electric motor. His reputation is non-controversial. He was just a brilliant self-educated scientist of modest means who, in contrast to Stalin, did not seek wealth or power from his work.

His achievements dispel the myth that a person needs a PhD  to be of importance in Science. It was his work that gave birth to the study of science that led to the award of such higher qualifications. In modern times people such as Bill Gates of Microsoft and other drop outs from Universities have made similar contributions to society without the benefit of a degree. Another self-educated person was Thomas Edison who used Faraday’s work for practical uses. His work became the foundation of General Electric.

In modern times Stalin would be an “Administrative Assistant” and Faraday a “Laboratory Technician”.

IN legal terms, a fact is that that can be proven on the balance of probabilities or in a criminal case beyond reasonable doubt. A myth is not supported by any evidence. An example is the myth of the virgin birth of Christ. As told in the nativity story, he was supposedly born in Bethlehem. This is not supported by any strong evidence. Bryan Bruce (2010) Jesus: The Cold Case produces strong evidence that the whole Jesus story was almost entirely a myth. Phillip Pullman in The Goodman Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ tells the story as a fable not based states it is not based on fact.

To the Western Allies in World War II Stalin invented the myth that he was subject to the control of the Politbureau . (Fischer, 1953, page 47)  In fact he made all major decisions in the war effort even down to the orders to produce the very successful Russian T34 tank.

It is a myth that T34 was a Russian invention when in fact it was a USA design rejected by the US Army because it did not fit into their concepts of tank warfare. Those concepts used tanks in close support of infantry. The T34 was a fast well armored fighting machine and a direct replacement to the cavalry of nineteenth century wars.

These are examples of myths.

I will now examine the reputations of both figures.

Stalin

Stalin was born in Gori, Georgia on 21 December 1879. (Montefiore, 2003, page 21). . As such he was not Russian although in latter years he eliminated all references to his non Russian birth.

“It was rumored that his father was not a Georgian shoe maker but a Russian explorer Przhevalsky. “This turned out to be the most persistent of all the myths, no doubt because of the clear resemblance between the two..” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 248). In fact his father was a violent, drunken semi-itinerant cobbler. (Montefiore, 2003, page 21)

Near the time of his mother’s death communications with his mother were difficult because Stalin could not write Georgian and his mother could not write in Russian.

He was educated in the Gori religious seminary (Smith, 1968, page 21), where he spent six years from age eight to fourteen. (Smith, 1968, page 22). It was a requirement for entry that he could converse in Russian. (Smith, 1968, page 21) His mother’s hope  he would become a respectable priest. He excelled in his final examinations (Smith, 1968, page 26)  and graduated in July 1894. (Smith, 1968, page 29)  During these early years he was beaten by his father and his teachers and emerged  “a bitter child, knowledgeable..  beyond his years.” (Smith, 1968, pages 29-30)

At the Tiflis seminary he rebelled against the discipline and became involved in revolutionary activities. He was dismissed “for having missed his examination” (Smith, 1968, page 53) but the real reason was “he harbored views dangerous to stardom.” (Smith, 1968, page 53)

He become associated with revolutionary factions and was exiled six times to Siberia between 1902 and 1913 by the Tsarist regime (Fischer, 1953, page 18)  In his own era he would have been shot without trial  for the same activities.

While life in the Russian Empire was oppressive, it is a myth that Stalin made life any easier for the Russian peasants. Instead he became a “Red Tsar”. He intended to wipe out the peasant farmers during the collectivization of Russia agriculture in 1931 to 1932 and during the subsequent terror. Millions of Russian farming peasants staved to death or were shot on  a quota system.

“There was more freedom in Russia before Linins death than after, and more before Trotsky’s banishment than after.” (Fischer, 1953, page 42)

Stalin had a reputation of an inferior intellect  to Lenin. However he was a good administrator and was left  alone to do those tasks the other leaders did not want to do. He was able to build up an administrative apparatus across the Soviet Union of people who owed their jobs and loyalty to Stalin. Eventually he gained complete control of the party. “He achieved his power gradually” (Fischer, 1953, page 41)  He set up his own ‘unofficial cabinet’. (Carmichael, 1979, page 10).

“To put all of this in a nutshell, Stalin had managed in a space of a few years to create a bona-fide government responsible to him alone”. (Carmichael, 1979, page 13) “The totalitarian system evolved gradually, reaching its apogee after the war, and it was based on the total and absolute power of one man – Stalin.” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 99)

The instigation of the terror and show trials maintained that power. The most prominent were arrested and subjected to show trials. In Stalin’s own words “Arrest them, have a trial and shoot them.”

“As Khrushchev said in 1956: ‘Out of 139 full and alternate members of the Party Central Committee, 98 individuals, or 70 percent, were arrested and shot (mostly in 1937-38). “(Carmichael, 1979, page 71)

The closer a person was to Stalin the more likely he would be “eliminated”.

The terror extended to the Soviet Army. “90 percent of Generals were killed; 80 percent of all colonels, 30,000 officers below the rank of colonel were killed” (Carmichael, 1979, page 184)

It is a myth that Stalin was solely responsible. Contrary to Khrushchev’s outburst  at the 20th Party Congress (Open University, 2008, page 151) others including Khrushchev actively participated in the terror and often exceeded the quota of persons to be shot.(Taubman, 2003, page 100)

Those that were not shot were jailed for up to ten years, providing slave labour used  in the industrialization of the Soviet Union. An example was the White Sea to Baltic canal. This is 200 Kms long and was dug buy slave labour. The Moscow Metro underground railways system was another example. Khrushchev supervised the construction. .(Taubman, 2003, page 93)

It is a myth that the German invasion in WWII was a surprise. Churchill had predicted the attack down to the day. (von Rauch, !957, page 315). Stalin demonstrated his military expertise by holding back the bulk of the Soviet Army from the boarders. In this he disagreed with the Soviet Commanders.

“He was criticized for this but after the war Zhukov came to the view that these units would have been overwhelmed by the armored advance of the Germans as the Red Army did not have adequate tank defenses.” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 223)

He is revered by Russian’s to this day as the leader who saved the Soviet Union from the Nazi invasion.

Michael Faraday

Faraday was born near London on 22 September, 1791.. His father was a blacksmith. (Open University, 2008, page 89). As such he shares the same low social status and working class back ground with Stalin.

His father’s membership of the Sandemanian Church meant Faraday “grew up in a small, close-knit Christian Community, which was to shape much of his life..” In Became a full member after his marriage (Open University, 2008, page 90). This contrast with Stalin’s early years. While Stalin was educated in a Seminary he was quoted as saying:

“You know they deceive us, there is no God…” (Smith, 1968, page 24).

He took an apprentiship with a book binder. As such he became a tradesman and had employment. This contrasts with Stalin who does not appear to have any regular employment except as a revolutionary , politician and National Leader.

He read the books he bound. Many were scientific volumes. In this he shares Stalin’s love of reading. “Before his fourteenth birthday, Soso had devoured’ almost all the books’ in the Gori library”  (Smith, 1967, page 22).. He applied and was accepted by Humphry Davy  who was Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution as a Laboratory Assistance. (Open University, 2008, page 91) He moved into the  Royal Institution’s building and stayed for forty years. In this he shares Stalin’s longevity in his field.

But here the similarities end. Faraday turned down high offices of the Royal Institution four times due to his religious beliefs bound up in the concept of public service. Stalin not only sought high public office he did so to the exclusion of all others and those seen to be a challenge were shot.

Stalin’s legacy is a pile of bones and ashes from the millions liquidated during his era. Faraday benefited civilization through his discoveries that led to the invention of the electric generator, Electric motor and transformer. Every time a person boards a train or trolley bus, drives a car, turns on a computer or an electric light that miracle  of modern technology comes from the work of Michael Faraday.

.

References

Arbatove, G. (1992). The System: An Insider’s Life in Soviet Politics. New York, NY. Random House.

Brent, J. (2008) Inside the Stalin Archives.  New York, NY. Atlas & Co

Carmichael, J. (1976). Stalin’s Masterpiece: The ‘Show Trials’ and purges of the Thirties- the consolidation of the Bolshevik Dictatorship. London, England. Weidenfeld and Nicholson.

Cohen, F S. (1971). Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography 1888-1938. London, England. Wildwood House.

E and Northedge, A, (2008). The Arts Good Study Guide, 2nd ed). Milton Keynes, England, The Open University.

Fischer, L. (1953). The Life & Death of Stalin.  London, England. Jonathon Cape

Medvedev, Z. A. and Medvedev, R. A. Translated by Dahredorf, E. (2003) The Unknown Stalin. New York, NY. I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd

Montefiore, S.S. (2003). Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. London, England. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

The Open University. (2008). The Arts Past and Present: Book One Reputations. Milton Keynes, England.

Rauch, G (1957). A History of Soviet Russia. London, England. Thames and Hudson.

Smith, E.E. (1967). The Young Stalin.  London, England. Cassell & Company Ltd.

Shiach, D. (2007). How to Write Essays. Oxford, UK. How to Books

Solzhenitsyn, A. (1994). The Russian Question at the end of the Twentieth Century. New York, NY. Farrar, Strus and Giroux.

Taubman, W. (2003). Khrushchev: The man and his era. New York, NY. W.W Norton & Company.

Trotsky, L. (1947). Edited  and translated from the Russian by Malamuth, C. Stalin: An appraisal of the man and his influence. New York  NY. Harper and Brothers.

Ulam, A.B (1965) Lenin and the Bolsheviks: The Intellectual and Political of the Triumph of Communism in Russia .LondonEngland. Martin Secker and Warburg Limited

Zinoviev, A. (1984). The Reality of Communism. Bury St Edmunds, Great Britain. St Edmundsbury Press

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Reference Extracts

Lenin was well educated in the Russian Gymnasium high school system (Ulam, 1966, page3)

He was expelled from the University at Moscow for involvement in student actives. (Ulam, 1966, page17)

Stalin’s collectivization campaign of 1929-33 can be seen to be an almost military operation directed against a large part of Russia’s population. (Ulam, 1966, page 449)

“upon closer examination the whole Socialist verbiage looked like a huge hoax.” (Ulam, 1966, page 519)

“The Politburo delegated Stalin to be their liaison with the Doctors” (Ulam, 1966, page 560)

“The greatest threat to the solidarity of the Central Committee, Lenin continued, lay in the (bad) relations between Trotsky and Stalin. (Ulam, 1966, page 562)

“Stalin was a ruler, a dictator and a tyrant. But under the mantel of the despot’s ‘cult of personality’ there was also a real person.” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page x)

“He certainly was cruel and vindictive but he had other qualities as well: Stalin was a thinking, calculating, hard-working man possessed of an iron will and a considerable intellect..” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page x)

One myth was that Stalin was murdered by his colleagues. “Never less there is still no concrete evidence to substantiate the claim that Stalin’s death was anything other than the result of an illness.” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 1)

“It was in the period February-March 1953 that Stalin accelerated the preparations for trial and sentences relating to two of the most bizarre (even by Soviets standards) repressive campaigns that have ever taken place in the Soviet Union. Hundreds of people were arrested” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 1)

Stalin lived in the Kremlin in the 1920’s. “During this time he had a conventional family – a wife, two sons and a daughter – and on the whole this meant a normal life-style. But things changed dramatically after the suicide of his wife in 1932” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 5) He moved to a new dacha built for him in 1934 (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 5)

“Stalin suffered his first minor stroke on 9 October 1945.” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 6)

“But after the arrest of Stalin’s personal physician, Professor Vinogradov, in 1952, Stalin ordered all his medical records to be destroyed..: (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 6)

“but by then his personal physician was in prison, and there were no regular medical check-ups.” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 8)

“On March 1953 the MGB and MVD were combined into one ministry, to be headed by Beria.” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 23)

“The arrested doctors were released and rehabilitated shortly afterwards, and others soon followed, while the organizers of the whole trumped-up campaign were arrested.” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 23)

“As he lay prostrate on the sofa, Stalin’s blood pressure was 220/100, a dangerous level.. (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 29)

“After Lenin’s death, Stalin may have become the 'first among equals’ but he was by no means already in charge, largely because he still had no claim to any major ‘historic’ achievements.” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 35)

“None of the four Party leaders closest to Stalin in 1952, Malenkov, Beria, Khrushchev and Bulganin were in any way outstanding.´ (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 35)

“After Khrushchev was forced to retire, criticism of Stalin virtually came to an end.” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 55)

“Lenin’s life and activity can be studied comprehensively, but in the case of Stalin the situation is unfortunately quite different. No comparable archive exists..” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 57)

“..a significant portion of Stalin’s papers were deliberately destroyed by his political heirs..” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 57)

“The Stalin epoch … major socio-economic and political achievements took place against the background of a relentless power struggle and mass terror:..” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 57)

Beria ordered all of Stalin’s belongings including his papers removed immediately after his death (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 60)

“The tank combat at Kursk in July 1943 took place on a scale that was without precedent; approximately 4,000 Red Army tanks withstood 3,000 German ones.” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 67)

Khrushchev actively participated in the repression in the 1930’s and 40’ and confirmed the death sentences imposed in Moscow by the NKVD. (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 72)

“The totalitarian system evolved gradually, reaching its apogee after the war, and it was based on the total and absolute power of one man – Stalin.” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 99)

“There had been no transparency in the system, even for its most senior players, and this was as much a source  of Stalin’s absolute power as the terror or cult of personality.” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 99).

“The whole system of totalitarian dictatorship relied on a single leader who could deputy.” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 100)

After Stalin’s death thousands were rehabilitated and released.  (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 101)

“Within a month of Stalin’s death, all central death, there appeared in the newspapers a repot that stated that a large group of leading doctors had been wrongly arrested and that the whole operation had been carried out illegally by the ‘former MGB’ and that “in order to secure the ‘necessary’ confessions, the MB had ‘applied methods of investigations that are impermissible and strictly forbidden by Soviet law’”. (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 101)

“No one was brought to justice – neither the NKVD investigators who used torture on their victims nor the heads or warders of camps and prisons.” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 109).

“An anonymous poet wrote the following lines in 1957 or 1958:

With no mourning flags on the tower of state

Or funeral candles or speeches

Russia forgave her innocent victims

And also forgave their executioners.”

(Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 111)

Razin case – his books vanished then Stalin read his copy and wanted to meet him. Found Razin was in prison. Those who were involved in his arrest were worried and Razin was rehabilitated.

(Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 179)

On 4 May (1941) Stalin became head of Government (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 210)

Stalin sought to mislead Hitler about the strength of the Red Army in his speech in May 1941. He was well aware from intelligence that the German attack was imminent.

(Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 221)

He withheld the main forces of the Red Army back from the boarder.

He was criticized for this but after the war Zhurkov came to the view that these units would have been overwhelmed by the armored advance of the Germans as the Red Army did not have adequate tank defenses. (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 223)

Hours before the German attack Stalin was not absolutely convinced that Hitler had really decided to attack the USSR. (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 229)

There was a myth perpetrated by Khrushchev and Beria “that  Stalin gave up leadership during the first days of the war.” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 233-234.) This myth was repeated by several Western biographers ) and “appeared in encyclopaedias and even in such an authoritative work as the Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Second World War, published in 1995. (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 231).

The visitor’s book in Stalin’s Kremlin office makes it clear Stalin was seeing and holding meetings with “senior military, state and party figures” and these meetings went on continuously for several days. (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 232)

“The tactical decision to keep the main forces of the Soviet army 200-300 kilometers from the border

Stalin as a Russian Nationalist

“After the Soviet victory in the Second World War all traces of Stalin’s Georgian origins disappeared from his official portraits.” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 248).

It was rumored that his father was not a Georgian shoe maker but a Russian explorer Przhevalsky. “This turned out to be the most persistent of all the myths, no doubt because of the clear resemblance between the two..” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 248)

Przhevalsky “never went to Gori (where Stalin was born) but never even set in Georgia.” ..” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 249)

“ .. the Russian people needed to have a leader whose appearance had no trace of ‘alien’ features” ..” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 249)

“After Lenin’s first stoke in may 1922 Stalin became de facto head of the Central Committee and had become used to taking independent decisions” ..” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 250)

“Nether less Stalin did not succeed in his attempt to prepare the Soviet Union for war.” ..” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 257)

“the most significant nationalist reform took place in September 1943 – the full legalization of the Russian Orthodox Church”. ..” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 258)

A Georgian in the role of Russian emperor.

“Russification went on in all spheres of Soviet life.” ..” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 261)

“Although he replaced old authoritarian Russia with a country that may have been new in terms of its social and economic structure, in the final analysis it was authoritarian Russia that prevailed.” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 261)

The murder of Bukharin

Babbling - :”Stalin (to Bukharin): You do tend to babble a lot”. (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 279)

“after Lenin’s death Bukharin was regarded to be the Party’s most competent theorist” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 289)

“Late in the evening of 12 March .. Eighteen of the accused, including Bukharin,  were sentenced to ‘the supreme penalty- to be shot”

He wrote to Stalin “Korba, why do you need me to die?” (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 296).

In Moscow in May 1937 hundreds of people were arrested daily.  “The USSR Supreme Court sentenced all army commanders.. to be shot”. (Medvedev & Medvedev, 2003, page 303)

Show trials

“.. The Bolshevik putsch placed a handful of men in control of the biggest country in the world.” (Carmichael, 1979, page 1)

“As General Secretary Stalin built up a network of strong points within the Party apparatus.” (Carmichael, 1979, page 2)

“As Stalin’s appointee filled the apparatus, the power of decision making came to rest more and more exclusively in his own hands.” (Carmichael, 1979, page 3)

“It was always possible for Stalin to speak in the name of the Party.” (Carmichael, 1979, page 5)

“From the very beginning Stalin had complete control of the Secretariat, ..” (Carmichael, 1979, page 8)

“current executive and organizational work is directed by the Secretariat”” (Carmichael, 1979, page 9) Thus Stalin all appointments for the administration of the State.

He set up his own ‘unofficial cabinet’. (Carmichael, 1979, page 10)

He incorporated the ‘Special Section” under his private Cabinet. (Carmichael, 1979, page 11) It controlled “the Party, the government, the army, and the political Police”. (Carmichael, 1979, page 11)

“The Special Section was thus in a position to eliminate anyone from any post.” (Carmichael, 1979, page 11)

“To put all of this in a nutshell, Stalin had managed in a space of a few years to create a bona-fide government responsible to him alone”. (Carmichael, 1979, page 13)

Myth

“Though he fell just short of technical deification, he can fairly be compared with Muhammad and the Buddha” (Carmichael, 1979, page 14)

“Socrates and Stalin are on the summits of intelligence”

Representation as an administrator (Carmichael, 1979, page 10)

Seventeenth Party Congress attempted to control Stalin by controlling his “bloated Secretariat’ (Carmichael, 1979, page 27)

Kirov was spokesman of this new mood. (Carmichael, 1979, page 27) Since he could not be arrested as an enemy of the people or charged with any deviation he was simply killed. (Carmichael, 1979, page 28)

This precipitated  the first show trials. 1936 benevolence on all sides. (Carmichael, 1979, page 32)

Five defendants all sentenced to death.  Bolsheviks killed for the first time.

Use of confessions as only evidence (Carmichael, 1979, page 35)

All were contrived. (Carmichael, 1979, page 35)

“They are now known to been fabrications”: (Carmichael, 1979, page 37)

“Eight trials were generated by the Kirov killing.” (Carmichael, 1979, page 44)

Under the terror “a fictitious causal link was established between those proclaimed to be spies, wreckers etc. and the equally fictitious crimes were accused of.” (Carmichael, 1979, page 46)

Talin promised defendants their lives and those of their wives and children would be spared. (Carmichael, 1979, page 58)

“On September 1936, .. Stalin told Yagoda and Yeshov to pick out 5,000 of the most activist former Oppositionists… and have them secretly shot out of hand.” (Carmichael, 1979, page 57)

“As Khrushchev said in 1956: ‘Out of 139 full and alternate members of the Party Central Committee, 98 individuals, or 70 percent, were arrested and shot (mostly in 1937-38). “(Carmichael, 1979, page 71)

“No more than a few score of people were brought to the Charades while those who were simply shot out of hand, without appearing beforehand at any trial at all, amounted to hundreds of thousands.” (Carmichael, 1979, page 71)

A decree published on 7 April 1935 “made children from the age of twelve subject to criminal charges and to adult treatment, including the death penalty” (Carmichael, 1979, page 72)

This placed the children of defendants at risk.

Stalin vain

“He realized that Stalin – puny and undersized – was very vain”. (Carmichael, 1979, page 77) He made special shoes and a box for Stalin to stand on Lenin’s mausoleum.

“The sheer physical terror that Stalin had begun, by 1928, to inspire in people near him, had grown to enormous proportions by the early thirties” (Carmichael, 1979, page 111)

“90 percent of Generals were killed; 80 percent of all colonels, 30,000 officers below the rank of colonel were killed” (Carmichael, 1979, page 184)

“..it may discourage the convenient fiction of his sole responsibility” (Montefiore, 2003, page xviii)

Essay 4

74105 Tradition and Dissent

Assignment One

Grade 73 % B+

74105 Humanities Tradition and Dissent

Apartment Cats

The Girls wake, stretch, and pad up to the door.

They rub my leg and purr:

One sniffs around my shoe,

Rich with an inside smell,

The other rolls back on the floor –

White bib exposed, and stomach of soft fur.

Now, more awake, they re-enact Ben Hur 1

Along the corridor

Wheel, gallop; as they do,

Their noses twitching still,

Their eyes get wild, their bodies tense,

Their usual prudence seemingly withdraws.

And then they wrestle: parry, lock of paws

Blind hug of close defence,

Tail-thump, and smothered mew.

If either, though, feels claws,

She abruptly rises,  knowing well

How to stalk off in wise indifference.

Thom Gunn

An Appeal to cats in the Business of Love

Ye cats that at midnight spit love at each other,

Who best feel the pangs of a passionate lover,

I appeal to your scratches and your tattered fur,

If the business of love be no more than to purr.

Old lady Grimalkin^2 with her gooseberry eyes^3,

Knew something when a kitten, for why she is wise;

You find by experience, the love-fit’s soon o’er,

Puss! Puss! Lasts not long, but turns to Cat-whore!

Men ride many miles,

Cats tread many tiles,4

Both hazard their necks in the fray;

Only cats, when they fall

From a house or a wall,

Keep their feet, mount their tails, and away!

Thomas Flatman

Acknowledgements

First I acknowledge York University, Toronto, Canada for including compulsory Social Science and Humanities courses in my management degree (Bach Admin Studies). I was forced to study liberal arts courses for the first time and found them enjoyable.

Part 1 What is Courage?

This essay explores the concepts of tradition and dissent and the courage required to dissent against strongly held traditions. It attempts to answer the quest of “What is Courage” as discussed in Laches”.

Some guidance can be found in Laches. This is a discourse written by Plato where a fictitious Socrates has a conversation with Laches in Athens.

They are trying to find out how to advise the sons of two friends on how to acquire virtue. (Laches 190b-d 1)

Socrates says that rather than examining all of virtue they should start by looking at part of it. (Laches 190b-d 7)

He suggests courage is part of virtue and if they can state what courage is (Laches 190b-d 11), then they can see what virtue is and how to acquire it. Other parts of virtue are temperance and justice. (Laches 197e-199d 65)

They start with the traditional definition of standing fast on the battlefield. (Laches 190d -192e 13) Then the concept of courage away from the battlefield. (Laches 190d-192e 22)

They progress to a concept that courage is perhaps endurance of one’s character (Laches 192b-192d 31) and is an admirable thing (Laches 192b-192d 33) except foolish courage which is not admirable. (Laches 192b-192d 37)

An example of foolish courage is a fire fighter who stays in a building when all hope of fighting the fire is lost rather than retreating. What most people think as courage is just being reckless. (Laches 196c-197c 60)

Courage is stated as some form of wisdom. (Laches 194c-195a 47) A courages man is a wise man. He knows what is fearful and what is encouraging. . . (Laches 194c-195a 51) It is something every one has except pigs . (Laches 196c-197c 56) and other animals who are not aware of their circumstances.

In the end they decide they have not found out what courage is. . (Laches 199d-199d  89)

Both Laches and Nicadis’ position changes with each question put to them by Socrates.

Part 2 – Poetry

Comparing two poems

Comparison Table

Comparison Question No.

Question

Apartment Cats

An Appeal to cats in the Business of Love

1

Are they the same kind of poem?

Is a poem about a group of cats inside of an apartment? Any sexual activity is not explicit. Is therefore similar to the other one

Is a poem about a group of cats on the prowl for sex? Very explicit sexual references. Is similar to the other one with these differences.

2

What formal differences do you notice between them

Is split into three verses. It is an inside setting.

Has essentially one long verse. Is an outside setting.

3

Do they rhyme in the same ways?

Rhymes ABCDAB

Different rhyming schemes

Rhymes AABBCCDEE

Different rhyming schemes

4

The central issue of how the two poems represent their cats – how do they differ?

Represented as active animals running around as in the reference to the Chariot race in Ben Hur. They are apparently all female

Represented as cats on the prowl looking for sex. “spit love at each other”; “pangs of a passionate lover”; etc.

5

Are there any ways in which they are similar?

Similar as active animals. While the sexual references are not as obvious the “rub my leg” is. So there is a sexual reference.

Similar as active animals. Direct and implied sexual references. Similar in this respect.

6

Consider Gunn’s description of ‘the Girls’ and Flatman’s address to the cats as experienced lovers: are they equally explicit in how they structure their poems and how they use cats?

Not as explicit as in Flatman’s.

Much more explicit than Gunn’s portrayal.

7

Use of sexualized language in the poems: what difference can you see between them, and what does this tell us about how the poets have described their cats?

Line by line analysis

Apartment Cats

“The Girls wake, stretch, and pad up to the door.”

Th sexual language here defines the gender of all these cats. They are female.  :Pad up to the door is feminine.

An Appeal to cats in the Business of Love

“Ye cats that at midnight spit love at each other,”

Here the cats can be and are likely but not necessarily both sexes. From the beginning the language is direct and blunt.

“They rub my leg and purr:

One sniffs around my shoe,

Rich with an inside smell,

The other rolls back on the floor –“

“They rub my leg” is a sexual act analogous to a soft caress.

Smell is all part of sexual attraction

“Rolls back on the floor” is anolgous to sexual submission,

“Who best feel the pangs of a passionate lover,”

Another direct reference. Use of the words “passionate” and “lover”. Reference to contest to find a mate. “Who best feel the pangs”.

“White bib exposed, and stomach of soft fur.”

Here this cat is in a submissive position open to mate.

“I appeal to your scratches and your tattered fur, “

Animals in the mating season loose condition. Despite this the other cat wants to mate with the other.

“Now, more awake, they re-enact Ben Hur 1

Along the corridor

Wheel, gallop; as they do,

Their noses twitching still,”

This is a reference to a very violent  and masculine scene from the film.

“If the business of love be no more than to purr.”

Sex doesn’t have to be only intercourse.

“Their eyes get wild, their bodies tense,

Their usual prudence seemingly withdraws.”

This is analogous to sexual excitement and arousal

Old lady Grimalkin^2 with her gooseberry eyes^3,

AS set out in the notes for he assignment infers a old cat sexually experienced. In sex worker terminology often referred to in NZ as a “yeasty old mole”.

“And then they wrestle: parry, lock of paws”.

A sexual embrace

“Knew something when a kitten, for why she is wise;”

Gained sexual experience from an early age. Analogous to the so called ‘shocking” sex and rock and roll of the Hutt Valley youth clubs of the 1950’s

“Blind hug of close defence,”

Even more so. A reference to blind passion

“You find by experience, the love-fit’s soon o’er, “

Sex act only takes a short time. If there is no loving relationship there is no lasting  contact.

“Tail-thump, and smothered mew.”

Tail thump is a sexual display indicating excitement

“Puss! Puss! Lasts not long, but turns to Cat-whore!”

Sex with a prostitute is all over in a flash.

“If either, though, feels claws,

She abruptly rises,  knowing well”

The cat and people will only go so far. Rough sex is not on the menu.

“Men ride many miles,

Cats tread many tiles,4”

“Many miles” and “many tiles” refers to multiple sexual relations with many partners.

“How to stalk off in wise indifference”

The cat like some woman I have met can take it or leave it.

“Both hazard their necks in the fray;”

Opening oneself to a sexual relationship opens both men and cats to being hurt. Woman use sex for their advantage.

.

“Only cats, when they fall

From a house or a wall,

Keep their feet, mount their tails, and away!”

Cats get to walk away, but men often get badly hurt.

Summary: While the sexual references are not as direct they are in fact their. Just more subtle

Summary: many direct references and analogies to men in sexual relationships all of which I identify with.

References

(Baxter A. (2003). We Will Not Cease. Cape Cately) Reviewed as part of Whitireia Community Polytechnic Advanced Diploma in Creative Writing 2010.

Open University (2008) The Arts Past and Present: Book 2 Tradition and Dissent. Walton Hall, Milton Keynes UK.

World Services of Alcoholics Anonymous. Twelve Traditions

Essay 5

74105 Tradition and Dissent

Assignment Two

Tradition and Dissent in English Christianity

Grade 68% B+

Acknowledgements

I acknowledge my own religious experience. It follows much of the English religious tradition examined in this essay. My mother was Church of England from New Castle on Tyne, bought up in Melbourne Australia. Her father was a shipwright. My father was an Irish Protestant, member of the Orange Lodge from Larne, Northern Ireland. He was extremely prejudiced against Catholics.

I went to an inter-denominational Sunday School held at Thorndon Primary School. About age ten I went to St Andrews Presbyterian Church on the Terrace in Wellington. I loved the hymns and the example of the Minister Reverend Jack Somerville. For many years my spiritual experiences were in the outdoors. For some reason I tramped, sailed, cross country skied and scuba dived. No misfortune came of it just a feeling that some one or some thing was taking care of me.

I married a French Canadian Roman Catholic in Toronto Canada. The deep divisions between the Protestant and Catholic faiths adversely affected our marriage, especial on the issue of religious instruction of our two daughters. On this issue there was no discussion. I was told the priest was coming on Saturday to baptise the first child. I retaliated by getting drunk at the ceremony. My wife’s Catholic doctrine was the reason that the marriage lasted so long. In the end we found it was a nullity since I was not baptised before my marriage.

After thirty years of alcohol abuse I became a member of a 12-step recovery group and have been sober one day at a time for over 20 years. I am able to believe in my own concept of God. In my case God is that great outdoors, my loving nurturing place. In this I am a Dissenter not believing in the Holly Trinity, the virgin birth or the miracles of the New Testament. In this I am a Unitarian. I start each day with a gratitude prayer, often sing hymns in the showers and am comforted by “Hymns on a Sunday Morning” on Radio NZ on Sunday Mornings.

What is certain is that during the period examined in this essay I would have been burnt at the stake as a heretic or hung drawn and quartered as a traitor. I would not have lasted very long.

Tradition and Dissent in English Christianity from the 16th to 19th centuries

This essay examines the statement: “ .. a previous generations “dissent itself becomes “tradition” and a previously dominant   tradition becomes dissent. “ (Tradition and Dissent p72). The essay uses this statement to describe the development of Christianity in England between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, with particular reference to the differences between the Protestants and Catholics.

The essay traces the swings in English Religious practice from the Church of Rome as the “Church” to the dominant Church of England and state laws that proscribed any other form of worship to the multitude of denominations that comprise current Christian practice.                                                                                                        .

What was at first accepted – Catholicism, became prohibited on pain of death while Protestant practices originally proscribed became in their Church of England form accepted above all else. But the mass of the ordinary people split the Protestant arm into many denominations making it impossible for the Church of England supported by the Crown to forbid other forms of worship including Catholic worship.

Before the reign of Henry VIII there was only one church – the Christian Church based in Rome headed by the Pope. The Pope legitimised the power and authority of the King and the King in turn acknowledged that the Pope was the head of the Church. The key personages within the English church were the Bishops. These were nominated by the joint authority of the King and Pope and elected by the parishioners of the see that the Bishop was to rule over. In practice the Kings nominee was always elected.

There was no separation of Church and State. The Bishops sat in the House of Lords. The religious practices of the realm were enshrined in law. Dissent against the established Church doctrines was enforced by the ecclesiastical courts. (Ollard and Crosse, 1912, pages 154-161).

The Bishops visited each parish and examined any offenders against established religious practice and doctrine. Penalties for Dissenters ranged from fines, clipping of ears, death by crushing to burning at the stake. Enforcement of the state edict of religious practice continued through to the Victorian era. The period 1509-1662 is known as the Reformation (Ollard and Crosse, 1912, pages 488-493)

As the Sovereign changed so did the mandated religious practice, An example is the Common Book of Prayers that had five versions. The fifth version has not been seriously altered since 1662 (Ollard and Crosse, 1912, pages 130-133)

First Henry VIII (1529-47) (Ollard and Crosse, 1912, pages 260-264) broke with Rome so he could marry Ann Boleyn and produce a legitimate male heir. With support of Archbishop of Canterbury Crammer the King became head of the Church.

During Edward IV's (1547-53) (Tradition and Dissent p78) reign the religious practice swung radically away from away from the Catholic tradition to Protestantism. "Cranmer compiled a new and distinctively Protestant order of service". This was imposed in 1549 and revised in 1552. Catholics were suppressed and burnt.

Under Mary I (1553-58) (Ollard and Crosse, 1912, pages 361-363) Catholic practices were reintroduced and protestant devotees, including Crammer who did not convert to Catholicism were burnt.

Elizabeth I (1558-1603) (Ollard and Crosse, 1912, pages 199-200) sought a middle path under the Church of England defined in Protestant terms in the Act of Uniformity of 1559 (Tradition and Dissent p79) and the third version of Book of Common Prayer. (Ollard and Crosse, 1912, pages 130-133)  In 1570 Pope Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I. (Sykes and Booty, 1988, page 97) This lead to the adoption of the thirty-nine articles(Ollard and Crosse, 1912, pages 30-32). These defined the doctrine of the Church.  They retained some of the traditional features including the hierarchy of the Bishops (Ollard and Crosse, 1912, pages 58-64). The Pope also declared her government illegitimate therefore identifying Catholicism with treason. (Sykes and Booty, 1988, page 97). More Catholics were executed during her reign than lost to the Protestant cause during (Sykes and Booty, 1988, page 97)

The Catholic dissenters were called Recusants.(Edwards, 1983, page126) The Protestant were Puritans. (Ollard and Crosse, 1912, pages 479-482)

“A new word was coined in Elizabeth’s court to signify the hunting down and torture of Papists – ‘topcliffizare’. (Leys 1961, page 43).

James I  was a believing member of the Church of England. He was a learned theologian. (Edwards, 1983, page 181). He did not “take the Puritan element in the English Christianity with the seriousness which it deserved.” (Edwards, 1983, page 181) In theory he was willing to acknowledge some primacy in the religious position of the Bishop of Rome”. (Edwards, 1983, page 183).  He took the identification of Roman Catholicism with terrorism seriously. (Edwards, 1983, page 183). He approved the execution of seventeen Catholics. (Edwards, 1983, page 183). He had imbibed to the full the Calvinism of his education. To prove his orthodoxy he had Edward Wightman who had denied the divinity to f Christ, burned in 1612. (Edwards, 1983, page 183).

His motto was “live and let live” and “Blessed are the peacemakers”. Edwards, 1983, page 184 His major contribution to English religion was the “King James Bible”.  He eased penalties against Roman Catholics. (Sykes and Booty, 1988, page 19).

Charles I did not favour orthodox Calvinists. (Edwards, 1983, page 188).  “Church leaders continued to block the Puritan attempts to ‘complete’ the Reformation.” (Sykes and Booty, 1988, page 22).

During the Commonwealth under Cromwell, Anglicans and Roman Catholics were lumped together. The use of the Prayer Book was forbidden in 1655. (Edwards, 1983, page 295).  The old legislation in relation to Roman Catholics remained. Priests were executed.  (Edwards, 1983, page 297).

Parliament recalled Charles II in 1660 to the throne and restored the Prayer Book and liturgies. This effectively separated many Puritans from the national Church. The statutes provided severe penalties for nonconforming worship and ministry. (Sykes and Booty, 1988, page 20).  While he wanted the Penal laws against Catholics repealed by his time Parliament was in control and the laws remained. (Leys, 1961, page 93).

William (William and Mary) created a favourable climate for the Toleration Act granting freedom of worship to all dissenting Trinitarians except Roman Catholics. (Sykes and Booty, 1988, page 21). The Non-Jurors were the clergy and laity who scrupled to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary, 1689 on the ground that they were still bound by their oath to James II. (Ollard and Crosse, 1912, page 410).

George I and II were Lutherans who restricted civil rights of dissenters to hold public office but increased religious toleration. (Sykes and Booty, 1988, page 21). The spiritual deficiencies of the Hanovian Church left a vacuum that was largely filed by Evangelical Revival. (Sykes and Booty, 1988, page 32). These non-conformists split into several denominations – Methodists, Presbyterians, Unitarians, Congregationalists, Baptists and Society of Friends (Quakers). (Ollard and Crosse, 1912, pages 391-410).

From Elizabethan times the Catholics, formally the established church, became one of the bodies of dissent. Their civil rights were suppressed. They were unable to hold public office, get legally married, become an officer in the armed forces or attend university.

The entry into the parish register (of the local Church of England) was the only legal evidence of marriage. No other marriage was legal except marriage in the parish church. (Chadwick, 1966, page 143). “Between 1753 and 1823 a clergyman solemnising clandestine marriages outside the Church of England could be punished by transportation and the marriage was void” (Ollard and Crosse, 1912, pages 391-357).

They were taxed at various times at double the rate of Church of England members on the assumption that they were wealthy. (Leys, 1961, page 115). Priests were prosecuted and executed as traitors. (Leys, 1961, page 86) There were striking similarities between the treatment of English Catholics up until the Victorian era and the treatment of Jews under Hitler. The only difference was the number executed for their religious beliefs.

By 1829 the Church of England was no longer the Church of the nation but one Christian body amongst many. (Sykes and Booty, 1988, page 358)  This was the year of the third reading of the Bill for Emancipation of the Roman Catholics from their civil disabilities. It was carried in the House of Lords. (Chadwick, 1966, page 7). However, the non-conformists also benefited by waiver of the church rates previously imposed to maintain the churches they did not support or attend.

The Marriage Act of 1836 provided for marriage of Catholics and other Dissenters to marry in Catholic and Protestant chapels.

Just a few years later the Anglican Church in New Zealand was formed with a constitution that separated the Church from the State, avoiding the problems of the English branch of the Church. This came from “the ‘Eton College’ judgement of 1857.” (Sykes and Booty, 1988, pages 360-363). The New Zealand Church is disestablished from the state.

The evidence presented proves the statement that one generations dissent becomes the current generations tradition.

References

Chadwick, O. (1966). The Victorian Church. Adam and Charles Black, London, England.

Edwards, D.L. (! 983). Christian England Volume 2: From the Reformation to the 18th Century. Collins, London England.

Faber, G. (1936). Oxford Apostles. Faber and Faber, London, England.

Leys, M.D.R (1961). Catholics in England 1559-1829: A Social History. Longmans, Green and Co Ltd London England

Ollard, S.L. and Crosse, G. (1912). Dictionary of English Church History.  Mowbray and Co., Ltd. London, England.

Open University (2008) The Arts Past and Present: Book 2 Tradition and Dissent. Walton Hall, Milton Keynes UK.

Rupp, E. (1986). Oxford History of the Christian Church: Religion in England 1688-1791. Claredon Press England.

Sykes, S and Booty, J (Editors). (1988). The Study of Anglicanism.  SPCK, Holy Trinity Church, London, England.

World Services of Alcoholics Anonymous. (1939) Alcoholics Anonymous

Essay 6

74105 Tradition and Dissent

Assignment Three

Grade 75% A-

Tradition and Dissent in Music: Dmitri Shostakovich

Acknowledgements

I acknowledge the tradition of music that is part and parcel of growing up in New Zealand. Starting at Primary School with singing that continued at Cubs and Scouts around the campfire and on to tramping clubs. Sunday school and Church at St Andrews on the Terrace introduced hymns and organ music including Bach.

Selection for the Wellington Primary Schools Choir in Standard Six (year eight) introduced me to Harry Botham who was music director at Wellington Technical College. During my five years at Tech, the College had a fifty piece orchestra playing every morning at assembly. Popular hymns such as Beethoven’s “Creation’s Hymn” were toped off with Offenbach’s Gallop to Orpheus in the Underworld” AKA “The Can Can”. I learnt to pay a brass instrument and then a clarinet which I took with me on my OE to Australia, Canada and Europe.

The Gilbert and Sullivan tradition was passed on at the College through the production of the Mikado.

My father was the president of the Wellington Watersider’s Pipe Band. The band practiced in the lounge of our Pipitea Street house every Thursday. My brother John went on to play the pipes and joined the band, passing on the Scottish tradition of pipes and drums that is a part of New Zealand music tradition.

The parallel movement was the brass band movement. Like the pipe bans it flourished in the 40’s and 50’s and has died out. We would go to the Botanical Gardens to here the Onslow brass band play on Sundays.

Brother John worked for Phillips NZ after he left school and ran the record club. He advanced to an A&R man and later Managing Director of CBS Records in Sydney. We always had the latest hits in the house. Elis, Little Richard, Fats Domino and the Beatles featured in his record library.

Sister Tess was a member of Uncle Toms Children’s Choir that sang on 2ZB ever Sunday. She was a mezzo soprano.

The 50’s and early 60’s were the era of the Hollywood musicals. “South Pacific”, “Oklahoma”, “Carousel”, “My Fair Lady” and the Sound of Music” were examples.

During my travels I composed two blues numbers. “Flinders Street Blues was composed in Melbourne in 1968 and “Westlake Blues” in Florida in 1991.  I sang “Never Smile at a Crocodile” from the movie Peter Pan to my two daughters the day they were born and put them to sleep with Brahms’s Lullaby. I was a member of my church choir in Toronto. We combined with another church to put on Handel’s “The Messiah” on Christmas. I usually go to a performance of this work every Christmas.

In 2006 I met a Russian woman who was the former head of the Music Conservatory in Riga, Latvia. Larisa is a concert master who had undergone very similar training as Shostakovich in the Russian system of music conservatories. I traveled to Riga to live with her. WE went to the State opera in Riga to see Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades”. I sang the base part of the Lord’s Prayer a Russian Orthodox Church in Riga one day, much to the consternation of the Latvian nuns. In Wellington she played Rakhmaninov pieces on our piano while I did my accounting work in the downstairs office.

I am very grateful this rich tradition of music of all kinds was passed on to me.

Tradition and Dissent in Music: Shostakovich

This essay examines tradition and dissent in music, the tradition of chamber music and string quartets and the works of Dmitri Shostakovich and to what extent he dissented or complied with that tradition.

There are several strong traditions of music. As set out in my acknowledgements, these are all present in New Zealand society. Our babies are often put to sleep by parents singing lullabies. Examples are Brahms Lullaby and Gershwin’s “Summer Time” from Porgy and Bess. Very early in Primary schools, music in the form of choral singing is introduced and carries on through secondary schools with school choir and barber shop contests. We sang at Scout camps and on tramping club trips. The latter has died out.

Our church services feature hymns of various musical quality backed by organ or piano music. Growing up in Wellington in the post war period I witnessed the dying tradition of brass and pipe bands in which New Zealand bands were world leaders.

The only classical music I heard was at the movies during the “lights out show” or movie sound tracks such as “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Dukas, P (1865 – 1935) in Walt Disney’s Fantasia. (Staines, page 166)

This tradition was socially acceptable and somewhat bland. Dissent started in the early 1950’s with the first Rock and Roll artists. Black American music was adopted by white singers leading to an acceptance by white American audiences and elsewhere. Elvis with his gyrating hips, Little Richard with “Tutti Frutti, Oh Rudy” and Fats Domino with “You were my frill on Blueberry Hill” was a challenge to the established music norms and morals of the era. Rock and Roll records were publicly destroyed in USA and banned from the air waves by the NZ Broadcasting Service.

Folk music became part of the civil rights and Vietnam war protests of the 60’s and 70’s in USA an elsewhere. Songs such as “Where have all the flowers gone”; “All the times are changing” and “We shall overcome featured in this dissent. I NZ the Howard Morrison quartet sang “My Old Man’s an All Black” In protest against racist tours to South Africa.

Traditional classical music refers to the period from 1760 to 1820. (Open University, page 199) This is the period from Bach, Handel and Mozart to Beethoven. Bach and Handel wrote at the end of the baroque period using instruments that would be unrecognizable today. I was privileged to hear Handel’s “Messiah” (Lang, page 332-334) at Massey Hall in Toronto in 2002 using original baroque instruments, including a harpsichord. . It sounded very different to the performance I attended at Wellington Town Hall in December 2010

It was during the classical period that the modern instruments were developed and perfected. The clarinet was developed and music written for it by Mozart. (Staines, Page 367). The modern string instruments were perfected.

Classical music has often very simple themes that are repeated with multiple variations throughout the work. In a Fuge there are two themes alternating.  An example is the Beethoven String Quartet No.13, OP 130.(Beethoven CD)  It has a slow low pitched theme followed by a fast high pitched tune. The amount of time given to each theme varies from about a minute to several seconds. alternating

During the classical period, composers relied on patronage of wealthy and powerful upper class nobility. They commissioned works from composers and held the copyright for a period of time after the first performance. (Kerman, page 7). The works funded by Viennese nobility became know as the Vienna School. Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven were employed by this means.

“As things stood at that time, unless one worked in opera – which was largely Italian – one had to gain a foothold in the homes of the Viennese nobility” (Kerman, page 5).

Composition was taught as an apprentiship through the conservatory system, from master to student. The music became codified around a system of keys and scales of 12 notes. This is a tonal system where the notes are al harmonically related. The system has defined tempos in each bar. This was the tradition passed on from the classical period to the late 19th century. The curriculum included contrapuntal or point and counter point. (Kerman, page 4)

In the era where there was no means of live recording, all performances were live. The nobility wanted works that they could hear in their homes, rather than at the large opera houses. This lead to the development of chamber music written for a small group of musicians. trios, quartets, and other combinations were used. Woodwind, string, keyboard and brass combinations were used.

Chamber music is defined as (Open University, pages 198-1990:

“.. intimate music played by musicians, whether in classical or popular music situations, who interact and have important things to say in musical terms.”

The example given of popular chamber music is ABBA (open University, Figure 6.4, page 199). Another example is the New Zealand composer Gareth Farr in his chamber music CD. There are five tracks on the CD of modern chamber music with the following combinations:

1. Piano and Cello;

2. Flute, Marimba;

3. Solo Piano;

4. Solo Harp;

5. Piano, Flute, Percussion, Violin, Clarinet and Cello.

In 1961 I was privileged to hear the Dave Brubeck Quartet live at the Wellington Town Hall. This jazz quartet comprised Piano, Alto Saxophone, drums and string bass. The quartet played their signature tune “Take Five” with its simple repetitive theme on the Saxophone, drum solo and repetitive piano rhythm.

Another modern example was the Beatles, the English pop band of the 60’s and 70’s. The combination was lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass guitar and drums. The vocals were shared between the three guitar players. This is the standard for most rock groups I have heard. However the Beatles were constantly developing the popular genre. Their music included non-traditional western instruments such as the Sitar.

“The string quartet genre had become prominent during the latter part of the eighteenth century” (Staines, page 55) and dominated chamber music.  It comprises two violins, one viola and a cello. (Open University, Page 196). The challenge for the composers is balance the sound from similar instruments of different pitches. Through the work of Beethoven for two years starting in 1798 (Kerman page 7) “It was the quartet rather than the trio or the quintet which established itself as the chamber-music norm.” (Kerman, page 13).

One of the most prolific composers of chamber music was Franz Schubert (1797-1826). “(he) composed an astonishing amount of chamber music, much of it before the age of 20.” (Staines, page 490) One of his more familiar pieces is The Trout, a quintet for piano and strings (piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass). (Staines, page 490). At Wellington Technical College in 1961, Harry Botham the music Director and double base player for the National Orchestra, used Schubert’s Chamber misc as the basis for our College production The Rose and the Ring, the chamber music equivalent of Mamma Mia based on ABBA music. I remember the melodic themes of his music.

Classical Chamber music uses the sonata form in the way it is written.

“Sonata form is a three-part scheme consisting of an exposition, in which the thematic material is introduced, a development, the dramatic heart of the piece where the themes are further explored and recapitulation, an altered restatement of the exposition.” (Siepmann, page 58) Shostakovich worked the sonata form in a modern style. (Siepmann, page 58)

Richard Wagner (1813-1883) (Staines, page 613) used non-tradition forms in some of his works. On the Wagner CD, track eight “The Ride of the Valkyries” is a very well known piece often featured in movie sound tracks. It has the traditional Beethoven two themes; (contrapuntal), one loud and fast and the other quiet. It is in an identifiable key. Tracks three to five are the orchestral music for Tristan and Isolde, an opera.

“.. in many ways Tristan is the most revolutionary opera ever written. Harmonically daring, even subversive, it led straight to the keylessness pioneered by Arnold Schoenberg, which in turn precipitated the biggest crisis in the 20th-century music.” (Siepmann, page 3) Wagner was “almost self taught” (Siepmann, page 3) and did not go through the music conservatory system. It is not a surprise that he dissented with the traditional style of music.

Schoenberg (1874-1951) wrote his Three Pieces for piano “the first wholly atonal piece of music.. Schoenberg abandoned the time-honored methods of musical expression – tonal centers, key signatures and the traditional application of harmony – in favor of one in which all the notes of the chromatic scale were assigned equal importance.” (Staines, page 478). In 1924 Schoenberg created 12-tone serialism to bring order out of atonalism. (Staines, page 479) His Verlarte Nacht was unacceptable to the Viennese jury evaluating it. It has “a chord that didn’t exist; it was not to be found in any textbook; it was if you like, illegal.” (Ford, page 2).

In listening to Tristan I hear some of the movements of the 13 string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 – 1975).

Shostakovich was acknowledged throughout the Western world, in both modernist and traditionalist camps. “He grew up and was educated under the Soviet system and was the first successful composer to emerge because of and not despite the Communist regime.” (Staines, page 513)

In 1919 he was admitted to the Petrograd Conservatory where he studied piano and composition. (Schwarz, page 175).  His training was the traditional indoctrination of the Russian conservatory system he shared with Rimsky-Korsakov, Rakhmaninov, Skryabin and Prokofiev. However His postgraduate teacher, Shteynberg “admitted he ‘understood nothing’ in Shostakovich’s more recent works. Indeed they showed a new musical idiom – astringent, satirical , and highly dissonant – which reflected the modern trends in west European music.” (Schwarz, page 176).

An example where Shostakovich follows mostly traditional classical form is   Symphony  No. 7 ‘Leningrad”. (Leningrad CD). The first movement starts with a strong theme on strings contrasting with a quite pastoral theme. It fades out replaced by an idea on pizzicato violins. Then comes the war crescendo then back to a version the second or pastoral theme before a version of the first theme. (Extract from write up of CD.). Listening to the work, these can be clearly distinguished. Because it follows the tradition form it is also easy to listen to.

Some of his chamber music follows traditional form while others follow a modern form. Traditional chamber music including string quartets has four movements. Shostakovich wrote four movements for No’s, 1,2,4,6, and 10; five for 3,8 and 9; two for no. 12, one for no. 13 and seven for no. 11. (Write up for CD pages 3-6).In this respect he has a foot in both camps of traditional and modern forms. “Each of the quartets displays an understanding of the interrelationship of string instruments. Like Schubert his quartets are melodious.”(Staines, Page 519)

The major way in which he dissented was “through his music he challenged Stalin’s dictatorship.” (open University, page 203). The eighth string quartet “contains some gorgeous melodic writing” (Staines, page 519).  However, the second and third movements contain staccato “knock, knock, knock” sounds that are said to represent the knock at the door of Stalin’s secret police. (Write up to CD, page 11) While it is titled “In memory of the victims of fascism and war”, “..not for the first time or last time the composer eventually dropped the titles, whose only purpose was to create a smoke behind which he could hide the real meaning of his work.” (Write up to CD, pages 9-10)

Unlike Schoenberg Shostakovich did not dissent against traditional classical music. Instead, like the Beatles, he took what was the traditional form and developed it into a new tradition.

References

Books

Abraham, G; Norris, G; MacDonald, H; McAllister, R and Schwarz, B. (1980) The New Grove: Russian Masters 2: Rimsky-Korsakov, Rakhmaninov, Skryabin, Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Mc Millan Publishers, London England.

Buckley, J; Clark, P; Dickson, A; Hopkins, K; Johnson, S; Kimberley, N; Staines, J; Thomas, G. (2010). The Rough Guide to Classical Music: An A-Z of Classical Works and Top Recordings. Rough Guides Ltd, London England

Ford, A. (1997). Illegal Harmonies: Music in the 20th Century. ABC Books, Sydney, Australia.

Kerman, J. (1967). The Beethoven Quartets. Oxford University Press, London, England.

Lang, P. (1966). George Frideric Handel. Faber and Faber, London England.

Open University (2008) The Arts Past and Present: Book 2 Tradition and Dissent. Walton Hall, Milton Keynes UK.

Notes to CD’s

Borodin Quartet (2003). Shostakovich String Quartets 1-13. Chandos Historical

Siepmann, J . (1983). Wagner orchestral music: entrée. Edited by texthouse. E.U.

Music and CD’s

Shostakovich, D.  String Quartets 1-13. Recorded by Boridin Quartet. (CD) Chandos Records Limited (2003).

Farr, G (1997). Chamber Music Morrison & Co Music Trust, Wellington New Zealand.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827). String Quartet O 130 Alban Berg Quartett (CD) EMI Classics (1997)

Bach, S Essentially Bach 36 of his greatest hits (CD) Compilation of various orchestras and ensembles (1966) Mercury Records England.

Wagner Orchestral Music (1983). Orchestra de Paris Deutsche Grammophon, Hamburg.

Open University (2008) CDA5934 Shostakovich

Examples -

Original recording by composer

Mitchell, J. (1971). California. On Blue [CD]. Reprise Records.

Recording by an artist other than the composer

Anderson, B. & Ulvaeus, B. (n.d.). The winner takes all [Recorded by the London      Unity           Orchestra]. On The London Unity Orchestra plays ABBA [CD]. Newsound.        (2000)

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