It's the damndest thing.

We had such great music.

and niece this very same thing.

I am lucky to have grown up with the very best music.

As someone who loves to dance I had disco.

As someone who loved to drink beer and shoot pool I had rock n roll.

We had excellent music that paired perfectly with cannabis.

My musical sound track for my life is awesome and varied.

I feel out of place listening to new music, but there are so many good artists and so much talent that I really feel bad for all the talented people who must fall through the cracks and get no where with it. We had our time, and we had our talent; but when I listen to people of my generation it some times sounds like noise, so basic, so little arrangment, and such simple sentiments. We were counter, and we had energy, and we had rock. The seventies had some good music, but I think the 80s lost their place. The ninties started finding it again. A lot of people got it today.

It's amazing, but I can't link it. The whole concert is on DVD, but this one song never makes it in, out of the entire set list. It's like they never acknowledge it's part of the concert in any way.

Best I can offer is the live version of I Feel Love, with Venus Hum on vocals.

Here's another good cover of the tune..

Adding that to the collection

Looked unlikely as a rocker. The kind of girl you would expect to see pushing a cart at the supermarket buying supper and clipping coupons.

and missed a perfect opportunity to smother her in her sleep. What a pity.

but, great song or no, you shit this here in the very same location?

You so edgy.

On the other hand, who cares? Airplane, back in the day, brings back smiles and reflective highs.

(aside) I've been known to post a "Kitchen dancing!" thread in Cooking & Baking occasionally. Music videos. Those are probably more pertinent because I actually dance at times when I'm cooking...

Where'd maw waaf runned off ta?

P S Y C E D E L I A

were really crazy there.

It was a free concert and she opened it by saying, "Take the $5 you just saved on a ticket and buy yourself a hit of acid!"

The concert was good, but things fell apart at the end when the police become overly aggressive about getting people to clear the park.

Ah…… those were the days.

But Boston -> SF was beyond my means at the time. There was so much good about the fervor in those days. Loved the experiences and the memories. And, yeah, things fell apart at times.

Had one experience with acid, a waterfall and the granite edged pool full of last Fall's leaves up in New Hampshire which I still view as transcendental. Not sure if that's the right way to phrase it - "mind blowing" seems a bit dated.

Once was more than enough, yet it was amazing.

Carlos Castaneda gave me my transcendental experiences, lol.

I like Grant Park, Like the Field Museum, Like the Art Institute, liked Buddy Guys. Really like the book stores! I wonder how big a cannon they would have to aim at my head today to get me to take Acid.

I was pretty young. I like Chicago.

My daughter is engaged to a guy from there. I like it too. I could drop a grand in those book stores and look back wistful at all I left behind.

I've spent some time in NYC; but it is far from here, Lansing MI; and is very dirty, and as dangerous a Chicago. Still, that Village Vanguard, the Jazz, that Harlem Weed; It has a lot of things to recommend it, but proximity is not one of them.

I've lived in both cities at times. My favorite US city is New Orleans, though. Based on what you say you like, I think you would love it there.

Is it the notion that people can make themselves believe any old nonsense and then sing about it?

have a long association with religion. We would not even have rhymed music with out the influence of Christianity. Everything was measure for measure in Pagan poetry. That people should be reasonable, and self possessed was the highest of aims. The idea of Christ and of salvation really induced an ecstasy in people that called forth a whole new form of expression. Without Christ there would have been no Slick.

Say what? How can you possibly make such a statement? You have no way of knowing how history would have played out if Christianity hadn't emerged as a major religion.

"The idea of Christ and of salvation really induced an ecstasy in people that called forth a whole new form of expression."

So people in other religions don't experience ecstasy? Are you really going in that direction?

"Without Christ there would have been no Slick."

Who knows - Slick may have been even more amazing, or someone else. You have absolutely no way of knowing.

We can talk about all of the possible things that might possibly happen in this best of all possible worlds. In this world, the effect of Christianity on music is undeniable.

You know; I am one of those people who actually read, and one book I recommend to you is one that covers this subject in detail called: The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages. They still sing hymns from this period, and at Christmas time. I am certain you may have heard the line Gloria in Exaltation.

I would remind you of the words of an old English Jurist to a barrister: There are no imaginary cases.

If you want to have a rational conversation, even about irrational religion, you must first know what is. Reason is what is used to draw relevant conclusions from fact.

"If you want to have a rational conversation..." then you shouldn't say things like "We would not even have rhymed music with out the influence of Christianity" since you have absolutely no idea. You're the one arguing that you know what the imaginary case (no Christianity) would have resulted in (a lack of rhyming lyrics).

"Reason is what is used to draw relevant conclusions from fact."

Then you didn't use reason, did you? You drew an unwarranted conclusion from your own personal conjecture. So by all means, continue to lecture me on what a "rational conversation" is. I could use some more laughs this morning.

If there were no bullets in the gun, no one would be shot with it. The rhyme certainly existed before the Church and the spirit that filled those folks. A rhyme was the form of a Druid Curse. From the Latin we have Charm, and the name: Carmine, which in Latin means song.

To follow the development of Christian Music into secular forms is no great feat. -Is it the idea of Cause and Effect which trips you up, because without that, we have no basis for reason or science.

This story is really analogous to the history of European literacy. People were taught to read by the protestants who had first translated the Bible, and wanted it generally read. Once people learned to read, they read far more than the Bible and found they had some ideas of their own. It was the beginning of the age of reason.

Without Christianity we'd all be illiterate now?

You have a wonderful solstice celebration, rational or not!

The Catholics never published their Bible widely, nor did they teach more people to read than they needed for Church administration. As the societies became more complex and needed laws, they resurrected the Code of Justinian, and taught a select few the law and enough philosophy to understand it. They transformed Plato's dialectic from a means of discovering truth, to a method of resolving contradictions. See Law and Revolution, by Burman; another really good read. Technically, all these people graduated from these church controlled universities were clerics.

no one would have been educated - EVER!

It's a true miracle that anyone outside the European Christian culture can tie their freaking shoes, I guess! Well, coming from someone like you who refers to Native Americans as "savages" I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised with your ugly Euro/Christo-centric worldview.

Until the end of the first millennium people really and truly believe in the return of Jesus Christ and the end of the world. Such an attitude does no demand much investment in the future. Essentially, wide spread, though very limited education began in Europe with Charlemagne, and this under the influence of Irish monks who kept much of classical education alive while barbarian tribes where leaving foot prints all over the rest of Europe.

By that time, The Moors were already in Spain, and under pressure from Muslims, Books were showing up in Europe in Greek, and even these Irish scholars struggled with it. Knowledge is easily lost and hardly found. And to educate people when it was inessential to their lives and actually a impediment, an investment without hope of tangible return just was not going to happen. Even where there is a will, and a source of educated people to teach, the process is slow and painful. But look at the progress of Islam for an example. If they are educated they are educated in a Western Sense and in our technology that they would never have reached on their own for various reasons I am prepared to defend.

It was none the less a blending of cultures that made possible the journeys of Columbus, and John the navigator. In this the Muslims contributed math and astronomy. In their far flung trade, the Muslim need to pray at the appointed hour, and in the direction of Mecca. We simply learned more from them, than they learned form us.

If you want to rehash old arguments simply take the definition one of you posted of the meaning of Savage, and compare it to natives at the time of colonial America. I never once said that Native Americans today are savages. What is actually great and fine about them is what they have carried forward from that age. The Iroquois practiced a better form of democracy than we were saddled with.

We know the former. We have no idea about the latter. We can make some guesses, sure, but the kind of absolute declarative statements you are making are complete and utter malarkey.

You are correct, you didn't call today's Native Americans savages. What you said was:

"I worked with native Americans and grew up with them when these people were in fact, little removed from savagery."

I don't expect to read such racist filth on a progressive message board. Neither did a jury of your peers.

My friend; there are romantic views of history where by the smallest margin some remarkable event occurs. I am a materialist like my friend Marx. It is very often the case that the only defense humanity has for what takes place is the defense Oedipus gave: I did what I did not knowing what I did.

Do you think the Prussians would have passed Lenin through their lines if they could have imagined the possible results? People very often do have a sense of results, though short sighted. If you want to talk of the possibilities only talk of the future, because when we talk about history, it is pretty well cast and frozen. History never changes. What changes in regard to history is our perspective on it. History never is what it is, and is always what it means. One meaning is that we should always look at our moves as a we would a chess game, and be thinking many moves ahead. No one should ever set a train of events in motion with out some sense of the outcome. I read a good if small book a long time ago called disease and history. You can hardly count the number of times where disease has won more wars than generals, and now we may well face generals who will use disease with a purpose of winning their wars.

In viewing history it is important to understand what happened, certainly. It is also important to understand that nothing happened without a rationally understandable cause, even when that cause is not completely in evidence. And while often, a multitude of forces do converge to cause a single event, there is more often a step by step progression. The exception is cataclysm, wars, and revolutions. You will look in vain for single causes for vast events, and these causes are real even when they are in the imaginations or the actors. If the Germans could be inspired to fight for living space only to find a grave, would you not say imagination played a part? But only try to measure the effect of imagination as if so much material substance, and you are doomed. All you can know is that it has an effect, like psychology generally, and must be accounted for even without exact measure. What I am trying say here is that human events are fantastic enough without throwing fantastic possible explanations into the mix. Cut out the extraneous with Occam's Razer. Look for proximate causes. Nature is not replete with superfluities as the monk said, and neither is history.

Yes, we can be wrong about history. But what you have done here is engage in pure personal speculation and presented it as if it were fact.

You will be called on such bullshit. Much like your "savagery" remarks. (Because of which I bristle when you call me your "friend." Please don't do that.)

And if you have it you have it, and if you don't you don't. Give me enough facts and I will draw my own conclusions, and if it is worth it to me, I will search for support for the insight I am given with knowledge. I read all the time, but if I only read books to know what was in them, I would be no further than the man or woman who wrote the book; but I have read many books on many different subjects and so, if I throw another book into that pond, something new splashes out as insight. I have to dig up what Kant said on insight.

Well now, that's one of the few things you've said that I agree with. You indeed have drawn your own conclusions - ones that are unsupported by any known facts. As a reminder, here's your initial claim:

We would not even have rhymed music with out the influence of Christianity.

You do realize, with your vast intelligence that most certainly eclipses that of all of us here, that such a claim is unprovable? The only "facts" you could use to support your claim would be documentation of the infinite multiverses in which Christianity never rose to the prominence it did in ours. In each one, you would have to show that rhymed music never arose. Since we (at present at least) have no way of collecting any of that information, your claim is completely unsupported.

Find another cultural chain running through western culture right up the present as likely to have affected our music. That is all you have to do.
I posted a quotation last night. There are others if need be; but that at leasts established a time line that precedes Muslim Arabia, or Muslim Spain.

You might consider how little in science is proven. Much knowledge only exists only as axiom, but it is hard to argue with what works. You cannot produce an atom, but with the rights atoms, you can have a nuclear reaction capable of blowing the hell out of everything. So the model stands, even without proof absolute.

You made the claim. You have to prove it. Not my job to disprove your claim.

If you have a counter theory you must present that, and if your theory is better and with better evidence, then we will likely both agree that my theory is wrong.

I haven't got anything against being wrong. I have something against not knowing and not thinking.

My father was a smart man, and once when I kicked my self for a mistake he said to me: Don't be angry at yourself for making a mistake. Making mistakes is easy. Not making mistakes is hard.

And will remain so until you provide evidence. When you have some, let me know.

The theory of evolution is unproven. Every time a theory is used and it works it lends support to it. Every attempt to disprove a theory that fails lends more support to it. Until a better theory supplants an earlier theory, and seems to work better, and cannot be disproved; the theory holds as if truth.

is evidence. Let me know when you do.

Need more? That was simply the first reference from the index on Rhyme. Got more.

It must be nested under someone I have on ignore. So, what is your evidence supporting this claim:

We would not even have rhymed music with out the influence of Christianity.

Last edited Fri Dec 26, 2014, 07:32 PM - Edit history (1)

Two would be philosophers were on a train discussing the possibility of knowing anything from evidence, and Ontology. Finding an impasse one stared out the window wishing the time to pass more quickly. But seeing a herd of cattle of the softest brown color he exclaimed: Look at those beautiful brown cows. His companion said: They are only brown on this side. The first man asked: Do you believe they are only brown on this side because you can only see this side? And the second man said: Yes; that is the case. And then the first man asked: If you do not believe they are brown on the other side because you cannot see the other side, what makes you think they have an other side?

You said that rhymed music wouldn't have arisen witbout Christianity, and the tag team here is demanding that you demonstrate that it couldn't have. They're two entirely different statements.

Yours:B happened as a result of A.

Theirs: A must be shown to be a necessary condition of B.

Not the same argument at all.

I think they are asking that I exclude every other possible source of influence of music as proof. I think I only need to show the church as the most likely cause because for the longest time, church was culture to the population of Europe, and after Charlemagne, the only common bond. If they can show a more likely common cultural element or even influence, we might have something to talk about. But you are right: Talking past each other.

Rhyming was beginning before Islam, and before Islamic Spain, and the possibility of Chinese influence is slight. I do know there is some rhyming in Christian Greek Hymns. Very little before, in pagan Greece.

The element of Christian song that perhaps had the greatest influence on later song was the emotional freedom to feel, and with this, early Christian song has a lot to do with modern music. You can't think God. You cannot rationally prove nor disprove God. If you feel God, you are likely to feel a range of feeling unknown, and unacceptable to pagan people.

I feel. I relate as we all do on an emotional level; but in every sense I would prefer to be a pagan because my emotions leave me feeling vulnerable. There are too many people who are as empty vessels, and you can pour your whole self into them out of human affection or the love of God, and have nothing and be nothing and likely, for no gain. A good pagan does what he can, and tries to keep a little of himself for himself. IMO

From my perspective, I offer a credible theory and offer support. They want me to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. From my experience, they should offer a credible counter theory and support it. Short of that, I am back to asserting a position with evidence and walking away. Popular music certainly didn't fall out of the sky. Culture builds on itself before it imports, but I do not reject the idea of Spanish influence. Rather, Church influence was nearly universal in Europe through the time period when rhyming took hold in hymns. The conquest of Spain took a long time, and there were resurgent forces re-invigorating Muslim culture, though from my understanding, the Mongol invasion chilled and stifled Muslim culture all the way to the Atlantic. The Othman influence was great and their flag flew over vast areas of Dar al-Islam. I don't think they had much to do with Spain, even under Barbarossa.

If that conclusion is wrong, it should not be hard to disprove.

You object to my theory, for which I can supply some evidence. If you have some alternative theory, advance it, and try to support it. Who ever has the best and most easily supported theory will likely be declared the winner.

You demur. Where is your proof? Because I do have evidence, but the possibility of proving it true is unlikely. How much has happened yesterday that will never be proved?. We are talking about 15 hundred years ago when Rhyme was becoming a standard part of poetry and music. I am sure, that if they knew the value of our lives and time they would have made a note of everything, and passed it down to us.

Many more are functionally illiterate, and many who can read don't read, or read only their Bible.

Look at how few books are produced in Muslim lands today. If people read, they read one book, and that becomes the center of all their knowledge.

There are a lot of reasons I like the Bible and think it is a good book. It has a lot of stories, and a lot of Drama. I always tear up reading about Joseph's reunion with his family, for example. And try to understand the price of love for him. He was very likely castrated by the Egyptians, and yet he still managed to forgive.

Still I would never read the Bible without a guide book, and I have many. And I have copies of the NT Greek, Stong's Concordance with Hebrew, Chaldee and Greek dictionaries, and etc. and etc. And if that seems a lot for some one who does not really believe in any of that nonsense then consider how important it is to understand these books to understand later developments in Europe and the area.

There is a lot of Semitic behavior for example that is incomprehensible without reference to the Bible. Consider: Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, by W. Robertson Smith

do we need to bring that religion to the people of the world who currently are?

Good thing cbayer and okasha like you so much. I don't think you and I are going to get along.

It is not a value judgment, but simply the way in which it happened. Look a Erasmus who brought to Europe the last flowering of classical education before protestantism and the anti-humanist reaction took over and ended all that. This was a well educated guy, and a cleric, and he was welcomed everywhere, but rather as an alien because so few were educated in that age.

The idea of social mobility through education was simply foreign to them, and it took great numbers educated before people realized there was much to learn and more to say about their world and the human condition. It was a slow process that had to begin in earnest some where.

Like Luther, he first translated the Bible into German from the Latin, and the people could read as they spoke, and so it was not some alien tongue. German, though I know little of it, has a great ability to express thought with exactness which sort of accounts for their philosophers and scientists. Luther did not give them only the Bible, but he gave them German in a sense they had never had it before, as a thing of pride, and a mark of nation. There is no such thing as a little education to an intelligent person. Like wealth to the wealthy, the educated find they will never have enough.

We will get along fine. You just don't understand me. I liked Trotsky. I liked Marx and Lenin more. Have you ever read Das Capital? Another good read.

But what you appear incapable of grasping is: that's not your claim. You take it one irrational, unwarranted step further and claim that none of this could have happened without Christianity.

I mean, in all those books you read, that came up somewhere, right?

And in your extensive reading of rhyme in the Middle Ages, you know that the Arabic influence in Spain is when rhyming kind of started, right? That the Arabs were rhyming extensively as early as in the 6th century? And that the Qur'an rhymes because it was written at that time?

I mean, sure Leonius is the guy that really introduced rhyme to the Middle Ages and he gets a lot of credit, but let's not be so culturally dense and myopic as to seriously try to argue that we wouldn't have rhyme without Christianity because that's just bullshit.

Tell me the influence of The Arabs or the Muslims in Spain on Christian Music before there were Muslims, or Muslims in Spain. You folks are confusing chronologies, and expecting cultural forms to cover vast distances through hostile territory to affect us. Have you ever heard of Occam's Razor?

Try to read the post. Christian music was the beginning of rhymed music. The Rhyme was a Druids curse, and you see that in spells and charms even today. They certainly had poetry before, held together by metre; but it rarely rhymed. And they naturally had music. Christianity brought together new forms of thinking and feeling, and also the need to express what was essentially inconceivable and they did it in new ways unique to them.

People act like Christianity simply took over. They were very much a revolution spanning centuries, and if it was not all that violent at times, it was a struggle for hearts and minds that is still going on today. And there are many reasons they are losing it, and one is their inability to conceptualize and rationalize their religion.

Don't fall into the same trap. One thing leads to another, cause and effect. If your cause has no effect, your effect will not be to be the cause of any other effect.

So I suppose the next point from you will be that we also have to thank Christianity for pasta and fireworks. Sweet Jesus.

But let's not forget your first point that brought this on:

And after the travels of Marco Polo, as he lay in bed dying, the priests urged him to recant all of his lies about the East. He told them: You haven't heard the half of it. Consider what was happening in this world in that period of time. The Russ, the Scandinavians in Russia had been pulverized by the Turks, and turkic tribes under Muslims first and then the Iron limper, Tamerlane the Great.

The Mongols had been driven from the gates of Egypt by the possessed ones, The Mukluks, and up into Central Asia. By that time all the Mongols in the former Muslim regions had converted to Islam, and this was common because the Mongols had no common Deity, and allowed religious liberty. So, even while the areas were heavily invested by Mongol tribes, they had for the most part established themselves, and taken on civilization. This was very true of Kubaiai Khan. Their last Chinese victories were for the most part bloodless. The far flung empire of the khans was held together by tribute and post roads, and these were followed right into China.

Trade in silks and spices, exactly that which broke the Roman Empire was also the point of Marco Polo. And it was an eye opener for the West. You forgot paper money, as many people do, but this was the Wests first experience with mechanical printing.
Gun powder was of great value as an invention, and mostly because in Europe people were already using blow guns to take out small birds and were looking for a better source of power. Again; it is the mixing of cultures at work that made the West what it became.

I will say again that the Mongols and their empire had little direct effect on us until very late. They could have swept through Europe and did not. They held on for a time in some places, but their area of control quickly receded. It made room for the Otheman Empire. And Tamerlane Beat the Golden Ordu, (horde) out of Russia, which the Russian Autocrats soon owned. Same in China, where a popular revolt soon pushed them out.

The influence of Muslim Spain is very far reaching, but again, rhymed verse and singing were well established by the time there was significant communication. Feudalism as practiced in Europe did not have more than limited exchange of goods or even information. Mark Bloch in his volumes on Feudalism noted how long after the fact one king learned of the conversion of the Swedish King to Christianity. Consider the remarkable sea journeys of the vikings, down the rivers of Russia, through the Mediterranean, and in the Atlantic. Try to understand how remarkable these were to a people who had nearly lost the art of ship building. The trip from France to England after the Romans and before the Norse was incredibly perilous. Land transportation was even worse. The old Roman roads that led, naturally to Rome were the conduit of culture, and in that sense, Christian rhymed music was well established before there was significant trade and communication with Spain. Now; Correct me if I am wrong, but we did get the guitar from them and perhaps the troubadours. We may have gotten the idea of courtly love from them. What we most wanted and took from them waited nearly on the fall of the country into Christian hands, and that was their math and astronomy. Free free to prove me wrong.

They made possible the rise of Islam. For centuries only the poets could freely travel from place to place without fear, and in the process of telling the story of the people to the people they united the tongue, a tongue they call the language of the Angels; and when Mohamed conquered these people he did so as much with force and reason as with a beautiful verse form. I do have the Holy Qu'ran, and books about the Qu'ran, and histories of the Arabs and of Islam. The Islamic revolution would likely have ended with the ability to communicate it. That was already a vast area by the time of Mohamed.

They were rhyming before the Christian poets were.

Of course, I'm sure the argument from you will be: "Tell me the influence of the Arabs on the West."

I even have at least one book on that subject, though it is a small book.

I have a great deal of respect for Islam, and have read much about them. I also know there was very little blending of cultures. Understand, that some philosophy Got through. Much Math eventually got through. It took -off hand -into the 14th century for the Turks to take Constantinople (Istanbul), and that event did push much philosophy in the direction of Europe. Primarily because they could not charge Muslims interest they had no means of building Capital, and it was the needs of Capital that fed the desire for knowledge. Among the Turks where there was a relative lot of trade and intercourse with the West There was also more of an exchange of knowledge. Primarily, our technology has been fed to them. They are still quite primitive. I think, that while they started out with a great respect for knowledge and philosophy, that this was rejected when they discovered they could not prove the existence of God through reason, and so they reverted to a spiritualism, much as the West itself experienced.

They had some influence where cultures met.

It was the courtly romances, though, and the minnesingers and troubadours, who really carried rhyme into European literature, and specifically into literature meant to be sung.

Chinese poetry is irrelevant in this context, as I'm sure you're aware.

When every city, and almost every town had a church, I am fairly certain that was the earliest influence if not the most profound of rhymed song. Clearly it was not long after the Battle of Poitiers 732, where the Saracen were defeated by the Franks under Charles Martel that they were doing a good business with them in castrated German lads, and since money was scarce because so much available gold went to ornament the churches, it is difficult to imagine what they were trading for. Soon after this date marks the more or less official beginning of Feudalism. It was footmen who won the battle of Poitiers, and in spite of this fact and because of the introduction of the Stirrup about this time, the whole nature of warfare changed. Now; this is not to prove myself wrong, but this was an invention that may have filtered in from China or India, so there was some trade, communication, and commerce each way. Trade carries progress and innovation, and it also carries culture. What slowed that process was lack of currency and perceived need. It is likely the guy next door had the same thing to trade as yourself. Money was an impossible impediment. With the discovery of the new world, the old world's supply of gold actually doubled, and this fueled capitalism as nothing before.

As I told the man; I will read that section of the book and I will try to quote any relevant passages. Clearly; music and music history are not my strengths, but I am learning more about the middle ages all the time, even as I slip into old age.

especially in Aquitaine and the Narbonnais. You can, in fact, hear North African riffs even in modern Mexican music.

But rhyming poetry truly broke away from its precursers in the twelfth century, with the romances of Marie de Champagne, Chretien de Troyes, Hartman von Aue and their contemporaries. This coincided with the emergence of the Grail mythos, which was, obviously, tied closely to Christianity.

Some of his plays were rhymed verse. 4th century BCE.

Lyric poetry - metered verse sung to the accompaniment of a Lyre was a classic greek invention.

The Ghazal is a Persian rhymed poetic form frequently performed to musical accompaniment and popular throughout south asia and dates to at least the 12th century CE.

The claim is bullshit.

since Greek texts didn't filter into western Europe with any tangible effect from the 5th century CE until the 15th..

You and your buds have created a strawman--that Christianity invented rhyme--and have been flailing away at it while disregarding what the poster actually said.. Presumably you get some kind of satisfaction out of that. Gods alone know what.

Though I have no idea why you have aligned with this yahoo (the enemy of your enemy isn't necessarily your friend) and why you are arguing this point. But just so you remember where this started, here's what your chum stated:

Poetry before the Christians was measured and limited by the pagan, self conscious self control. Look at Aurelius, look at Cicero. These people were rational and not given to extremes of emotion. It was not just Christianity, but all mass movements and revolutions that are carried by emotions. The pitiable condition of mankind as mere playthings of the gods is often brought to light. It is impossible for me to imagine catharsis such was we know it from the witness of tragedy without the emotions being invoked. Other than the followers of Sybil it is hard to associate an excess of emotion with any part of Roman Pagan life.

Christianity changed all that and the attachment to God as Jesus was of the lover to the beloved. The full flare of emotion is something that clearly defines the early Christians against the Pagans, and it is not logical, and the most logical of the Christian feared being condemned by God as Platonist or Ciceronian.

The leap of faith that was this period took along a little bit of logic and philosophy. It took very little of the visual arts. It is as though people stopped seeing the beauty in the human form. Many could not see the beauty of love between a man and a woman, and gave their lives to celibacy. One thing is clear to me, at least. The new frame of mind that was cosmic in its breadth could not find expression as the measured lines of Roman poetry had done. Clearly Virgil got the futility and tragedy of life; and I love those guys and am far more like them than I care to admit.

I love Catullus; those lines: For Venus and her Cupids gave my girl an unguent, and when you smell it, all you'll want the gods to do is make you one gigantic nose to smell it always with.
That man lived. That man smelled that unguent. That girl was real, and that man made that wish as we have all made that wish. I have something in common with that man. Do I have the power to express even a twinkle of that shine of God's love in creation, his mercy and forbearance, his hurt and injury by humanity on the cross or of the many thousands of emotions that might cross the mind of a believer. No. Nor do do I seek the immortality of God's promise. One life lived well is just enough.

Woman is my God, and to her I sing; but still I understand, because I try to understand what a change this was, to have the emotions for the first time, on a social level- liberated. Think of the women who followed Dionysus into the hills to dance and do their rites. This was a reach of freedom and emotion that could not be shared by, and was rather condemned by the men.

It may be impossible to prove, but I think possible to conclude that Jesus Christ and the feeling he aroused made possible Grace Slick and all of modern music. People never become real in history until they can feel.

are popping aneurysms over the discussion of medieval poetry. Perhaps it comes down to your perception that every exchange in this group is a matter of "alignments" and "enemies." That's pitiful.

If you think that classical Greek comedy or Chinese rhyme influenced medieval European poetry, stop spinning and produce your evidence.

You rock Okasha!
Feliz Navidad!

prospero ano y felicidad a ti y todos tus familiares!

Very little that was Greek in origin got into the Latin Church, with the exception of the Bible itself. It has been a while since I read the approximate dates; but for the longest time, all the church had of Greek Philosophy was part of Plato's writing. I am aware that very little of Greek poetry was rhymed. I have the book I have been reading less than two feet away, and I can re-read, and quote what it says. Don't look at me as some edgified fool. I may be a fool, but I am not educated. I have only read a lot of books.

Still; I am willing to show some direct connection between early church Hymns moving into Western Music generally. These other influences are peripheral at best; but If you can show me any sort of direct link, I will thank you for the education and get about my business. I don't mind being proved wrong. I rather like it. How else is a person, like myself who has only read for his knowledge ever going to know his weaknesses if they are not pointed out to him? Point away.

Is a claim you cannot substantiate. It has been amply demonstrated that we most certainly could have had rhymed music without Christianity, as other societies, without the benefit of Christianity either before or in parallel, developed rhymed music.

"Very little that was Greek in origin got into the Latin Church" - no really that is another unsustainable assertion.

Aside from all the other problems, this begs the question. You stated, "We would not even have rhymed music with out the influence of Christianity." When it was shown, among a lot of other examples, that the Greeks rhymed, you can't say that that doesn't matter because the Greeks didn't influence the Latin Church (additionally: false. I mean Chi Rho for fuck sake) because that just means the Latin Church stopped it from getting there. Absent the Latin Church, maybe we would have been rhyming the shit out of things in whatever part of Europe you are arguing centuries before we did.

The plays are not written in rhymed verse.

Your reference to Greek lyric poetry is irrelevant. Meter is quite different from rhyme.

The ghazal emerged at the same time that rhyme became characteristic of European poetry. Where's your evidence that one influenced the other?

Cite your source.

And for you - the one who never provides sources - not likely. Use the google.

could not have happened without Christianity.

Where is your evidence that rhyme could not have happened without Christianity? That was the absurd claim that was made. That is the claim in dispute.

There are times when it behooves us to stop Googling for garbage and actually sit back and learn something. Both Sweeney and Okasha are sharing actual knowledge gleaned from years of reading and study. You don't have to be a malcontent all of the time.

That said, Merry Xmas to you and yours.

align with, why Okasha is giving this self proclaimed genius a pass is a mystery.

Whatever gets you through the night, I guess.

The really funny part is you don't even seem to understand what we are objecting to.

Because that's the claim. One I have never come across at all in my 20 years of being an English teacher. And I have looked into rhyme in Medieval times during the many years I prepped to teach Chaucer. It's not a claim that can be substantiated.

And teachers are some of the most over qualified people cause of the obscene requirements to get certified. Gonna read a book on jesus and have a more valid opinion than those scholarly theologians that keep getting brought up!

I was talking about rhymed music, and I certainly get that from The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages, by Henry Osborn Taylor, and he goes into great detail about the poetry of the Greeks and Romans. If the first examples of Rhyme in our song was religious, I can certainly draw a conclusion regarding rhymed music today. I do have a book somewhere in my library on the influence of Islamic culture on European, but it is a small book, and obviously easy to lose. I keep my literature on Muslim history and religion close. I checked.

Just because Western rhyming song first started in religion, the next step to proving your claim is that is wouldn't have happened otherwise.

A similar argument would be that without Whitman we wouldn't have free verse. Without Poe we wouldn't have the short story. They started those things, certainly, but to claim nobody else anywhere wouldn't have come up with them absent them is a much harder claim to make.

From my understanding, he was pretty much a failure here. It is when Baudelaire discovered he works in France and introduced him to the world that he became famous here, and he was likely already dead. If this is true, it does go to show that such impossible courses in history and culture are some times followed, which tends to support your view.

Now; I only make the assertion, and it it quite likely given that ones own culture is more likely to affect one, than any other. Isn't it your job to disprove my conclusions since I have evidence. Where is your evidence of any similar growth?. I posted a quotation from the book. There are many others on the subject of rhyme in music.

BTW: I think Poe is most responsible for Gothic Romances and is directly responsible for the detective story. Some one always has to be first, and it is easy for everyone else to say I coulda done that. Why didn't you.

You should really read Goblinmonger's posts on the subject, he is educated in this field and teaches it as a profession, he keeps abroad of the subject so he can be up to date on the subject matter, so you don't have to rely on out of date mystery books

That said, Merry Xmas to you and yours.

Last edited Fri Dec 26, 2014, 06:03 PM - Edit history (2)

"The early Christian Latin Poets as inheritors of antique culture, used antique metres and made such use of the forms of antique poetry as their own faculties and the novelty of their subjects permitted. Pagan commonplaces and reminiscences survived in their poems. With the approach of the middle ages, the antique metres decayed, or were transformed to accentual rhythms; the appreciation of antique forms of poetry passed away; the antique pagan phrases no longer flowed so naturally and abundantly."

"As has been seen, Christian Latin Poets of the fourth and fifth centuries chose the simpler classical metres. A few accentual hymns were written even then, and a tendency to preserve the force of accent in metrical verse had already appeared. After the fifth century, rhymes became more frequent. Then, very gradually, accent took the place of quantity as the determinant of rhythm, and with this change rhymes developed strikingly." Chap 9 Pages 284-5

It also says that "Iambic and Trochaic meters passed readily through the change and emerged from it to a new life as accentual verse, with the added element of Rhyme."

Says these forms reached their peak in the 12th century with the Hymes of Adam St. Victor, and other other great hymn writers.

From: The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages by:Henry Osborn Taylor; Frederick Ungar Publishing co. New York, fourth edition, Augmented, first published 1901, copyright 1957- Ungar pub.

I am sure GM could give you some pointers. He might even be able to keep you °abroad° on some basic ESL, as the English language appears to be rather challenging for you.
I think you have joined the ranks of Spooner, Mrs. Malaprop and the great Dubya! Congratulations and a very merry Xmas to you!

I'll remember that.

I never said I was a genius. Tested out about 2 points below on average, but that is good considering I struggle with math. My first kid, the bankruptcy attorney has about ten point on me, but that may have been from his Jewish mother. Any way: Thanks.

I'm Native, and I understood you just fine. "Savagery" is something that can recur in peoples who have lost their culture. One has only to look at the current drug wars in Mexico for present-day confirmation.

And before a couple folks ruin a second pair of underwear apiece, or stroke out, I was born in Mexico, have lived there, and consider the people my own.

Angel Garcia, just up from Fort Campbell KY, helps me with my Motor Cycles. He is a talented man. and I am a pretty good mechanic as well. Like to do some real business with him. I tell him his talents are wasted in the military. Anyone can kill anyone, but not everyone can fix a lawnmower.

And that means I have to get to bed so he can make money and I can make progress. Good night. and thanks.

and that they were "like savages". When challenged on your racist bullshit you doubled down and claimed that "savages" was a technical term in anthropology that us less intelligent than "near geniuses" didn't understand.

You realized at some point that you were not being welcomed here with open arms with statements like that and went back and deleted all of your posts and declared yourself done with DU.

Grew up around the Ojibwa the hated enemy of the Iroquois and Lacota peoples.

You have a map. If you find Mackinaw and find up state New York, and imagine traveling from New York to upper Michigan just to attack you enemy and the remnants of the Huron. They told me that in the old days their young men on the war path could leave home and in six days drink out of the Tennessee. They could strike like lightning.

I am here for the good people, and there are some; but just as some choose not to know, others choose knowledge. I would never abuse anyone, not even your self, not for fun and not for profit because there is no money in it. I would rather be a little fish in a big pond and learn something than be the biggest fish in this pond and learn nothing. Send me packing. See how much sleep I lose over it.

Some of us still are. I don't buy into the smear campaigns that get dragged in here from the basement by malcontents looking for a fight. So don't feel the need to defend yourself to me. I have been accused of everything under the sun. Sticks and stones...
Your knowledge on the subject is impressive and I appreciate the time you invested in sharing it. We need more people who are interested in intelligent, playful discussion and less of the nastiness that some try to inject into every thread in this group.

You've gone and suggested that a religion might have made a contribution to the arts and sciences.

Heavens Forbid!



Happy Holiday Season to you and yours!

Claiming we 'would not even have without' is complete and utter bollocks.

Not only is it claiming Christianity is the only source of record for that particular art, but also that no other process would have developed it on its own between then and now.

Complete.
Utter.
Bollocks.

There are some folks who don't want to acknowledge, however, that religions sometimes do good works.