"Adam's Lament" And The Importance Of Memory

Sybil of Eritrea, Sistine Chapel, Vatican City, Michelangelo

natheless, this meditacioun

I putte it ay under correccioun

Of clerkes, for I am nat textueel.

I take but the sentence, trusteth weel

-Chaucer's Parson

Last night on The Kate of Gaia Outside The Box-Open Forum my good friend, colleague and younger brother John Evans recited his poem "Adam's Lament" live on the air, committed verbatim from memory.  In the Ancient Celtic bardic tradition, the degree to which a person can memorize and recite a lay, or an epic song was the degree of that person's intelligence. Further, it seems to have been a sign for saintliness. Saint Augustine was known for his ability to read a page of scripture silently, and then recite the passages shown back to his brethren while Thomas Aquinas was the Medieval Ages genius par excellence.

In her introduction to The Book of Memory, Mary Carruthers notes:

"When we think of our highest creative power, we think invariably of the imagination. 'Great imagination, profound intuition," we say: this is our highest accolade for intellectual achievement, even in the sciences. The memory, in contrast is devoid of intellect...At best memory is a kind of photographic film, exposed....We make such judgements because we have been formed in a post-Romantic, post-Freudian world, in which imagination has been identified with a mental unconscious of great, even dangerous, creative power. Consequently, when we look at the Middle Ages, modern scholars are often disappointed by the apparently lowly...status accorded to imagination in medevial psychology - a sort of draught-horse of the sensitive soul, not even given intellectual status. Ancient and medevial people reserved their awe for memory. Their greatest geniuses they describe as people of superior memories, they boast unashamedly of their prowess in that faculty, and they regard it as a mark of superior moral character as well as intellect."

Saint Thomas Aquinas, Chesterton's "Dumb-Ox," is essential for understanding medieval thought. He was theoretical and practical and had the very rare talent lacking in many of today's academic halls of marrying two very fundamental ideals in philosophic writing: clarity and profundity. Postmodern or Continental European philosophy throughout the ages since Aquinas has sought profundity at the expense of clarity, while Anglo-American philosophy has sought tremendous clarity at the expense of profundity. The philosopher of today is just like any of job rather than a vocation, a calling to something. The philosopher of today either hides in the high verbiage and phraseology of Postmodernism, or hides in analyzing what Boston College philosopher (and J.R.R. Tolkien lover) Peter Kreeft calls "second order" issues of linguistic problems which have inherent paradoxes, and studies whether sentences have meaning or not. And thus the modern philosopher (and perhaps most of academia) has alienated most of the people from philosophy. All philosophy and science begin with the same direct experience of wonder, and ask the eternal questions of God, life, death and morality. You may not agree that Aquinas was the greatest philosopher of all time, but he is certainly the most important and influential in the two thousand years between Aristotle and Descartes.

I'm getting carried a little sidetracked, but the point is that memory is very important. John could not read the poem because he happens to be visually impaired. Still, I recall a Silmarillion Seminar reunion we had to discuss the first Hobbit movie, and he dominated the discussion not only with his ideas but with the beauty of his voice. Fair warning: The recording of it took place on a blog talk radio program I take part in and contains explicit curse words. John and I are glad it is included. Without further explanation, let me then publish the written version of the 19 year old Manhattan College prodigy's work.

Sear Reader, you will see I publish a lot of John's work because I think he has a lot to offer. He still has much to learn but he is incredibly bright, and down to Earth. He gives all praise to me in helping him find his path. I am his Socrates, he says. And if that may be, then he is Plato, and there is very little Socrates without a Plato. The teacher has not been a good teacher unless the student surpasses the teacher. John has the youth, the talent, and the love of learning it takes to be a true hero. If I have one intellectual heir, someone to carry on all the wild and crazy thought about language and philosophy (and much more) I give that torch to John Evans. For like Socrates, I will drink the hemlock, and like Frodo, I have been too deeply wounded.


"Adam's Lament"
by John Evans

Shall we find peace there,

Lost in the garden,

Where the river runs sweeter than the cold hard years?

Shall we find peace there,

Amerced in the meadow,

In the green hemlock umbels,

Tall and sad?

I saw you walking over seven mountains,

To the tree of knowledge dressed in white,

Your hands open with a heart full of laughter,

Your mind buzzing with an undying thirst.

O will you come down dear daughter of darkness,

And drink in the silence of your lonesome son?

O will you come down child of virtues,

And dance in the open places beneath the moon?

I saw you smile cooler than  the fresh Northern wind,

Where my words fall heavy on the threshold of love.

I saw you bathe in a lake of shadows,

And sing of death on the other side.

O what did you see my blue eyed stranger?

O what did you see child of the West,

On that foreign shore of no tomorrow,

In that kingdom of lies and sweet distress?

I crossed the bridge of hungry giants,

And traversed twelve waterfalls in a sinking ship.

I drunk cheap wine from narrow glasses,

And wept blood tears to the gold horizon.

Are we at home here,

In the sable garden,

Where the earth is tender,

And the broad hills old.

Are we at rest here,

In the midnight vale,

Where our minds wander,

And our clean souls roam?

I saw you tame the wild distance,

And taste from black forbidden wells.

I saw you mock the garden’s father,

And cast on me the serpents’ spell.

"Adam and Eve Cast Out" Gustave Dore