Nevertheless, You Must Sing
Each year, I begin British Literature at the beginning. We read the oldest recorded literary work in English: a poem by the Anglo-Saxon poet Caedmon, composed around 670 AD. The poem is beautiful Old English verse, but the poet's story is perhaps even more remarkable.
It goes like this: Caedmon was an illiterate shepherd who lived and worked at Whitby Abbey on the north-east coast of England. It was the custom of the abbey on feast days to gather in the hall, and after enjoying food and drink, to pass the harp around the table and have each one strum it and recite some lines of verse. As much as Caedmon enjoyed the fellowship, he was terrified of the harp, for (the Venerable Bede tells us with sublime succinctness) "he had never learned any songs." So Caedmon would quietly slip away from the table as the harp neared his seat.
One night he did just that. He left the feast, went out to the stable where his animals were kept, and fell asleep. And in his sleep, a man appeared to him, and greeted him by name, and held out a harp, and said, "Caedmon, sing me something."
But he replied, "I cannot sing; and for this reason I left the feast and came away here, because I could not sing."
And the man responded, "Nevertheless, you must sing."--
--Or maybe, because there is some textual dispute on this line, the man responded, "However, you can sing to me."
There's a concept in literary criticism called indeterminacy, wherein some portion of text cannot be clarified, and its meaning must be left to the reader to decide. I've always found those places especially interesting, and it is often the case that several interpretations are equally plausible. For the curious reader, this creates a prism-like experience of the story, where you can simultaneously see several differently-shaded images of the same thing. Viewed together they provide a richer view than any one of them would alone.
Indeterminacy is at play here, and it's remarkable to me how fitting both translations are: "Nevertheless, you must sing" and "However, you can sing to me." It's both an imperative and an invitation. Like the gospel.
Caedmon takes the harp and asks the man what he should sing. The man says, "Sing to me of the first creation." Caedmon strums, opens his mouth, and out pours beautiful Old English verse.
When he awakes the next morning, he remembers the song from his dream. He tells it to his alderman, who brings him before the Abbess, who is so impressed that she initiates him as a monk so that he might hear the sacred stories and turn them into poems. Bede tells us, "he was able to learn all that he heard, and, keeping it all in mind, just as a clean animal chewing cud, turned it into the sweetest song. And his songs and his poems were so beautiful to hear, that his teachers themselves wrote and learned at his mouth."
I love beginning class with Caedmon's story, in part because I know it is a familiar one to many students. To some of them, the teacher's roaming gaze is like the circling harp, only terrifyingly more random. And all of us teachers make that same two-fold appeal to the students we want to prepare for meaningful participation in adult society: "nevertheless, you must sing" and "however, you can sing to me." Yes, you have to participate in the class discussion, but I am doing everything in my power to make this room a place where you can safely venture an opinion. And like Caedmon's teachers, we hope that one day your songs and poems will be so beautiful to hear, that we might learn at your mouth.
One night he did just that. He left the feast, went out to the stable where his animals were kept, and fell asleep. And in his sleep, a man appeared to him, and greeted him by name, and held out a harp, and said, "Caedmon, sing me something."
But he replied, "I cannot sing; and for this reason I left the feast and came away here, because I could not sing."
And the man responded, "Nevertheless, you must sing."--
--Or maybe, because there is some textual dispute on this line, the man responded, "However, you can sing to me."
There's a concept in literary criticism called indeterminacy, wherein some portion of text cannot be clarified, and its meaning must be left to the reader to decide. I've always found those places especially interesting, and it is often the case that several interpretations are equally plausible. For the curious reader, this creates a prism-like experience of the story, where you can simultaneously see several differently-shaded images of the same thing. Viewed together they provide a richer view than any one of them would alone.
Indeterminacy is at play here, and it's remarkable to me how fitting both translations are: "Nevertheless, you must sing" and "However, you can sing to me." It's both an imperative and an invitation. Like the gospel.
Caedmon takes the harp and asks the man what he should sing. The man says, "Sing to me of the first creation." Caedmon strums, opens his mouth, and out pours beautiful Old English verse.
When he awakes the next morning, he remembers the song from his dream. He tells it to his alderman, who brings him before the Abbess, who is so impressed that she initiates him as a monk so that he might hear the sacred stories and turn them into poems. Bede tells us, "he was able to learn all that he heard, and, keeping it all in mind, just as a clean animal chewing cud, turned it into the sweetest song. And his songs and his poems were so beautiful to hear, that his teachers themselves wrote and learned at his mouth."
I love beginning class with Caedmon's story, in part because I know it is a familiar one to many students. To some of them, the teacher's roaming gaze is like the circling harp, only terrifyingly more random. And all of us teachers make that same two-fold appeal to the students we want to prepare for meaningful participation in adult society: "nevertheless, you must sing" and "however, you can sing to me." Yes, you have to participate in the class discussion, but I am doing everything in my power to make this room a place where you can safely venture an opinion. And like Caedmon's teachers, we hope that one day your songs and poems will be so beautiful to hear, that we might learn at your mouth.
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