About

About Me

Jeremiah Forshey. I am a literature and senior thesis teacher at a classical Christian high school. I've been teaching literature and other subjects in classical Christian schools since 2004. I've spent several years now teaching AP American Literature, British Literature, and Senior Thesis.

About the Title

This blog's title comes from the Aeneid. In Book III, Aeneas is advised to seek the Sibyl in her cave:
[T]here you will see the frenzied prophetess.

Deep in her cave of rock she charts the fates,

consigning to the leaves her words and symbols.

Whatever verses she has written down

upon the leaves, she puts in place and order

and then abandons them inside her cavern.

When all is still, that order is not troubled;

but when soft winds are stirring and the door,

turning upon its hinge, disturbs the tender

leaves, then she never cares to catch the verses

that flutter through the hollow grotto, never

recalls their place or joins them all together.

(The Aeneid, III.578-89, transl. Allen Mendelbaum)

The Sibyl's cave beautifully symbolizes the problem of interpretation. She writes, conforming her visions to words on thin leaves. As long as her writing remains undisturbed, there is no problem. The meaning remains still, in its untroubled order. But when the door opens, even the minor disturbance of another's entrance is enough to scatter the leaves across the cave, and the Sibyl, poet that she is, has little interest in recapturing yesterday's visions. The reader must snatch the leaves off the wind and piece them together as best he can if he wants to know what the Sibyl has seen.

As a literature teacher, I love that image. It captures so much about both writing and reading. This blog is my attempt to capture some of the leaves on the wind, and piece them back together as best I can.

Also, I like the title because my wife and I are huge Firefly fans:

"It's OK. I'm a leaf on the wind."
"What does that mean?"

And there's the problem of interpretation again.