Memoir; Writing your Life Story: What makes a book a success?

Memoir; Writing your Life Story: What makes a book a success?: Briefly, in fiction, poetry, drama, for a book to be a success the reader has to care about the characters.  Some beautifully written books ...

Skyward by David Levy: Tennyson and Astronomy

Figure 1`:  Last [pril i photographed a small piece of Comet Thatcher
(C/1861 G1),.    These fragments encounter the Earth's orbit annually
as the Lyrid meteor shower.  Tennyson might have seen this comet, but
he certainly saw the next one which appeared as the ZGreat Comet of
1861.

.Skyward for December 2019

When poetry reaches the stars.

Long, long ago, when I was as student at Acadia University in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, we studied the poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson.  The English 360 course was taught by one of my favorite professors, Roger Lewis.  Tennyson remains one of the truly great English poets, and even in his lifetime he knew that.  In 1850, upon the death of William Wordsworth, he was appointed poet laureate by Queen Victoria.    In that same year he published In Memoriam, arguably his greatest work. 

More than a poet, Tennyson enriched his life with a passionate interest in science, particularly the night sky.  Did he own a telescope?  He surely did.  Although he used it often, particularly from his home on the Isle of Wight, he often enjoyed the use of big refractor telescopes in England.  He viewed some of the great comets of his time, like Donati in 1858 and Tebutt in 1861.     He also noticed the discovery of Neptune in 1846.  Not only was he aware of these developments, but he also incorporated them into one of the greatest poems ever written, the epic called In Memoriam.

In Memoriam grew out of Tennyson’s profound loss when his best friend, Arthur Hallam, died suddenly and unexpectedly in 1831.   His grief evolved into several quatrains of poetry, then many, and he completed the work in 1850.  But this poem is far more than an elegy.  He framed it as a massive commentary on the progress of science during his time, particularly with regard to organic evolution and astronomy.  From its dramatic opening line “Strong son of God, immortal love,”  he delves into what the great telescopes of his time could reveal as

“Nature stretches forth her arms, and gleans

Her secret from the latest moon?” (CXX)

Passing over his wonderful praise of Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection…

“And let the ape and tiger die.” …

we encounter the epic’s truly powerful ending.  To write that it is like a bald eagle about to soar in flight is just insufficient. Like a gigantic Saturn 5 as it roars off its launch complex to the Moon, the last two stanzas germinate, then erupt in a fiery tribute to creation itself.

The poem closes with a return to Hallam: “That fiend of mine who lives in God,” …

Tennyson then specifies God as being immortal and loving; “That God, which ever lives and loves,”  …

And then he defines the Universe as an  ordered realm with a specific goal: “One God, one law, one element”.  In that one line Tennyspon summarizes the purpose of In Memoriam as a statement about the interplay between science and religion.  Finally, Tennyson predicts a goal for the Universe:

“and one far-off divine event”

In Tennyson’s time that goal was not understood.  But  a century later, understanding of Hubble’s constant opened the great question as to whether the Universe will end in a “big crunch” in which the Universe is condensed into a single point as it was 13.7 billion years ago. The other possibility is that the universe will continue to expand forever.  It is one of these two faroff events               

“To which the whole creation moves.  And thus, we reach the close of In Memoriam as it moves proudly among the stars:

That friend of mine, who lives in God,

That God, who ever lives and loves,

                One God, one law, one element,

                And one far-off divine event,

To which the whole creation moves.

Memoir; Writing your Life Story: "And So this is Christmas . . "

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American Doll and Toy Museum: Honoring Vets and Dolls!

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Doll Museum to Open Dec. 1!

After a lifetime of planning, it has finally happened!  more details will follow as the doll drama unfolds, but The American Doll & Toy Museum will open the first week of December!  This will be a smaller version of our collection because of space limitations, but there will be representative dolls from prehistory to the present, and a nice selection of doll houses, miniatures, toys and related objects.

Many of you also follow our main doll museum blog, Dr. E's Doll Museum, and you know that I am Dr. E and this is our unofficial name.  I started a new Facebook Page called American Doll

In and Toy Museum, and will follow up with a Twitter, Pinterest, and other social media accounts to spread the word.

We'll have a small book shop selling doll related objects, vintage paper airplanes, licensed merchandise books, and perhaps some small antiques from the shop behind us. We also have a GoFundMe Page for donations.  https://www.gofundme.com/manage/ellen039s-campaign-for-american-doll-and-toy-museum

There will be special events and give a ways.  We'll celebrate each season and holiday, too. There will be rotating displays of all kinds.

I plan on have a doll trinket to give to each visitor as a memento.

Many of you have seen  the displays of my dolls at various museums. I've collected since age 3, and have been planning this museum since grade school.  We will join a small neighbor hood near one of my alma maters called College Hill, which hosts other events and houses several antique stores, a cafe, a hometown bar and grill, a hometown barber shop, sports apparel shop and more.  We will be contributing to small business and to our community.

We welcome everyone; we aren't just for doll collectors and dealers, and we hope by embracing the general public, that we will also encourage young collectors.

Below are some of our citizens, and there is a YouTube video with more.

Doll Museum Video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_TLGmyLKIw&t=158s

An Apologia for Countess Erzebet Bathory: Bathory 2008

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