An important part of any living tradition is its creative expression of its teachings. Christianity has choirs and hymns, Islam has muezzins and tajwid, Judaism has cantors and psalms. What does paganism have? Belly dance troupes.
I've lamented about it elsewhere, actually. Alas my talents do not extend at all in the musical direction, otherwise I'd have a go at getting the ball going. Doesn't stop me having a lot of ideas though. The problem is the lack of coherent liturgy in part - there's no available libretti, as it were. Further, there are no aethetics and no theology of beauty.
Heathenry has epic poetry whose styles inspired the entire modern English tradition that includes Shakespeare and Heaney.
Tell those who studied Beowulf that there is nothing that came from heathen sources.
Tell Tolkien that his inspiration was belly dancing troupes.
You do not know of modern pagan song, dance, poetry or song. With respect - and we all know what it means when someone begins a clause with the words ;with respect - you have not been there, because these things are not public.
You will never be invited to a Winternights, when the deeds of the recently dead are praised with prose and poetry, song and love. You will never attend a Yule feast, when the year is toasted and its highs and lows recorded and laughed at, cried at, marvelled at... You will never be a witness to the loving contract of a heathen wedding or naming, when the community celebrates the joining of people in the sight of the gods and the ancestors, or takes a new life to its heart.
And because you will never see these things, I feel sorry that you have missed such words, such music, such dance.
Jez - Shakespeare could not (and did not) read Old English, which was quite lost to sight during the later Middle Ages, so I can't see how he could have been inspired by it. A-S was just beggining to be taken up by scholars and humanists in Shax's lifetime. (Though, on a Norse note, there is a v. distant connection between Hamlet and the Amlodi alluded to in Snorri's Skaldskaparmal, which has come through to Shax via Saxo Grammaticus' 'History of the Danes'.)
I think FP's comment is not that no ancient pagan sources exist - who would deny Beowulf?! - but that *modern* paganism, specifically, has produced little or no decent art, in any medium. Surely one can't say that anything modern pagans have produced (I say this as one) rivals Beowulf? If these sources are so vastly important and inspirational, why is the most popular and (to many) powerful modern version by Heaney, and not by, say, a practising Heathen?
Ditto Tolkien - he was not a modern pagan, far from it - so is not relevant.
The point - whatever one may think of its expression - is a legitimate one: why has modern paganism not produced more art at the highest level of achievement? I've been involved in paganism for 14 years and I've never seen anything really world-beating. And we need to ask why.
It was brought home to me when I read Rowan Williams' new volume of poetry, 'Headwaters', last month - in terms of technical skill, power, and depth, it blasts any modern pagan poetry I've ever seen utterly out of the water.
do you mean art by pagans (i will assume modern ones) or overtly pagan art?
in either case i know of some beautiful artwork, music and potery by pagans, some of which is fairly 'pagan' in content. i equally know of particularly hideous art too, by both pagans and abrahamics.
scale up the pagan community to the size of the abrahamic ones, give them several hundred years and it too would be more obvious.
then of course, most pagans dont have rich patrons to fund thier work.
as to the belly dancing. well, you have my agreement there.
Hello Jez. My post refers to modern paganism, of course. Great as the efforts and enthusiasm of those in these various nascent religions may be still it may not be said that their ideas and actions are continuations of earlier traditions and so they may not lay particular claim to the excellent works of these venerable traditions. Beowulf belongs as much to any Briton, of any religion, as it does to any Briton in paganism today.
I am reconciled to the prospect of never being your guest at a Wintersnight. What is a single night out of the whole season? Winter is mine and there is joy enough in it.
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A qualification: I mean no insult to anyone with this entry but I am making a point about religious tradition as its expression.
There are a Hell of a lot of belly dancers out there, though.
I think this is quite fair, actually.
I've lamented about it elsewhere, actually. Alas my talents do not extend at all in the musical direction, otherwise I'd have a go at getting the ball going. Doesn't stop me having a lot of ideas though. The problem is the lack of coherent liturgy in part - there's no available libretti, as it were. Further, there are no aethetics and no theology of beauty.
Heathenry has epic poetry whose styles inspired the entire modern English tradition that includes Shakespeare and Heaney.
Tell those who studied Beowulf that there is nothing that came from heathen sources.
Tell Tolkien that his inspiration was belly dancing troupes.
You do not know of modern pagan song, dance, poetry or song. With respect - and we all know what it means when someone begins a clause with the words ;with respect - you have not been there, because these things are not public.
You will never be invited to a Winternights, when the deeds of the recently dead are praised with prose and poetry, song and love. You will never attend a Yule feast, when the year is toasted and its highs and lows recorded and laughed at, cried at, marvelled at... You will never be a witness to the loving contract of a heathen wedding or naming, when the community celebrates the joining of people in the sight of the gods and the ancestors, or takes a new life to its heart.
And because you will never see these things, I feel sorry that you have missed such words, such music, such dance.
--
Jez
Jez - Shakespeare could not (and did not) read Old English, which was quite lost to sight during the later Middle Ages, so I can't see how he could have been inspired by it. A-S was just beggining to be taken up by scholars and humanists in Shax's lifetime. (Though, on a Norse note, there is a v. distant connection between Hamlet and the Amlodi alluded to in Snorri's Skaldskaparmal, which has come through to Shax via Saxo Grammaticus' 'History of the Danes'.)
I think FP's comment is not that no ancient pagan sources exist - who would deny Beowulf?! - but that *modern* paganism, specifically, has produced little or no decent art, in any medium. Surely one can't say that anything modern pagans have produced (I say this as one) rivals Beowulf? If these sources are so vastly important and inspirational, why is the most popular and (to many) powerful modern version by Heaney, and not by, say, a practising Heathen?
Ditto Tolkien - he was not a modern pagan, far from it - so is not relevant.
The point - whatever one may think of its expression - is a legitimate one: why has modern paganism not produced more art at the highest level of achievement? I've been involved in paganism for 14 years and I've never seen anything really world-beating. And we need to ask why.
It was brought home to me when I read Rowan Williams' new volume of poetry, 'Headwaters', last month - in terms of technical skill, power, and depth, it blasts any modern pagan poetry I've ever seen utterly out of the water.
do you mean art by pagans (i will assume modern ones) or overtly pagan art?
in either case i know of some beautiful artwork, music and potery by pagans, some of which is fairly 'pagan' in content. i equally know of particularly hideous art too, by both pagans and abrahamics.
scale up the pagan community to the size of the abrahamic ones, give them several hundred years and it too would be more obvious.
then of course, most pagans dont have rich patrons to fund thier work.
as to the belly dancing. well, you have my agreement there.
Hello Jez. My post refers to modern paganism, of course. Great as the efforts and enthusiasm of those in these various nascent religions may be still it may not be said that their ideas and actions are continuations of earlier traditions and so they may not lay particular claim to the excellent works of these venerable traditions. Beowulf belongs as much to any Briton, of any religion, as it does to any Briton in paganism today.
I am reconciled to the prospect of never being your guest at a Wintersnight. What is a single night out of the whole season? Winter is mine and there is joy enough in it.
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