Rating Party Platforms on Things Other than Politics

 It's Presidential election time again, and we continue a longstanding tradition on the weblog, with the sixth quadrennial rating of party platforms on grounds other than partisan politics! In the first year of competition, the Libertarians won handily with spartan and spare; in the second competition, the Republicans seized the prize with flashy and glossy; in the third competition, the Democrats won mostly on improvement; in the fourth competition, the Greens won on informativeness and accessibility; in the fifth competition, the Democrats won due to a mix of unusually weak competition and having for the first time made no serious blunders. How will things fare this year? Will the Republicans be as lazy as they were last time? Will the Greens still struggle with complicated concepts like 'preamble'? Will the Libertarians stop being boring? Will the Democrats continue to use muddled and unintelligible metaphors? Which parties are capable of figuring out how a cover sheet works? The excitement of this competition is that there is no possible way to tell before you actually look and see.

Democratic Party Platform (PDF)

Republican Party Platform (PDF)

Libertarian Party Platform

Green Party Platform

Cover Sheet

The Republican cover sheet is very, very blue, with a little red and white. There is a picture, not very discernible in all of the blue; they lose points for bad presentation on that. (I suppose the picture is of Milwaukee, where the convention was held? It's hard to tell.) However, there's a little elephant logo in the lower right-hand corner that is just awesome. They should have put that front and center. The Libertarians cover sheet is much more plain, but they continue their idea from last time of having a yellow eagle logo on the cover; it is a very striking logo. The Democrats just have letters and a little circle-D logo at the bottom; it is not very striking, although the color scheme is OK. The Greens provide no easily discoverable PDF of their Party Platform, and therefore are disqualified from the cover sheet competition. If you don't play. you don't win.

Normally, keeping things over from the previous Presidential election only gets you mocked around here, but in this category it worked for the Libertarians; their cover sheet happens to be the moderate middle ground between the boring Democrats and the over-busy Republicans. That seems more luck of the competition than their own excellence, but that's how competitions work.

Organization

Organization is often the Libertarians' strongest category, and they stick with what is tried and true. The Party Platform starts with a Preamble and a Statement of Principles, then has a numbered sections with clearly identified headings. To our surprise, they also have a Table of Contents in the PDF version this year, which they usually skip. I like it; it shows that they are not just resting on their laurels. The organization also works equally well in the HTML and the PDF versions.

The Greens also continue their streak of good organization, with their now-standard alphanumeric outlining, well suited to their relatively sprawling set of topics. It also lets them have a very neat and clean Table of Contents.

The Republicans have a very poorly designed Table of Contents, with vague and unexplained general titles. However, when we move from the ToC to the actual chapters, the organization is astonishingly good, far better than one would expect from a Major Party. Each chapter starts with an "Our Commitment" section, then has numbered points on specific topics. This is easily their best organization ever.

The Democratic Table of Contents this year is also genuine contender; it is -- astoundingly -- a clear guide to relatively specific topics. This is not quite so clear in the actual chapters themselves, where the relatively straightforward topics identified in the ToC are replaced by much less helpful sloganish section titles. The inconsistency between the two is a bit annoying.

So the Republicans this year have a bad Table of Contents but good internal chapter organization; the Democrats have a good Table of Contents but mediocre internal chapter organization. Thus it is once again a fight between the Libertarians and the Greens, and I give it to the Greens by a hair.

General Informativeness

General Informativeness is the substance category of our competition, and the one that is of greatest practical importance.

As usual, the Libertarian organization works for them, but their conciseness works against them; the platform mostly stays in a middle ground between general principle and practical policy. The Greens, on the other hand, give us the entire range from general values to particular practical policy proposals. 

The sudden Republican improvement in organization this year mostly works in their favor, by sharply reducing the symptoms of Major Party Disease, in which the platform consists of blah-blah-blah-vague-proposal-blah-blah-blah-slogan. However, they have a serious case of Solution Problem, in which the proposed solution to a problem is 'solve the problem'. For instance, their proposal to rein in government spending is "slashing Government spending". Nonetheless, this is not a consistent problem through the party platform; specific practical proposals, and even more often general outlines for specific practical proposals, do show up semi-regularly. 

The Democrats are somewhat hampered by the fact that they changed candidates after their party platform was finalized. This would not have hurt a party that made its party platform about the issues, but it very much hurts the Democratic Party Platform, which consistently frames the election as being between Biden and Trump. You wouldn't have this problem, Democrats, if you had, like the Libertarians and Greens, and even this year to some extent the Republicans, made the platform more about the party than the candidate. A party platform is neither a political ad nor a loyalty statement.

When we look more closely at the proposals in the Democratic platform, we get an appearance of very practical proposals, but a large chunk of them are things that the Biden Administration has already done; there is a sort of argument, sometimes implied, sometimes made explicit, that these kinds of things should continue to be done. And there's nothing necessarily wrong about explaining what you intend to do by occasionally giving examples of what you have done and intend to keep doing. Nonetheless, it aggravates the problem with this party platform that was already noted: it's often less a platform for a national party, which has to handle local, state, and federal politics, than an advertisement for President Biden. Pretty much all the examples are federal examples, and they are not always helpful for understanding what would be relevant for local and state politics. Usually party platforms err by being too general and vague; but this platform in many ways makes the opposite error: the examples used here make the platform often too narrow to be fully informative. However, the focus on examples does have one benefit: this platform also reduces the symptoms of Major Party Disease. It does not do so to the extent the Republican platform does, by any means, but using specific examples means there's a lot less blah-blah-blah than might be expected, particularly given the length of this platform. Likewise, while the platform doesn't avoid the Solution Problem completely, it at least has something to point to in order to give substance to its more vague proposals. It also helps them cut down the flowery prose that made their previous platform hilarious but uninformative.

This category is highly competitive this year; Libertarians and Greens both continue to be good, and Democrats and Republicans both significantly improve over the past few elections. Of the four, however, the Greens seem to have the best overall balance, so I give the category to them.

Preamble

The preamble is the glamor category of our competition, because it's the preamble that captures the spirit of the party. Nothing crowns a party platform like a good preamble.

Whoever wrote the Republican Party Platform Preamble really likes Capital Letters. Here is the Opening:

Our Nation’s History is filled with the stories of brave men and women who gave everything they had to build America into the Greatest Nation in the History of the World. Generations of American Patriots have summoned the American Spirit of Strength, Determination, and Love of Country to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges.

Other People might find this Annoying, but I confess that as Someone Who Reads Early Modern Texts I find this Charmingly Familiar. The Entire Platform is actually like this, so it is Good that they have introduced the Practice so that the Reader can get used to it. Mostly the Capital Letters are only at the Beginnings of Words, but there are two places an Entire Phrase is capitalized: we are told that the Nation is in "SERIOUS DECLINE" and that we will "DRILL, BABY, DRILL"; I'm not sure these are the Concepts one really wants to be giving the Honor of All Capitals, particularly in a Preamble, which serves to identify the Essential Issues and to express Party Optimism. This Preamble is in fact quite Negative, and although it is more Practical than Preambles usually are, its primary Emphasis is on Stopping the Democrats.

The Democratic Preamble, on the other hand, is surprisingly lean; it is not just shorter, it is much more focused on statistics and campaign slogans. It makes for less interesting reading. But it does share the property of negativity with the Republican Preamble. The primary emphasis is on stopping the Republicans. But, particularly as the Democrats focus much more on the Presidency than on general political issues in the way the Republicans do, this reads as a much weaker position for the party that has incumbency. The Democrats hold the Presidency; they shouldn't be sounding this much on the ropes, as if they were underdogs in desperate need of help.

The Greens, as is their tradition, struggle with the concept of a preamble by putting in a bunch of non-preamble preambular material. They have a Call to Action, a Preamble, the Four Pillars, and the Ten Key Values. Of these, the Call to Action should be part of the Preamble; a case could perhaps be made for keeping the Pillars and Values distinct from the Preamble, but they should at least be combined with each other. The actual Preamble is not well written; the author seems to like four- and five-syllable words as much as the Republican author liked capital letters. However, one refreshing thing about the Preamble is that for the first time in a long while it does not claim that 'Never has the country faced so many challenges'. On the contrary, it is easily the most optimistic of the preambles this year.

The Libertarians do what the Greens should have done; they have a short, clear, clean Preamble, and then a separate Statement of Principles, and that is it. It is not as optimistic as that of the Greens, but is more optimistic than those of the the other two Major Parties.

I give this category to the Libertarians, who actually seem to understand what a Preamble is and are the only party who managed to avoid any weird writing choices.

Page Formatting

The Democrats have a nicely formatted PDF this year; this is a massive improvement over their previous platforms. They have a nice header image, clear page numbers, and readable type. The Republicans take a step down this year in this category, at which they usually excel, but this is mostly for chosing a much less readable type than necessary. The Libertarians as usual have excellent page formatting on every point, and I like that their page nambers are of the "Page # of 10" format. The Greens don't have an easily discoverable PDF version, and so forfeit this category. That makes it a contest between Libertarians and Democrats; I give the victory narrowly to the Libertarians.

Principles and Values

The Greens always have Ten Key Values; they also have Four Pillars, which is nicely architectural. It's not particularly clear how Values and Pillars are related. The Libertarians have a Statement of Principles. The Major Parties again seem not to think either values, or principles, or, for that matter, pillars, are important. 

Internet Accessibility

To find the Democratic Party Platform, you have to search the Democratic Party homepage, and find a little link at the very bottom, which takes you to the Democratic Party Platform page, which has the wrong Democratic Party Platform. Yes, the Democratic Party Platform page does not have the 2024 Party Platform; it still has the 2020 Party Platform. Bad Donkeys! Take this category seriously! The Republicans, on the other hand, make their Party Platform very easy to find; it's a clearly identified link that only requires scrolling down a little bit. The link only takes you to a PDF; they have no HTML version. The Greens, on the other hand, have no easily discoverable PDF version, only an HTML version. Libertarians have a platform with both HTML and PDF versions, as all of them should. Both Libertarians and Greens have links from their main webpage, but neither make them obvious. The Libertarians, who have more than one link explicitly to the platform (although both are small, one at top and one at bottom), I think edge out the Greens, whose homepage links to the platform are not explicitly labeled as such.  Not a category in which anyone shines this year, I'm afraid, but the Libertarians come closest to making their platform as accessible as it should be.

Miscellaneous

* The Democrats once again have a Land Acknowledgement. I gave them some credit for it last time, because it gave an interesting distinctive element to their platform in a way that tied it to actual American history. It still does this. However, they botch it a bit by ending it with self-congratulation, which seems to miss the point of a Land Acknowledgement; Land Acknowledgements don't exist to congratulate yourselves on how good you are at recognizing Native American association with the land. Stop making it about you! I still give them some credit, but definitely not as much as last time.
* The Green Call to Action is as absurd as usual. "If not now, when?" This would have a great deal more impact if you didn't use it every election, because it makes it look like you're desperate.
* The Democratic Party Platform is 91 pages long in PDF. I think it probably could have been tightened up a bit. Contrast this with the Republicans, whose platform is under thirty pages, a number of which are full-page photographs or filler.
* The Republican Party Platform is written in light blue. Why would you do this to the eyes of your readers?
* The Republicans continue their tradition of dedications for their party platform: "To the Forgotten Men and Women of America". They also have a sort of epigraph before their Table of Contents.

This has been a surprisingly strong year for party platforms, which is especially nice after some relatively poor party platform years. The Major Party platforms in particular are significant improvements, and I hope that such improvements continue. I also like that both Democrats and Republicans are clearly trying new things. The experiments don't always work, but experimentation is better than continuing to do badly. Nonetheless, this year there has emerged a clear winner, by dint of narrow victories across several categories combined with no serious failures.  Congratulations, Libertarians, for winning this year's Party Platform contest. As we are not in any way subsidized, if they want a cash prize for it, they will have to earn it by free market means.

Music on My Mind

 

Leaves' Eyes, "Jomsborg".

Aquinas on the Right

 Summa Theologiae 1.57.1, my very rough translation. The Domincan Fathers translation is here, the Latin is here. This passage is quite tricky to render into English! English, unlike some European languages, has long since dropped the distinction between 'right' and 'law' -- what we call 'philosophy of law', for instance, is called 'philosophy of right' in some other languages. We usually use 'right' terms for what is sometimes called 'subjective right', not, as they would originally have been used, for 'objective right', as here. And we have no word at all that corresponds to fas; perhaps in some very limited contexts, a word like 'religion' is used in something like this sense, and in others 'divine law' or 'eternal law', but there is no consistency at all on the point. In addition, in this article Aquinas is sorting through words that are closely related, and sometimes nearly but not exactly synonymous, and the shades of similarity and difference are difficult to preserve in translation. There are also a few words that have both common meanings and technical meanings, and sometimes they are both in view.

*****

It seems that the right [ius] is not the object of justice. For the jurist Celsus says that the right is the art of the good and equitable. But an art is not the object of justice, but is by itself an intellectual virtue. Therefore the right is not the object of justice.

Further, law, as Isidore says (Etym.), is a kind of right. But law is not the object of justice, but rather of prudence; thus the Philosopher posits 'legislative' as a part of prudence. Therefore the right is not the object of justice.

Further, justice principally subordinates man to God; and Augustine says (de mor. Eccles.) that 'justice is love serving God alone, and from this ruling well all other things that are subordinate to man'. But the right does not pertain to the divine, but only to the human; thus Isidore (Etym.) says that 'the divinely ordered [fas] is divine law, but the right [ius] is human law'. Therefore the right is not the object of justice.

But contrariwise is what Isidore says, in the same, that the right [ius] is so called because it is the just [iustum]. But the just is the object of justice; thus the Philosophers says (Ethic. V) that 'all call justice the disposition by which just things are done'. Therefore the right is the object of justice.

I reply that it must be said that it is proper to justice among other virtues to order man in those things in which he is 'to the other'.  Thus it implies a sort of equality, as its name shows, so that it is commonly said that what is made adequate is just, for equality is 'to the other'. But other virtues complete man only in the things which befit him in himself. Therefore what is right [rectum] in the works of other virtues, to which the disposition of virtue tends as to its proper object, is not attributed except by comparison to the agent. But what is right [rectum] in the work of justice, besides being by comparison to the agent, is constituted by comparison to the other, so that what is said to be just in our works is that which is according to some equality to another, like the payment of a wage owed for a performed service. Therefore something is said to be just [iustum], as having the rightness [rectitudinem] of justice, which is that in which the act of justice terminates, even without considering the way it is done by the agent, but in other virtues nothing is determined to be right [rectum] save in that way that it is done by the agent. And because of this justice is specifically determined beyond other virtues according to its object, which is called 'the just' [iustum]. And this is the same as the right [ius]. Thus it is obvious that the right is the object of justice.

Therefore to the first it must be said that it is customary for names to be turned from their first imposition to another meaning, just as the name 'medicine' is in the first place imposed to mean that which is given to the sick to make them healthy, but is then applied to meaning the the art by which it is done. So also this name, 'the right', is first imposed to signify the just thing itself [ipsam rem iustam], and afterward is applied to the art which knows what is just; and further to note the place in which the right is administered, as when someone is said to be in jure; and even further to saying that the right is administered by one whose office it is to do justice, even if his judgment is wicked [iniquum].

To the second it must be said that just as there preexists some proportion [ratio] in the mind of the artisan for what is done externally by an art, which is said to be the rule of the art, so also for the just work itself there preexists in the mind some proportion [ratio] by which its proportion [ratio] is determined, as it were some rule of prudence. And if this is collected in writing, it is called law, so that law, according to Isidore, is written system [constitutio scripta]. And thus law is not the same as the right, properly speaking, but a sort of proportion of the right [ratio iuris].

To the third it must be said that because justice implies equality, but we are not able to give God equivalent recompense, therefore we cannot give what is just, according to complete proportion [secundum perfectam rationem], to God. And because of this, 'the right' [ius] is not properly said of divine law, but 'the divinely ordered' [fas], because God is satisfied if we do what we can. But justice tends toward man, insofar as he can, giving recompense to God, by totally subordinating his soul to him.

James Earl Jones, 1931-2024

 James Earl Jones died today, in Dutchess County, NY; he was 93. With his passing, it seems like an entire era has passed. He received a B.A. in drama in 1955, and did various theatre gigs before and after a stint in the U.S. Army. During the Army he became Catholic, and continued to be for the rest of his life. After some moderate success on stage, he had his film debut with Dr. Strangelove in 1964 (Kubrick had liked his stage portrayal of Othello), but his career really began to take off with his role in 1970 with The Great White Hope (he had starred in the stage version a few years earlier). He was quite busy from then on, but of course had his most iconic voice role in 1977, when he was dubbed in for Darth Vader in Star Wars. It was an uncredited role, as would be the same role in Empire Strikes Back, and the first movie earned Jones a grand total of $7000, although he did receive credit in The Return of the Jedi. (Jones himself would always say that he didn't think of it as an ordinary acting role, but more as a contribution to special effects, so he didn't mind not being credited for it, but by the third movie thought he might as well be, given that everyone knew it was him, anyway.) But this was far from Jones's peak as an actor; he contributed to a long string of very successful movies in the 80s and 90s, becoming one of the most recognizable actors of the era. 

In the past several years, James Earl Jones signed a few contracts to allow certain rights-holders to continue to use his voice, as imitated by computer software, for new parts. But the world is less for the loss of the warmhearted and famously approachable man behind the voice.

And Lots of Little Things Like That

 Ballade of Capital
by G. K. Chesterton 

 The Earth is full of mud and meat,
And malt and salt and sand and spice,
And ships and shells and sugar-beet,
And bread at the Imperial price,
And glass and brass and rum and rice,
And oak and talc and turtle-fat,
And fire and snow and sea and ice,
And lots of little things like that. 

 And all these things we meet --
Are capital: and should suffice
(You say) to do us quite a treat --
As if you and I have each a slice --
… But one whose clothes could scarce entice
Held recently a ragged hat
In which you put the best advice
And lots of little things like that. 

 I own the scheme is very neat,
I do not think it very nice
That we should own the blooming street
With all the people poor as mice.
I have old views: that loaded dice
Are “wrong”, and even Tit-for-tat
“Heathen”, that virtue is not vice --
And lots of little things like that. 

 Envoi
 Prince, Pharoah trounced them in a trice,
The poor that groaned at him: whereat
God sent him flies and frogs and lice
And lots of little things like that.

Fortnightly Book, September 8

 The Jomsvikings were a semi-legendary and highly selective military fraternity in the tenth and eleventh centuries, famed for their fearlessness. They were headquartered in Jomsborg; we don't know exactly where that is, but it was somewhere on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, often thought to be near modern-day Wolin in Poland. They were mercenaries selling the services of their well-organized navy at the highest prices. The order began its decline in the 980s when they were on the losing end of some very disastrous battles in the tug-of-war struggle for power between Norway and Denmark. One of these battles was the Battle of Hjǫrungavágr, which is significant for Scandinavian literature, because quite a few Icelanders fought on the Norwegian side against the Danes and the Jomsvikings, and then went back to tell and write stories about it, several of which were preserved. One of these is the next fortnightly book: The Saga of the Jomsvikings, which focuses on their founding and then on the Battle of Hjǫrungavágr.

Hartmann von Aue, Arthurian Romances, Tales, and Lyric Poetry

 Introduction

Opening Passage: From the Gregorius:

My heart has often compelled my tongue to speak much of things that seek worldly reward. My naive years advised it thus. Now this I know to be true indeed: whoever in his youth trusts the scheming of hell's jailer, and, trusting in his youth, sins and says to himself: you are still a young man; there is still plenty of help for all your wrongdoings; you can certainly do penance for them in your old age -- such a person thinks other than he should. These thoughts will easily vanish when the common fate of us all hinders his will to repent, in that bitter death takes vengenace on his earlier way of thinking, cutting short his life with a sudden end. Bereft of grace, he has then chosen the worse course. And even if we were born of Adam, at the time fo Abel, and were to preserve his soul unmarred by sin until Judgment Day, he still would not have done enough to gain eternal life that has no beginning and will also never pass. (pp. 167-168)

Summary: Besides a number of smaller poems that mostly relate crusading and wooing, and the Lament, an apparently early longer work that involves a debate between the body and the heart in matters of love, the works of Hartmann von Aue are Erec, Gregorius, Poor Heinrich, and Iwein. They are all knightly romances. Erec and Iwein are Arthurian romances, and, in fact, are translations and adaptations of earlier Arthurian romances by Chretien de Troyes. Gregorius and Poor Heinrich are non-Arthurian. All four deal with knights who find themselves having to navigate situations far outside the ordinary regions of life.

Erec, the first Arthurian romance to be written in German, follows the adventures of a young knight named Erec, who is humiliated in front of Queen Guinevere by the dwarf of a knight named Iders; Erec attempts to trace down the knight, but as he does so, he spends the night at the house of a nobleman named Coralus, where he meets Coralus's beautiful daughter, Enite. He also learns about an upcoming Sparrowhawk Tournament, in which a sparrowhawk is given as a prize to the knight who successfully proves in battle that his lady is the most beautiful; he learns, moreover, that Iders is participating in the tournament. Borrowing armor from Coralus, he defeats Iders in the tournament, proving Enite the most beautiful lady; they marry and return to Erec's home city, Karnant, where Erec becomes ruler. However, as often happens, the life of ease turns out to be bad for Erec; he spends so much time with his wife that he neglects his duty as a ruler. Erec eventually learns that even Enite thinks he has deteriorated, so he sets out for adventure, taking Enite with him but forbidding her to speak to him. This rule she breaks several times, each time saving his life. They have several adventures, ending with Erec fighting and defeating a powerful knight named Mabonagrin in order to save the widows of eighty knights whom Mabonagrin has killed. Erec defeats the knight and tehrefore is able to return with this honor to the court of King Arthur.

Gregorius tells the story of Gregorius, a knight who discovers that his parents are actually only his by adoption,a dn sets out to learn more about his biological parents, discovering, to his horror, that his parents were brother and sister; that is, Gregorius is the child of incest. He attempts to rise above this by knightly deeds, which lead him to meet the woman who will eventually become his wife. Unfortunately, an accident reveals that she is in fact his mother. This horrifying discovery leads Gregorius to live his life as a holy hermit, living chained living the penitential life on a rock in on an isolated rock in the middle of a large lake. Seventeen years go by, and in Rome, God reveals to some of the clergy that the next Pope will be discovered on a rock in Aquitaine. They find Gregorius there and he becomes Pope.

Der arme Heinrich is about a knight, Heinrich, from Ouwe (Aue), who is a paragon of knightly virtues but is struck by leprosy. He does not take it well, and after consulting every doctor he can, he discovers that there is one and only one cure: the life-blood from the heart of a virgin, freely given. That seems as good as saying that cure is impossible, so Heinrich goes to stay with one of his caretakers, the only person who does not completely shun him for his leprosy. The daughter of the caretaker becomes taken with Heinrich, and when she learns what the cure is, offers her own life so that he might be healed. Being an extremely obstinate and eloquent girl, she manages to convince both Heinrich and her parents that it is useless to try to stop her. They find a doctor, who is for obvious reasons very reluctant to perform this operation; but he too is eventually persuaded. However, Heinrich through a crack in the door sees the girl lying on the table, and is struck by guilt; he prevents the operation, saying that this has made him accept his leprosy. The girl is just as obstinate as she was, and berates him as a coward, but he does not relent. However, as they return to Ouwe, Heinrich's leprosy unexpectedly clears, and Heinrich and the girl marry.

Iwein is the story of Iwein (Ywain), cousin of Gawain, who sets out to avenge the defeat of another cousin, Kalogrenant, at the hands of the knight Askalon. He does so, killing Askalon, but is trapped in Askalon's castle. He only manages to escape with the help of Lunete, the handmaiden of Askalon's wife, Laudine. Iwein happens to see Laudine, however, and falls in love with her; he wins her hand in marriage with the help of Lunete, who convinces Laudine that there is no one else who can provide better protection. However, Gawain notes that Iwein is not adventuring as he used to; he is turning out, in fact, to be something like Erec, so Iwein heads out to see what might befall, but only after having given Laudine a promise that he would return by a year and a day from the time he left; in a sense the year-and-a-day is the time after which a man is legally dead and someone else can usurp his estate, so if he does not return by then, he will have failed as protector. However, Iwein gets so caught up in the tournaments he is attending that he misses the deadline. Lunete brings Laudine's complaint before the Round Table itself, and Iwein is dishonored. Having lost wife, estate, and knightly honor, Iwein goes mad and becomes a wild man, from which state he is rescued by the Lady of Narison, who happens to have a magic salve made by Morgan le Fay, which heals him. In return, he helps her, but he refuses from that point on either to become ruler or to marry, and among his adventures he ends up rescuing a lion from a dragon. The lion becames a loyal companion, so Iwein becomes known far and wide as the Knight with the Lion. He eventually discovers that Lunete has been sentenced to death, and so he defends her innocence in trial by combat, which he is able to do in part with the help of the lion. Through a further set of adventures, Iwein undertakes to help another woman in trial by combat; she is in a dispute with her sister over inheritance. The sister's champion turns out to be exceptionally good, and their fight goes on and on, until nightfall requires the finish of it to be postponed to the next day. By chance, Iwein discovers that his opponent is actually Gawain; King Arthur comes to the rescue by Solomoning the situation, asking the older sister a question that gives her away and proves the younger sister right. Thus Iwein is allowed back into court, but it takes Lunete to trick Laudine into giving Iwein a chance again, which she does by setting up a situation in which Laudine, who does not know Iwein's new identity, to help the Knight with the Lion in regaining his lady's favor. They renew their marriage and live happily ever after.

All of the stories are concerned with honor, of course, but they are also concerned in great measure with the power of love to face adversity, even the most terrible -- a power that love very much needs, because human nature being as it is, without that power, love could not survive humanity itself. We in our folly and failing guarantee that love will face adversity. But love is not conquered by our folly and failing.

Favorite Passage: From the Iwein:

Looking farther, he saw a beautiful big hall, which he and the girl inspected without finding a soul there. He followed a side path leading to a road that went past the hall. Searching carefully, he noticed some stairs. They took him to a huge park, more beautiful than any he had ever seen. There he saw an old knight lying comfortably on a couch, with which the goddess Juno, in her greatest splendor, would have been pleased. The beautiful flowers, the fresh grass enveloped him in a sweet aroma -- it was a pleasant place for the knight to be lying. He was handsomely mature, and in front of him sat a lady who was doubtless his wife. For all their advanced years the pair could not have been more handsome nor have acted with greater dignity. In front of them, in turn, sat a girl who, so I've been told, could read French very well and was entertaining them by doing so. Often she made them laugh. Because she was their daugther they thought whatever she read was fine. It is right to praise a girl who has good manners, beauty, noble birth, youth, wealth, modesty, kindness, and good sense. She had all this and everything else which one could wish for in a woman -- besides which she could read very well. (pp. 303-304)

Recommendation: Recommended.

*****

Hartmann von Aue, Arthurian Romances, Tales, and Lyric Poetry: The Complete Works of Hartmann von Aue, Tobin, Vivian, and Lawson, trs., The Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park, PA: 2001).