If you start me up
If you start me up I'll never stop
-The Rolling Stones (Song Here)
Darkness all around, complete silence. A long-overdue sense of serenity. Total Relaxat--
RIIIINNNG.
-Hello?
-Hello, this is your 9:00 A.M. Wake-up-call.
-Ok, thanks.
I don't know what time I fell asleep the previous night, but it was early. We were all exhausted from the traveling. Being dead as a door-nail for that long never felt so good. But, it was time to get up and at 'em. The city of London awaited us! (More importantly, we had class at 11:00 that morning)
We awoke to typical London weather: grey skies, damp street, and a high chance of rain.
The street our Hotel abuts.
After eating a proper breakfast, we had our first class. We began our study of Literary London by reading the prologue to the Canterbury Tales in Middle English, as well as a sampling of poems about London across the centuries. These poems included A Description of a City Shower (1710) by Jonathan Swift, London (1794) by William Blake, Lines Written in Kensington Gardens (1852) by Matthew Arnold, The Burial of the Dead (1922) by T.S. Eliot, and, my favorite, London Calling (1979) by "The Clash". As an aside, if you haven't heard the Canterbury Tales spoken in Middle English, it's something else. Listen to it here.
We then broke for lunch, and reconvened to travel to the Victoria and Albert Museum, abbreviated the V&A Museum. Prior to our excursion to the V&A Museum, I was unsure as to the content of the Museum's collection. Upon arriving, I was taken aback by the diversity of the collection. There were sections for all eras!
The Courtyard of the V&A
The blown-glass piece that overhangs the main lobby.
The first section I visited with the group was the "Faiths and Empires" section. There, we saw many relics from the early worshippers of Christianity: crosses, prayer books, and hymn books.
Crosses from ~1000 C.E.
Tabernacle, ~1180 C.E.
An Effigy of a Knight, Mid 1300's C.E.
A Choir Book, late 1300's C.E.
What was most impressive from that section, however, was the Becket Casket, a commemorative box that celebrated the martyrdom of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. His murder caused Canterbury to become a holy site for pilgrims, and sparked pilgrimages like those depicted in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
The Becket Casket.
We then took a trip upstairs to find an artifact we heard of in passing: a stage costume worn by Mick Jagger of "The Rolling Stones". On our way there, we passed two awesome statues of Samson, the biblical figure who defeated an entire army with the jawbone of a donkey.
Statue 1
Statue 2
Once upstairs, I split from the rest of the group to see the museum's collection of stained glass windows. I have been a fan of stained glass ever since visiting Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris four years ago. To date, this was the largest collection of glass art I have seen, with a huge variety of pieces all over the room.
Moreover, prior to today, I did not know that there was a whole separate classification for the more detailed 16th century glass art, called "Painted Glass". As it happened, my two favorite pieces in the collection were Painted Glass: The Patriarch Jacob with the Mess of Pottage, and of the Tower of Babel.
Jacob with the Mess of Pottage
The Building of the Tower of Babel
Upon exiting the glass art collection I was greeted with the theater and performance collection. As a musician, I was extremely excited to see multiple pieces of rock memorabilia included among the collection. These included a poster from the Isle of Wight Festival, T-Shirts from British Bands, and the one-piece costume that Mick Jagger wore on the Rolling Stones' 1972 tour that we were seeking out.
Can You Work Out The 13 Beatles Song Titles Hidden In This Poster?
Mick Jagger's One-Piece from 1972
However, the crowning jewel among that collection, in my opinion, was one victim of Pete Townshend's "Auto-Destructive Art": a "smashed-up" Les Paul electric guitar. As a fan of the Who since my mid-adolescence, this was awe-inspiring to behold.
Rock and Roll history here, folks.
I was extremely glad to have been able to see these collections in person!
After our excursion to the museum, we had our first group dinner, at a nice pub. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a group picture there. Sorry! Nevertheless, it was a nice way to officially start the trip, without the jetlag and all.
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