George the Dragon Slayer

I don't know how it started, but I've been an Anglophile since about grade school.  It may have been something I read or heard about England at school or saw on TV.

When I served in the U.S. Air Force, I was fortunate to be stationed two and a half years in England, not far from Cambridge, from 1991 to 1994.  I made some English friends there and went back for 2 weeks to visit in the summer of 1996. 

I spent time in various corners of England, meeting a lot of different people, from London in the south to Chester and York in the north.  English people who live in or near London tend to be a little cold.  (The English who live in other parts of England feel the same way about those southerners.)  And, the English who live near the American air bases aren't all too friendly with the American airmen.  But the farther one gets from London - and American military installations - the warmer and friendlier the people are. 

I experienced this when I rented a car and drove to visit an English friend in Birmingham, in what's called the West Midlands.  (By the way, driving on the other side of the road is not hard once you get the hang of it.)  I got lost in Birmingham and stopped to ask some workmen for directions.  They recognized my American accent immediately and began asking me questions about where in America I was from, how did I like England, etc.  After the unfriendliness I typically experienced in the south, the kindliness of those men was kind of a shock.  But, it was a nice shock.

Winter in England is long, dark and rainy, but spring and summer can be glorious.  When I think of summer in England I think of sunny days with fluffy white clouds casting moving shadows across vast fields of yellow rape flowers.

But I remember more of England than just those few years.  I remember the 14th century England of Geoffrey Chaucer, thanks to his great collection of stories called Canterbury Tales.  From Chaucer we know that the climate in southern England was warm enough in his time that grape wine was produced.  He doesn't mention any hysteria about climate change. 

I also remember the England of William Shakespeare (16th century), of William Wordsworth and Charles Dickens (19th century), and of George Orwell and Winston Churchill (20th century).  Thanks to the wonderful and prolific literary output of English writers down through the centuries, I and many readers can know that nation in her many ages.

April 23rd is the feast day of Saint George, who is the patron saint of England.  George was a Greek who lived in the 3rd century and never set foot in England.  Magnificat magazine sums up Saint George's connection with English history nicely: 

Saint George was martyred at Lydda (Israel) around 303, in the persecution of Diocletian.  His cult, as a soldier who died for the faith, predates the legend of his slaying the dragon, and spread quickly through both East and West.  During the crusades, George was seen to personify the ideals of Christian chivalry, and he was adopted as patron saint of several city-states and countries including England.  King Richard I placed his crusading army under his protection, and in 1222 his feast was proclaimed a holiday.

The Book of Revelation in the Bible describes Satan as a dragon.  Considering the spiritual warfare that Christians are engaged in with the Enemy (which we ultimately win because of Jesus Christ's death and resurrection), all Christians are dragon slayers.

April 23rd is also the anniversary of William Shakespeare's death (1616).  I took a senior-level seminar on Shakespeare at college and it was a great experience.  We read and analyzed 6 of his plays.  I read each of the assigned plays twice because I got so much more out of the second reading.  Also, it being a high level seminar, we students were expected to come prepared to contribute to the general discussion.  After analyzing each of the plays, we watched a film version of that particular play.  It was an intellectually challenging course for me.  Our professor, Dr. Sandra Patterson-Randles, was Chair of the English Department at my college and she demanded a lot from us. I worked harder in her courses than in any others.

There is so much more I could write about my time in England and my love for her history and literature.  England is a relatively small nation of around 53 million people.  However, England's people and history have made a disproportionate impact on the world's imagination.

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Death Be Not Proud

by John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.