Arcadia England

Over orientation, a number of our students wandered down to the West End to watch Stomp. This musical event was part of our Life of the Mind: Rhythms of the World series. Next week, our first Talk of the Town! focuses on poetry within London. And then, later in the semester,  a large group of our students will be going to watch Billy Elliot, The Musical. All of these events focus on rhythm, which ties in nicely to our Life of the Mind series.

Throughout Arcadia, 2014-2015 is dedicated to the exploration of cultures through music and rhythm in all its forms. Be it through a musical based upon the importance of freedom of expression through dance, or through a visit whose history is so closely intertwined with music.

Dr Richard Maguire, one of our faculty members here in London, has tackled the theme from a different perspective...

England’s Heartbeat

Can you take England’s pulse? Could you hold England by the wrist and feel its insistent beat-beat through your fingers? Or is its pulse racing in anger and disappointment as the England football squad comes home hanging its head in national shame. Or has its pulse slowed in the lethargy of summer heat, parklife and ice-cream? Or is the beat steady like the sound of the balls against tennis rackets at Wimbledon?

What is London’s pulse?

Arcadia’s Life of the Mind Series is concentrating on Rhythms of the World this year. While the series focuses on the music and sound of the cities, we in London have decided to think slightly out-of-the-box, and ponder on other rhythms of the city. This could be the noise of the perpetual traffic: that steady grumble of cars and buses with the occasional car alarm or police siren penetrating the white noise. Or the rhythm could be the swish of tube trains travelling the arteries of the city bringing fresh blood into every corner of the capital.  Or is the rhythm in your own swaying to and fro as you stand in a tube carriage at rush hour hanging on to the rails above your head being careful not to touch any of your fellow passengers. You may take the bus, and the rhythm is intermittent, and irregular: you can’t get going, it’s all stop and start.

You create your own rhythms in London. You map your own pulses. In the morning you may go to work or come to class: in the ebb of the evening, you mirror the same journey as you make your way home. Do you make the exact same journey in reverse or do you create minor adjustments like walking on the other side of the street in order to visit Tesco Metro or Sainsbury Local? Are you always in a rush, or is the return journey a mellower affair? Do you saunter or do you hustle? It’s your personal rhythm, a bio-rhythm, if you will.

What does have its own regular rhythm is the English language. The great writers William Shakespeare and John Milton wrote in iambic pentameter: lines of verse with usually ten syllables, a stress falling on very other syllable:  unstress/stress, unstress/stress, unstress/stress, unstress/stress, unstress/stress. Or in other words ‘ da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM’. Or in Shakespeare’s question ‘shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ Iambic pentameter is more common than you think. We often speak in iambic pentameter without really thinking about it. It’s a familiar rhythm: we position around breaths around them while talking, it seems comfortable. Some thinkers have said that the rhythm reminds us of our mother’s heartbeat when we were in the womb. It’s welcoming. It’s home.

So perhaps in spite of the football, the tennis and the summer England’s pulse, like its language, is constant like a heart-beat. It forever keeps calm and carries on.

What is your rhythm of the city? Or how would you take England’s pulse?'