From 1960 to 1967, I attended a boarding school in the Republic of Ireland. I read a lot of extracurricular sf. (About twenty years later, I taught in a school in England where an English class read Fahrenheit 451.) My reading included Poul Anderson although he was not on my top list yet. In those days, the must read authors were Heinlein, Asimov, Blish and Simak. I privately read retellings of Norse mythology which was a good preparation for Anderson's heroic fantasies.
In Latin class, we read some Caesar and Virgil and I was delighted to learn that Romulus was supposed to be descended from Aeneas, thus that Rome was a sequel to Troy. This was good preparation for certain Time Patrol stories and also for The King Of Ys. In fact, we translated a sentence about the younger Scipio rescuing his father in battle. I reflected that Manse Everard had to be nearby.
In History class, we learned that each newly installed Holy Roman Emperor had to trek down into Italy to sort out the Pope and the Italian states, which finally leads us to:
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I remember how, in one of my old history books for what is called 'high school" in the States, the chapter about the Holy Roman Empire for a textbook ended with the author suggesting it would have been better for the Empire if the Emperors had not so often gotten entangled in Italian politics. That if the Emperors had been content to focus mostly in German and central European affairs, then it would have become a united and powerful realm. Might that have been better for the world if there had been no "Reformation," no Thirty Years War, no Bismarck, no Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, etc.? Impossible to tell!
Ad astra! Sean
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