MINERVA SYSTEMS

Pantes anthropoi tou eidenai oregontai phusei. semeion d' he ton aistheseon agapesis: kai gar choris tes chreias agapontai d' hautas... ("Everyone by nature desires to have knowledge. A sign of this is our love of the senses; aside from their usefulness we love them for themselves..." --Aristotle, Metaphysics I.1) (Illustration: Athens in the nineteenth century, from an old engraving)

WELCOME TO MINERVA SYSTEMS

Welcome to Minerva Systems, an enterprise created by Dr. Cora Angier Sowa. It is a product of the author's longtime search for connections between the aesthetic and the technological. It is also devoted to examining the continuity of influence of Greek and Roman Classical civilization, and to exploring how ancient insights can be applied to today's world. Athena -- the Roman Minerva -- was, we remember, the patroness both of intellectual wisdom and of crafts and technology. This site presents a selection of writings by the author on some interconnected topics: Classical literature, computers and humanities, myths of machines, music, movies, architecture, and technology, and the aesthetic appreciation of the marvels of the built environment.

Dr. Cora Angier Sowa

Athena - the Roman Minerva - was goddess of both intellectual wisdom and technical crafts. Accompanied by her owl, she was also protector of the city of Athens.

MINERVA participation in the Chicago Colloquia on Digital Humanities

The Reliance Building, at State and Washington Streets in Chicago, picture taken during the joint meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America and the American Philological Association, held in Chicago in January, 2008. (Photo by C.A. Sowa.)

The Reliance Building, like the MINERVA System, was built on principles of modularity and extensibility.

The Reliance Building, an incredible little jewel in the middle of Chicago's Loop, was not all built at once. When the developer acquired the site in 1882, it was occupied by a five-story building. The leases on the lower two floors expired in 1890, those on the top three in 1894. So, as the first leases expired, the architects Daniel H. Burnham and John Wellborn Root demolished the first two floors, and, jacking up the top three storeys, replaced the demolished floors with the first two floors of the new building. When the remaining leases expired, the top floors of the old building were demolished, and replaced with new floors, designed by Charles Atwood, Root having died. The number of floors eventually grew to fifteen, made of identical structural modules and clad in graceful terracotta, giving the building the perfect proportions that it has today, somewhat overwhelmed, unfortunately, by the gigantism of the surrounding modern buildings.

Today, the Reliance Building, after years of neglect (shabby but still showing her noble "bones"), has been reborn as a boutique hotel, called the Burnham, with an excellent restaurant, the Atwood, on its ground floor, the names being chosen as an homage to its architects.

The Fourth Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities and Computer Science is announced

The fourth Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities will be held at the Illinois Institute of Technology on November 14-16, 2009. MINERVA will be attending. As described in the call for papers,

The theme of this year's Chicago DHCS Colloquium is "Critical Computing", seeking to explore how productive research collaborations between computer scientists and humanists can be most effective.

• How might computation provide new critical tools for humanists?
• How might humanists help us understand the real meaning and import of computational results?

Previous DHCS Colloquia and MINERVA offerings: Previous Colloquia, which MINERVA attended, were held at the University of Chicago (2006), Northwestern University (2007), and again at the University of Chicago (2008). Click on the buttons on the right to read the complete MINERVA presentations. 2006 The theme of the first Colloquium (2006)was "What to do with a Million books," posing the problem that, now that all the world's libraries have been put in digital form, what do we do with them? MINERVA Systems presented a demonstration showing the capabilities of MINERVA as a set of tools for carrying out a project to study a work of literature, using digital methods. 2007 The emphasis of the second Colloquium (2007) was on using digital materials in a collaborative environment, and on discerning what studies are better undertaken by using digitized versions of materials such as images and text than by using the original non-digitized sources. The MINERVA demonstration for 2007 highlighted new additions to the Systems Analysis Tutorial/Project Planner, which aid the user in steps to planning and carrying out a project in an organized way. These techniques are adapted from the commercial and scientific fields, where teams of persons who may be working in distant locations must coordinate their efforts. 2008 The theme of the third Colloquium (2008) was "'Making Sense'- an exploration of how meaning is created and apprehended at the transition of the digital and the analog." "Sense-making" is a field concerned with finding meaning in vaguely defined material. As usual, this third Colloquium brought together a terrific group of diverse scholars and students working in different areas of computer applications. These included not only literary and sociological studies, but such inventive applications as a study of different musical genres (country, gospel, blues, hip hop, heavy metal, etc.) to see which body parts (head, heart, hand, etc.) are mentioned most often, and three-dimensional recreations of archaeological and historic sites, including a study of pedestrian traffic patterns in an ancient Turkish town destroyed by Cyrus the Great. You can learn more about the Colloquium on its Web site at http://dhcs.uchicago.edu. Minerva Systems submitted a paper to the third Colloquium, "A Bridge Across the Culture Gap: Build Your Own Project Using the Minerva System for Study of Literary Texts", which was given as a handout to all who were interested. Additions to the MINERVA System emphasized the need to serve "the great unserved middle," between the Luddites and the Rocket Scientists, of scholars and students, who would like to be introduced to elements of logical analysis and computerized methods.

Read the MINERVA demos and handouts from the 2006, 2007, and 2008 Colloquia. Click on the buttons below to see the coomplete MINERVA handouts.

The Chicago River, from the Michigan Avenue Bridge, January, 2008. (Photo by C.A. Sowa.)

QUOTATIONS OF THE MONTH

Every month there will be a new classical or other quotation in this space, appropriate to the season or to current events. Previous quotations (beginning in September, 2004) are archived in "Archived Quotations of the Month". For a list of these quotations, see below under "Archived Quotations."

Translations are my own, except where otherwise noted.

Do you have a suggestion for a future Quotation of the Month? If so, send me your suggestions.

Quotation for June 2009: Inspired by the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, we cite Athena's judgment in favor of Orestes in Aeschylus' Eumenides

The judgment of a wise woman

The abundantly well-qualified Judge Sonia Sotomayor, nominated by President Barack Obama to the U.S. Supreme Court, has left her conservative opponents scrambling for some flaw in her character. Judge Sotomayor would not only be one of a minuscule number of women to have served on the Court, she would be its first Latino (or Latina) member. Her foes have fastened on a remark of hers that they claim proves her lack of impartiality and hence unfitness for the position, in which she famously said,

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life."

Of course, if our life experiences were not brought to bear on all our actions and decisions, there would be little purpose in having any experience at all. Funny that no one ever thought that white male judges might not be influenced by some of their own backgrounds and life's journeys. Come to think of it, if we want a strict, mechanical, robotic interpretation of the law, which would be the same no matter who the judges were, why do we need nine redundant judges in the first place? Actually, Judge Sotomayor's judicial decisions in the lower courts have been quite centrist and non-ideological, not as her opponents would have us believe.

Athena and the Areopagus

We are reminded of the most famous female judge of all, the goddess Athena, as depicted in Aeschylus Eumenides, in which she finds Orestes not guilty in the murder of his mother, Clytaemnestra. Athena, too, did not decide the case in the way that might have been predicted.

In the first two plays of Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy, the Agamemnon and the Choephoroi (Libation Bearers), Orestes has killed his mother Clytaemnestra in retribution for her murder of his father Agamemnon on his return from the Trojan War. For this matricide, Orestes is pursued by the Furies (Erinyes). In the final play, the Eumenides (Kindly Goddesses), Orestes is told by Apollo's oracle at Delphi to seek justice in Athens. Athena herself undertakes the case, but chooses a jury of wise Athenian citizens, the Council of the Areopagus ("Ares' Hill"), to help her judge Orestes' guilt or innocence, in the very first trial for homicide. Athena's vote is for acquittal, and the trial ends in a tie, acquitting Orestes. In siding with the father' (Agamemnon's) interests rather than the mother's (Clytaemnestra's), Athena cites the fact that "no mother gave her birth," because she was born only of her father, Zeus. The Furies are mollified by being honored henceforth as the Eumenides, the "Kindly Goddesses."

The Council of the Areopagus was a real court in Athens, very ancient and aristocratic, which had special jurisdiction over homicide, but had otherwise lost much of its power by Aeschylus' time. It was, however, much revered by nostalgic conservatives. Athena is literally correct but disingenuous in denying that any mother bore her. In Hesiod's Theogony we learn that she had a mother, Metis ("Good Counsel"), whom Zeus swallowed when she was pregnant with Athena so that she would not bear a son who would depose him, but she would remain inside him to give him advice. The best-known myth has Zeus give birth to Athena from his head (see the illustration above). Here are Athena's words in the Eumenides:

It is my duty now to render the final judgment. I add this my vote, casting it for Orestes. There is no mother who gave birth to me, but I approve the male entirely, except in marriage, with all my heart, and I am strongly on the father's side. Thus I shall not inflict a greater penalty for the death of a wife who killed her husband, the overseer of her house. Orestes wins, even if the decision is by equal votes. Quickly cast out the votes from the urns, all to whom as judges this task has been given. —Aeschylus Eumenides 734-743

Archived Quotations

Earlier quotations, appropriate to current situations as indicated, available under "Archived Quotations," are:

2009

• May 2009: Inspired by the current hysteria about "swine flu," we quote Pindar's impassioned defense against the slur "Boeotian pig."
• April 2009: Ovid, in the Fasti, wonders about the name of the month of April; why is it not named for Venus? (Perhaps it is named for Aphrodite, the Greek counterpart of Venus?)
• March 2009: As we are reminded by the task of cleaning up the world's crises, Heracles had to clean up the Augeian stables, whose vastness is described by Theocritus.
• February 2009: For the financial meltdown and other follies, wisdom from a Cretan knife ("Don't take a trip with your mind unless you see a road...").
• January 2009: For the inauguration of President Barack Obama, Vergil's prediction of a new Golden Age in his Fourth Eclogue.

2008

• December 2008: The poet Horace tells us that when it is snowing outside we should stay in and party.
• November 2008: For Thanksgiving: The poet Catullus dedicates a dependable old boat that is to be retired, in thanks for a safe voyage.
• October 2008: For non-participants in the fall sports events, The philosopher Seneca salutes the unathletic nerd.
• August-September 2008: A review of the movie WALL-E, a robot love story, and a quotation from Homer's Iliad.
• July '08 To honor the birth of a daughter to a man in Oregon, we celebrate the seer Teiresias, who turned into a woman, then back into a man, as told in Ovid's Metamorphoses
• June '08 for the summer solstice, a tipsy celebrant looks at the heavens in Ovid's Fasti.
• May '08: Inflation, Roman style: Janus complains of the devaluation of the old currency in Ovid's Fasti.
• April '08: Suggested by the accursed Red Sox T-shirt buried under Yankee Stadium, a poem by Horace calling down shipwreck on a rival.
• March '08 For the"March Madness" basketball championships, Nausicaa and her maidens play ball in the Odyssey
• February '08 For Valentines' Day, a love poem by Sappho: the poetess "falls to pieces" (à la Patsy Cline) when she sees the object of her desire.
• January '08 Women warriors in Herodotus, suggested by the candidates in the U.S. presidential election, featuring Artemisia's valor at Salamis.

2007

• December '07 Catullus presents his friend Cornelius (Nepos) with a gift of his poems, for the end-of-year gift-giving season.
• November '07 Hesiod tells the farmer how to get ready for winter, with emphasis on equipment-making and "personnel decisions" (employ only older women, men, and oxen; they aren't easily distracted).
• October '07 Theophrastus on "The Superstitious Man," for Halloween and El Dia de los Muertos.
• September '07 Tacitus on good generals vs. bad emperors, suggested by the war in Iraq.
• August '07 Horace's Journey to Brundisium on the Appian Way, the "ancient Roman Interstate Highway System," suggested by America's collapsing infrastructure.
• July '07 a sorceress performs magic in a poem by Theocritus, in honor of the Harry Potter film and book.
• June '07 Pindar's Sixth Olympian, in honor of the filly Rags to Riches' winning the Belmont Stakes.
• May '07 Hermes, son of Maia, steals Apollo's cattle and plays other tricks (from the Homeric Hymn to Hermes)
• April '07 Daphne turns into a laurel tree in Ovid's Metamorphoses, for Arbor Day.
• March '07 some friendly snakes from Ovid's Metamorphoses, for St. Patrick's Day and the beginning of Spring.
• February '07 Song of the Bacchantes from Euripides' Bacchae, for Mardi Gras.
• January '07 Janus opens the year in a quotation from Ovid's Fasti.

2006

• December '06 for the Saturnalia, quotations from Catullus and Vergil's Aeneid (on the Golden Age of Saturn).
• November '06 For Veterans' Day, a quotation from Horace's Odes on courage and patriotism.
• October '06 the rainy stars of the Hyades in autumn, from Hesiod's Works and Days.
• September '06 The god Pluto, his planet, and his dog. Quotations from Aeschylus (Pluto's gold-flowing river); Plato (the name "Pluto" ("the Wealthy One") as a euphemism for the God of the Underworld); Euripides (Cerberus, Pluto's three-headed guard dog).
• August '06 the god Pan and the Persians at Marathon, from Herodotos' Histories: (Pheidippides, who ran to Sparta for aid to Athens, and the runner who carried the news of the victory at Marathon were two different messengers, but are often confused -- and neither of them fell down dead; these guys were professionals, after all!)
• July '06 a warning about the dangers of disturbing Pan at mid-day, from Theocritus' Idyll I.
• June '06 Ovid's story (from the Fasti, or "Roman Calendar") about how June was named for the goddess Juno -- if it wasn't named for one or another rival goddess!
• May '06 Quotation for Memorial Day: Excerpts from Pericles' Funeral Oration (for the Athenian war dead), in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War.
• April '06 Quotations for Earth Day: Gaia in Hesiod's Theogony and Homeric Hymn III to Earth, Mother of All.
• March '06 The story of Romulus and Remus, twin sons of Mars, for whom the month of March is named, from Ovid's Fasti.
• January-February '06 Quotations about Blacks in antiquity for Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Black History Month (from Homer, Vergil, Terence).

2005

• December '05 A quotation on sacred trees for the Winter Solstice, Christmas, and other winter holidays from Horace (on the dedication of a pine tree to Diana).
• November '05 A quotation (and pictures) for Halloween, El Dia de los Muertos, and Thanksgiving; Ovid on the Lemuria -- a kind of Roman Halloween -- and some artesian wells in South Dakota.
• October '05 A quotation for Columbus Day from Horace on the perils of a sea voyage.
• September '05 A quotation from the Roman satirist Juvenal suggested by Hurricane Katrina. (After a disaster, the rich get richer and the poor are left homeless.)
• August '05 A quotation for the dog days of summer (from Hesiod's Works and Days, on sex-crazed women and weak men),
• July '05: a patriotic quotation for the Fourth of July (Livy on Cincinnatus, role model for the Founding Fathers of the U.S.),
• June '05: summer vacation (Horace on enjoying life and being silly),
• May '05: the Kentucky Derby (Pindar's victory ode for King Hieron's horse Pherenikos),
• April '05: Income Tax deadline (April 15) (Hesiod on honest work vs. corruption),
• March '05: the first day of spring (Vergil and Tibullus),
• February '05: Valentine's Day (Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite),

2004

• December '04, January '05: Saturnalia and the start of winter (a festive quotation from Catullus and a chilly one from Hesiod),
• November '04: Election Day (Aristophanes on the Bloviating Politico),
• October '04: "Doublespeak" and government propaganda (Thucydides),
• September '04: a lament for the war dead from Aeschylus ("Ares the moneychanger" exchanges live warriors for urns of dust).

A VICTORIAN COMPUTER LIVES AGAIN! WATCH A REPLICA OF CHARLES BABBAGE'S ENGINE IN ACTION

Reconstruction of one of Babbage's engines at the Computer History Museum, Mountain View, California. Click on the picture to watch it in action. (Photo by J.F. Sowa).

Charles Babbage's Difference Engine and Analytical Engine

Charles Babbage, prolific Victorian inventor, is most famous for two of his inventions, the Difference Engine (1812) and the Analytical Engine (1833), which are perhaps the truest forerunners of the modern computer. The Difference Engine, a mechanical device of rotating gears, was designed to automatically generate mathemetical tables. It was called the Difference Engine because it was based on the principle of computing the differences between successive values of an expression, then the difference between the differences. Versions of the Difference Engine were eventually built and used, but Babbage himself dropped work on it to pursue his real dream, the Analytical Engine. The Analytical Engine was, or would have been, the first "real" computer, capable of performing any kind of mathematical operation, and able to be "programmed," that is, to perform a sequence of operations without human intervention, and to choose, when necessary, between alternative paths of action. It was to be powered by steam, and programs were to be entered into the machine by means of punched cards, an idea borrowed from the then-new Jacquard power looms. Babbage, sad to say, was never able to complete the Analytical Engine.

Ada, Lady Lovelace, "the world's first programmer"

Babbage's collaborator on his Engines was one of history's most remarkable women, Ada, Lady Lovelace, daughter of the poet Lord Byron. These lines from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage are thought to be addressed to her:

Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child, Ada, sole daughter of my house and heart? When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled And then we parted,--not as now we part, But with a hope...

A gifted mathematician in her own right, Ada worked with Babbage until her untimely death in 1852 at the age of 36. In 1842, the Italian engineer Luigi F. Menabrea published a description, in French, of Babbage's Analytical Engine. Lady Lovelace translated Menabrea's article into English, expanding it with commentary so extensive that her "Notes upon the Memoir" are virtually an original work. She provides detailed directions for using the machine to calculate answers to mathematical problems, leading modern writers to call her "the world's first programmer." Her words relate computing to other artistic endeavors:

We may say most aptly that [Babbage's] Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves.

A Babbage Engine in London and California

In 1985, the Science Museum in London set out to build a working Difference Engine No. 2, based on Babbage's original designs. It was completed in 2002, and is on public display at the Science Museum. An identical Engine, completed in 2008, is presently on loan to the Computer History Museum, Mountain View, California, where it is on display until May, 2009. Read more about this recreated machine at the Computer History Museum Web site.

Click here or on the picture below to watch the Babbage engine in action, in a video taken by John F. Sowa.

Reconstruction of one of Babbage's engines, detail view. Click on the picture to watch it in action. (Photo by J.F. Sowa).

Read about the 1845 Eureka Machine for Composing Hexameter Latin Verse

Another Victorian machine which could be called an early special-purpose computer was the Eureka machine designed by John Clark in 1845 for automatically composing Latin hexameter poetry. It still survives, in a museum in Somerset, England. Click here to read about it.

TRADITIONAL THEMES AND THE HOMERIC HYMNS IS AGAIN IN PRINT. SELECTIONS AVAILABLE FOR FREE READING ON THIS SITE

One of the mythic themes analyzed in Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns is the Epiphany of a God. Illustration: Dionysos in a boat with grape vines and dolphins, cup by Exekias, about 540 B.C., Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlung, from a photo by R. Schoder, S.J. It is reproduced in Chapter 9, "Epiphany of a God and Institution of Rites."

Book: Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns

Cora Angier Sowa is the author of Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns published by Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Wauconda, IL (1984).

The book, out of print for a while, is again available by "on-demand" production. Contact the publisher for information.

New selections are available on this Web site for free reading. You can read Chapters 1 ("Introduction") and 10 ("Conclusion: the Place of the Hymns in the Ancient Greek Oral Tradition"), Appendix I ("Outlines of Themes Identified in the Hymns"). You can also see diagrams of the themes as they appear in the Hymns.

Article: "Thought Clusters in Early Greek Oral Poetry"

An article, by Cora Angier Sowa and John Sowa, describes in detail the quantitative and mathematical methods used on the computer to identify thematic elements in Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns. Material from this study was later integrated into into the more comprehensive Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns. Click on "Thought Clusters in Early Greek Oral Poetry". A version of the CLUMP cluster analysis program used to identify thematic repetitions is now also being integrated into the MINERVA suite of programs in the self-study CD The Loom of Minerva.

THE MINERVA SYSTEM FOR STUDY OF LITERARY TEXTS, INTRODUCED A IN SELF-STUDY CD The Loom of Minerva: An Introduction to Computer Projects for the Literary Scholar

The Loom of Minerva is a self-study CD that introduces the Minerva System for Study of Literary Texts, which is a set of tools, some automated and some semi-automated, for planning and carrying out a project in literary study. The Loom of Minerva contains both text chapters and a set of programs. The first chapter, "A Guide to the Labyrinth" (now much revised), can be read on this Web site, and images of two demonstrations of the system from 2006 and 2007 can also be seen. Illustrations: Statue of Minerva, Marmorbad, Kassel, Germany (photo by J.F. Sowa); remains of the building that was perhaps the original Labyrinth of King Minos, Knossos, Crete (photo by C.A. Sowa).

Read about it!

My thanks to all those who have reviewed and used my self-study CD course on using computers and quantitative methods in the study of literature, The Loom of Minerva: An Introduction to Computer Projects for the Literary Scholar, and my thanks to those who continue to give me comments.

You can read Chapter 1, "A Guide to the Labyrinth: The Problem and Its Solution" on this Web site. (Note: this chapter now describes a greater variety of ways to structure a project, e.g., top-down, bottom-up, etc. It will continue to be revised.) You can also see images from two demonstrations of the MINERVA System, from 2006 (emphasizing individual applications programs), given at the First Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities at the University of Chicago and 2007 (emphasizing new project planning programs) given at the Second Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities at the Northwestern University.

The MINERVA System

The MINERVA System for Study of Literary Texts is a set of tools, some automated, some not automated, for planning and carrying out a project in literary study. Methods of Systems Analysis, borrowed from the scientific and commercial world, are adapted to the study of literature. This methodology emphasizes the use of diagramming techniques and modular design, offering a way to construct a project as a set of units or modules that can be worked on separately and moved around without disturbing the whole. A project is defined as an enterprise that has a goal and an organized way of achieving that goal.

The Loom of Minerva combines the methods of Systems Analysis with the insights of traditional belles-lettres literary criticism. All analysis takes as its point of departure the value of the piece of literature itself to the critic and the reader, as well as the historic, social, or aesthetic qualities attached to it. These alone confer significance on any work of scholarship. Examples grow directly from study of various works of literature, from Vergil to Coleridge to Baudelaire to Victor Hugo to Edna St. Vincent Millay and Gertrude Stein, and works of criticism from Sainte-Beuve to Swinburne to Gertrude Stein (criticizing her own work).

Emphasis is placed on analyzing the language of criticism itself, analyzing exactly what we mean by such terms as "beautiful," "ugly," "pompous," "like a spring garden," etc. By defining our terms with an exactness that can be quantified, we learn to give precision to our thoughts, whether using a computer or not.

What is in The Loom of Minerva

The CD contains both a set of narrative chapters and a set of programs, called the MINERVA System for Study of Literary Texts. The narrative chapters explain and amplify the programs, and the programs illustrate the chapters. The programs are provided in both executable form and source code, to satisfy both non-programmer scholars and programmers who want to play with the code.

• The programs.

  The programs are in two groups, The Tutorial in Systems Analysis and the MINERVA Program Suite. The Tutorial in Systems Analysis takes the student through the steps to plan and design a project, beginning with the Selection of a Topic, going through the activities of drawing hierarchical and flow charts, and continuing to the final Evaluation of Results. The screens are interactive, so that the student can practice designing his or her own project.

  The MINERVA Program Suite is an interactive suite of programs designed for use by scholars and critics of literature. These programs, which can be used with texts of English, Classical, or other literatures, currently contains sixteen programs: eight to perform different types of literary analysis, and eight "OwlData" programs that the scholar can use to create or adapt data for the analytical programs. Currently available are programs to make concordances, search for words and cooccurring words, do statistical studies, perform cluster analysis, and compose original paragraphs. Developed in modular fashion, MINERVA is intended to be expandable, so that in the future more modules can be added to do more things. The latest to be developed is a program to perform cluster analysis based on the program described in Sowa and Sowa "Thought Clusters in Early Greek Oral Poetry."

• The narrative chapters

  The narrative chapters can be read like a book, or they can be entered directly from the programs by clicking on links on the screens.

  The first four text chapters of The Loom of Minerva introduce the MINERVA System. They demonstrate the steps for planning and developing a project, and provide many literary examples for using the programs. Historical chapters of The Loom of Minerva analyze projects past and present, that have used computers and other mechanical devices in the study of literature (including the Eureka Machine for composing Latin hexameters). Also described are works of literature that were inspired by machines, like the short story "Moxon's Master" by Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), in which a chess-playing robot murders its inventor. Four final chapters of the book are for techies only: a programming manual of Visual Basic, using literary examples, for those gung-ho readers who want to understand the arcana behind the MINERVA programs included with the book.

MINERVA stands for Model INteractive Engine for Recognizing Verbal Artifice.

Advantages of the MINERVA System

The MINERVA programs do not require the use of data that is in a proprietary format. They use plain ASCII text, such as that downloaded from the Internet. The OwlData programs can be used to put downloaded or scanned text in the correct format for the MINERVA programs. The mathematics and statistics used are fairly elementary, such as can be understood as an introduction to basic concepts of what the computer and quantified methods can do. The programs are open-source, as they are intended to be extensible.

For more information:

If you are interested in finding out more about the Loom of Minerva or the MINERVA System, contact me at casowa@aol.com.

Improvements to MINERVA: using MINERVA programs to study Shelley and Milton, Summer, 2007

A visit combines work and relaxation: (1) Frankie and Joe Raben, (2) Cora Sowa and Joe Raben, 2007.

In 2007, improvements were made to the MINERVA System programs, making both programs and documentation easier to use. For his many suggestions, I particularly thank Joseph Raben of the English Department, Queens College, NY (emeritus), who is using the CLUMPS program of the MINERVA System in his study of intertextuality, comprising an analysis of the echoes of Milton in the poems of Shelley.

In the summer, I visited Joe Raben in Rhode Island where he now lives. Work on applying the computer to poetry was combined with a relaxing visit with Joe and his wife Frankie, also retired from the English Department at Queens College. (See pictures above, taken at the Rabens' home outside Providence, RI.)

Historical chapters of The Loom of Minerva describe projects using the computer in the study of literature, including the author's Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns (see below). One of the thematic elements analyzed is "Maidens Dancing and Picking Flowers." Illustration: the Untermyer Fountain, Central Park, New York City, sculpture by Walter Schott, ca. 1910 (photo by C.A. Sowa).

"Verbal Patterns in Hesiod's Theogony"

In orally composed poetry like Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days, there was no written text (the alphabet being barely known at the time, around 750 B.C.). The bard, like a jazz musician, recomposed his story each time (to a melody now lost to us), using stock phrases or "formulas" and repeated scenes. Since the story was enjoyed not by reading but by hearing it, there were no punctuation marks or chapter headings to tell listeners where they were in the narrative or its episodes. The skilled singer used, instead, repeated words and phrases to serve as "oral punctuation" to articulate the story and provide emphasis for important themes and concepts.

Reissued here is my article Verbal Patterns in Hesiod's Theogony, which explores the use of verbal repetition in Hesiod's tale of the origins of the gods.

The Eureka Machine for Composing Hexameter Latin Verses (1845)

We think of computers as being very modern, although calculating machines and computer-like devices have been around for a long time. In particular, we think of using such a machine to do such non-scientific tasks as composing poetry as a modern concept. But in 1845, John Clark built the Eureka Machine for Composing Hexameter Latin Verse. It still exists in a museum in England. Read about the Eureka Machine and read the original description of it from the Illustrated London News of July, 1845.

There is more about early computers and their mechanical ancestors in the self-study CD The Loom of Minerva: An Introduction to Computer Projects for the Literary Scholar, described above.

Ships named Minerva

Classically named ships have a long tradition. Illustration: "The PHOENIX and the ROSE, engaged by the ENEMY'S FIRE SHIPS & GALLEYS, on the 16th Augt 1776. Engraved from the Original Picture by D. Serres, from a Sketch of Sir James Wallace's." Lithograph by G. Hayward for D.T. Valentine's Manual 1776.

"Minerva" has long been a popular name for ships. There are cruise ships named "Minerva," including Greek vessels whose owners chose that name as a synonym for their own city patroness Athena. Warships named "Minerva" have graced the navies of Europe from the time of Nelson and Napoleon to the present, whether British "Minerva" or French "Minerve."

It is an interesting choice, considering that Athena, with her gift of the olive, defeated Poseidon, lord of the sea, with his gift of the horse, in the contest to be patron deity of Athens. (See the depiction of Athena and Poseidon below.)

The name "Minerva" for a British warship belongs in the splendid tradition of naming vessels after names from Classical history and mythology. Along with names like "Invincible," "Audacious," "Irresistible," "Insolent," "Victory," and "Dreadnought," we find "Gorgon," "Phoenix," "Achilles," "Apollo," "Dryad," "Endymion," "Hector," "Helicon," "Medusa," "Meleager," and, famously, "Arethusa." The most famous ship named for the Sicilian nymph Arethusa was known for her victory over the French "Belle Poulle" in 1778. Training ships for over a century inherited the name, one after the other.

A frigate "Minerva" participated in the Battle of Cape St. Vincent against the navy of Napoleon on February 14, 1797. The marine painter Thomas Buttersworth (the elder) painted a portrait of "Minerva" in 1810, and the "Minerva" Pub in Hull, England (built in 1831) uses the frigate's symbol, the owl, on its sign. Of course, some ships have been named "Athena" and "Poseidon," too; there was a movie about such a ship called The Poseidon Adventure.

There is a further connection between ships and this Minerva Systems site. In the self-study CD The Loom of Minerva (described above), an analysis of Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is used as a case study to demonstrate methods of Systems Analysis and computer techniques.

A feminist note on the gender of ships: Because of the living qualities of ships, I like to refer to a ship as "she" rather than "it." While some may compare a vessel to a woman because of the supposedly capricious nature of both (although there seems nothing wrong with an occasional playful moment), I think that this view overlooks other qualities. Ships, like women, are beautiful, swift, intelligent, and powerful. I am glad to acclaim them as my sisters!

"Attack on Sidon by Commodore Charles Napier." The battle took place in September, 1840. Sir Charles Napier was a lineal descendant of John Napier, inventor of Napierian logarithms, whose mathematical insights led to the invention of the slide rule, itself an ancestor of the modern computer. The ships in the picture are identified along the bottom as H.M.S. "Gorgon" (flag), H.M.S. "Thunderer" (84 guns), Turkish Corvette (20 g.), Austrian frigate "Guerriera," H.M. Brig "Wasp" (16 g.), H.M.S.S. "Stromboli."

Signed vase painting by the Athenian potter/painter Amasis (6th cent. B.C.), depicting Athena and Poseidon. The two figures are labeled ATHENAIA and POSEIDON. The inscription down the middle reads AMASIS MEPOIESEN ("Amasis made me"). Amasis may well have been African. (Illustration from a lithograph by Kaeppelin et Cie., ca. 1840. The actual vase is in the Cabinet des Médailles, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris.)

Myths of landmarks: Pennsylvania Station and Times Square as centers of the universe, the World Trade Center as a Mythic Place

The World Trade Center was a sacred place long before it was blown up by terrorists. Lower Manhattan was the sacred land of the Lenape Indians, who made their community and buried their dead there. The modern World Trade Center, with its iconic double-towered shape (a nation's gateway, a cosmic tuning-fork?) was a symbol to the world of universal aspirations and longings. As a center of communications (with its towering antenna) and of transportation (as a hub of rail transportation) it had the mana or spiritual power of the crossroads, the traditional meeting place watched over by the gods of trade. The WTC is not sacred just because it, along with its inhabitants, was destroyed; it was destroyed because it was sacred. Today, Mercury returns, as the god of communication and of commerce, along with the spirits of all who have lived and died there.

Essays and reviews on building and architecture

Among the selections on this site is the previously published "Holy Places", a study of myths of landmarks. In addition, there is an epilogue to that essay, on "The World Trade Center as a Mythic Place". This piece continues the author's interest in relating ancient ideas to things that we care about in the modern world.

You can also read two of the author's previously published book reviews on architecture, on Alison Sky and Michelle Stone's Unbuilt America and Albert Mehrabian's Public Places and Private Spaces.

About the Author

The author, an aficionado of trains, next to a locomotive of the Big Trees & Pacific Railroad, Santa Cruz, CA.

Cora Angier Sowa has combined humanities and technology for many years. She has a BA in Latin and an MA in Classics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a PhD in Classical Philology from Harvard University. She spent a year studying archaeology at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. She taught Greek and Roman literature and history at Mt. Holyoke, Vassar, and Brooklyn Colleges. For a number of years, she was a programmer/analyst at Chemical (now Chase) Bank in New York. She has taught classes in computers and humanities at the College of Staten Island and at St. John's University in Queens, New York. She served twice on the Committee on Computer Activities of the American Philological Association, once as chairperson of the committee. She was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship (for study in Greece) and of a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies (for work on computers and ancient Greek literature).

In addition to the book Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns (described above), Dr. Sowa has published articles and reviews on Classics and on the mythology of architecture and motion pictures. A harp player, she is also on the board of trustees of the International Percy Grainger Society , an organization dedicated to preserving the home and archives in White Plains, New York of Percy Grainger -- composer, piano virtuoso, collector of folk songs, and inventor of an early mechanical music synthesizer. Dr. Sowa is Webmaster for the Grainger web site. Dr. Sowa now lives in Croton-on-Hudson NY, and in New York City, with her husband, Dr. John F. Sowa, an expert in Artificial Intelligence and computer design, and several cats.

The author plays the harp for an appreciative audience (handsome cat-about-town Feliz Sowa).

All selections on this site, unless otherwise identified, are copyright by Cora Angier Sowa.

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