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.

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.

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. (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.

MINERVA participation in the Chicago Colloquia on Digital Humanities

The Chicago River, 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.)

Announcement of the Third Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities, November, 2008

We are delighted to report that the Third Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities will be held at the University of Chicago on November 1-3, 2008. The theme of the third Chicago DHCS Colloquium is "'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.) You can learn more about the Colloquium on its Web site at http://dhcs.uchicago.edu. Minerva Systems will be attending the 2008 Colloquium. Read the paper, "A Bridge Across the Culture Gap", submitted by MINERVA to the Colloquium,

Read the MINERVA demo from the 2007 Colloquium

In October, 2007, I had the pleasure of demonstrating new features of the MINERVA System for Study of Literary Texts at the Second Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities, hosted by Northwestern University.

The emphasis of the 2007 Colloquium 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, 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.

Click on the button below to see the MINERVA demonstration handout from the 2007 DHCS Colloquium.

Read the MINERVA demo from the 2006 Colloquium

The MINERVA demonstration handout from the first DHCS Colloqium, held in November 2006 in Ida Noyes Hall at the University of Chicago, can also be read on another page of this Web site.

Click on the button below to see the demonstration handout from the 2006 DHCS Colloquium.

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."

Quotation for October 2008: The philosopher Seneca salutes the unathletic nerd

Illustration: A foot race, depicted on a Panathenaic amphora in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

It is better to exercise the mind than the body

We are just finishing baseball's World Series, the New York Marathon is about to take place, and the college and professional footbal season is underway. But out-of-shape nerds and couch potatoes can take heart from the words of the philosopher Seneca, who, in a letter to his friend Lucilius, expresses the view that it is more valuable to exercise the mind than the body.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.(?)-65 A.D.) was born in Córdoba, Spain, to a family of the equestrian class, but moved to Rome as a child. His father (also named Lucius Annaeus Seneca) was a well-known rhetorician, some of whose controversiae and suasoriae survive. Seneca the Younger followed the usual political career of an upper class Roman gentleman, but was more attracted to philosophy. He became tutor to the future emperor Nero, and later an influential advisor to Nero when he acceded to the throne. But Nero fell under the influence of more malevolent advisors, and Seneca was implicated in a tenuous charge of complicity in the conspriacy of Piso, and was forced, first to retire, then finally to commit suicide.

Seneca's Epistulae Morales, addressed to Lucilius, date from the end of his life, when he was living in forced retirement. These letters, which are really little essays, cover many aspects of contemporary Roman life. In his writings, Seneca was a practioner of the "pointed" style, with short, pithy, aphoristic sentences, as opposed to the resounding amplitude of the Ciceronian periodic manner. His philosophy belongs to the Stoic school, but is Roman in its emphasis on practical applications of philosophy rather than its theoretical beliefs.

In Letter 15, Seneca counsels against extreme exercise and body-building, as he does against other extremes. We should make time for the soul. He is not against exercise. A little light running, jumping, and light weight-lifting is good. So is the gentle motion of riding in a litter (sort of like a rocking chair?). Likewise, one should exercise the voice, but not by shouting. Live in moderation; life is short. Here, in translation, are the opening lines of Letter 15:

It was the habit of the ancients, preserved until my time, to add to the first words of a letter, "If you are well, I am well." Rightly, we say, "If you philosophize, it is good." That is, precisely, to be well. Without it, the soul is sick; the body, too, even if it has great strength, has only the strength of a mad, frenetic person. Therefore, especially take care of the former kind of health, and give the latter second place. Which will not matter much to you, if you only wish to be healthy. For it is a foolish occupation, my Lucilius, and little fitting to a man of letters, to occupy oneself in exercising one's biceps and enlarging one's neck and firming one's flanks. When your feasting has turned out well and your bulging muscles have grown, you will never equal the strength or weight of a plump bull. Add to that, the soul is squeezed out by the extra burden of the body, and it is less agile. And so, as much as you can, limit your body and make a place for your soul.

Quotation for August-September 2008: A review of the movie WALL-E, a robot love story, and a quotation from Homer's Iliad

"The fantasy of a statue that comes to life is as central a fable as we have. The idea of motion or speech in an inanimate stone is an inescapable possibility, a concept of a sort so basic that we can hardly call it a metaphor. Time and again, we find texts in which the statue that stands immobile in temple or square descends from its pedestal, or speaks out of its silence. Such fantasies are simply part of what we know about statues, and what statues can represent to us..."

(Kenneth Gross, The Dream of the Moving Statue)

Illustrations: Robots old and new: ABOVE: Bronze figures of Minerva and the Bell Ringers, by Antonin Jean Carles, 1895, from the old New York Herald Building. Now restored in Herald Square, the bronze men strike the bell with their mallets every hour; bronze owls once flashed their illuminated eyes at press time. MIDDLE: The Autoperipatetikos, or doll that Walks-by-Itself, patented by Enoch Rice Morrison in 1862. This example is in the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA. BELOW: Electro-Man entertaining children at a safety exhibit of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority at the 2003 open house of the Harmon Shops, Croton-Harmon, NY. (Photos by C.A.Sowa).

Moving statues

In The Dream of the Moving Statue (Cornell, 1992), Kenneth Gross, quoted above, examines the aesthetic, psychoanalytic, and historic meanings of images that come to life, and the opposing myths of the metamorphosis of the living person, like Niobe or Lot's Wife, into a statue or inanimate object. Perhaps there are in these fantasies a desire to conquer death and transcend boundaries, perhaps sometimes a fear of retribution, or even a desire to enter oneself into the stability of a stonelike state. Gross's examples range from ancient tales such as that of Pygmalion to more modern stories like Molière's Don Juan and Pushkin's The Bronze Horseman and movies like Charlie Chaplin's City Lights and Peter Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract. The statue that comes to life may be oracle or retribution or wish fulfillment, but stories of toys or other inanimate objects that take on a life of their own continue to be a deep-seated human fantasy.

WALL-E, the lovable trash compactor

One of this summer's most popular movies was the animated Pixar film, WALL-E. It is still in a few theaters, but if you can't catch it, rent the DVD! Although billed as a children's movie, the themes treated, concerning the destruction of the environment, the relationship of humans to machines, and the power of love (even betweeen machines!), not to mention the many witty references to other films and stories, give any viewer much food for thought.

WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth-Class), diligent and homely trash compactor, has spent hundreds of years cleaning up the toxic detritus left by human beings. The humans long ago left Earth to live, bloated and idle, like Homer's Lotus-Eaters, in resort-like exile on a space ship, the Axiom, waited upon by hundreds of robot servants. WALL-E's only companion is a cockroach. With childlike curiosity, he collects things that he finds, putting them in a box in his belly, and takes them to his home, a giant shipping container full of spare parts and his beloved junk collection. His finds include a Rubik's cube, a brassiere (which he tries to wear like a mask), and an old VCR tape of Hello Dolly, which he watches over and over. One day, he finds a single plant, growing in an old work boot. The tiny plant is his prized possession. Shortly thereafter, a space shuttle brings a sleek modern robot named EVE, whose name means Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator. Her job is to discover whether Earth, based on the renewed presence of photosynthesis, that is, of plant life, is again livable. WALL-E's awkward, adolescent-like attempts to make friends with EVE are met first with icy disdain, then curiosity, on her part. Then EVE grabs WALL-E's plant with her tractor beam and puts it in her own womb-like belly, and departs on her space shuttle for the humans' mother ship. WALL-E follows her, clinging to the outside of the shuttle.

Where the first half of the film was almost wordless, the second is a slapstick farce in which the dingy and rusty WALL-E tries to evade the army of servant robots who want to clean up the mess that he represents. At last, the Captain of the Axiom, with heroic fortitude, realizes that Earth must be recolonized, and, to the strains of Also Sprach Zarathustra, wrests control from the dictatorial Auto, the autopilot computer, and steers a course for Earth. Happy humans relearn to live in Earth's gravity, and prepare to plant WALL-E's little plant, and many more of them. But WALL-E has been injured, and EVE undertakes to heal him by replacing his burned-out circuit boards. Still he is listless and depressed, until EVE takes his square hand in hers, and the spark of love unites them as the cockroach chirps happily.

WALL-E and R.U.R.

The references are many: In his bug-eyed visage and childlike nature (and his near-death experience), WALL-E instantly evokes the extraterrestrial E.T. The cockroach (they will outlive us all!) reminds us of Jiminy Cricket, the companion of Pinocchio, another toy who comes to life. The cherished plant echoes Saint Exupéry's Little Prince, with his beloved single rose. The Captain's struggle with Auto for control of the space ship parodies the struggle with the computer HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, right down to the music from Zarathustra.

Perhaps, however, the most interesting antecedent is Karel Čapek's 1921 play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), which gave us the word "robot." In it, the robots, built to work as slaves for humans, rebel and take over the world, killing all the humans but one, the engineer Alquist. But the robots cannot reproduce themselves, because they do not know the secret of their own manufacture, and all the plans have been destroyed. Nor do they care that when they wear out, they are destroyed, because they have no feelings. But two robots, Primus and Helena, inexplicably fall in love, laughing together and holding hands. When Alquist proposes dissecting Helena to see how she works, Primus cries out that he will die in her place, upon which Helena bursts into tears, and offers to die instead. "We belong to each other," says Primus. Alquist, deeply moved, lets them go, saying "Go Adam, go Eve. The world is yours." By developing emotions, they have become human, the key to repopulating Earth. Like WALL-E and his EVE, they have shown the human beings how to be human.

Homeric androids

Fantasies of robots that come to life are as old as Homer. The Iliad, composed perhaps around 750 B.C., describes the intelligent golden maidservants and self-propelled golden-wheeled tripods that the lame technician god Hephaestus built for himself. For his work at the anvil, Hephaestus also built "twenty bellows in all, blowing upon the melting pots at his command." In the Odyssey, Hephaestus forged immortal gold and silver guard dogs for King Alkinoos of Phaiakia, whose navy also owned a fleet of self-propelled ships. In Hellenistic times, Heron of Alexandria (whose dates are uncertain, but who may have lived in the first century B.C.) actually built dancing mannequins of Dionysos and the Bacchants, powered by water and steam.

In Book 18 of the Iliad, Homer tells how Thetis visits Hephaestus, asking him to make a shield and new armor for her doomed son Achilles. As Hephaestus rises to greet her, Homer depicts the smith's skillful androids. As we see, Hephaestus' golden young servants, "having reason in their hearts," even if they do not have emotions, at least possess a sophisticated form of Artificial Intelligence.

Homer's description of Hephaestus' androids Speaking thus, he rose from his anvil, a monstrous bulk, limping; but underneath him, his thin legs moved nimbly. He placed the bellows away from the fire, and gathered all his tools, with which he worked, into a silver chest. With a sponge he wiped his face all over, and both his hands, and his sturdy neck and his shaggy chest. Putting on a tunic and grasping a thick staff, he went out, limping. But servants moved quickly, supporting their lord, golden figures that looked like living young women. They have reason in their hearts, and voice and strength; from the immortal gods they know how to do handiwork. Supporting their lord, they bustled about... Homer, Iliad 18.410-421

Hephaestus at his forge (Sarcophagus relief, depicted in Roscher's Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie, 1890.)

Archived Quotations

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

• 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.
• 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.
• 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).
• 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),
• 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).

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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