The real Arthur Dent
Sunday, 8 May 2005 22:32![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
strange_complexI'm having one of those moments where half of me feels suddenly enlightened, but the other half is more struck by how utterly ignorant I've been for years.
A set of guest lectures are coming up this week in Belfast at the School of History. They're called the Wiles Lectures, and this year they are being given by a man named Christopher Haigh, from one of my several almae matres: Christ Church, Oxford.
Dr. Haigh will be discussing a text from 1601 entitled The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven, over a series of four lectures. Its author? One Arthur Dent, a preacher from Essex.
Now I'm not saying that knowing about this text suddenly reveals vast depths of meaning in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy of which I was previously unaware. It takes the form of a fictional debate between four stereotyped characters about how to live a properly 'Christian' life (outline details here), and doesn't therefore seem to stand up very closely to any search for parallels with the plot of Hitch-Hiker's.
But, on a simpler level, if Arthur Dent in H2G2 isn't a Plain Man who's taken up to see the Heavens, I'd like to know what he is. And since Douglas Adams studied English at Cambridge, I'm guessing he came across this author and his work at some point, and considered his name suitable for his lost and bemused traveller in space. Either that, or it's a very pleasing coincidence.
A set of guest lectures are coming up this week in Belfast at the School of History. They're called the Wiles Lectures, and this year they are being given by a man named Christopher Haigh, from one of my several almae matres: Christ Church, Oxford.
Dr. Haigh will be discussing a text from 1601 entitled The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven, over a series of four lectures. Its author? One Arthur Dent, a preacher from Essex.
Now I'm not saying that knowing about this text suddenly reveals vast depths of meaning in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy of which I was previously unaware. It takes the form of a fictional debate between four stereotyped characters about how to live a properly 'Christian' life (outline details here), and doesn't therefore seem to stand up very closely to any search for parallels with the plot of Hitch-Hiker's.
But, on a simpler level, if Arthur Dent in H2G2 isn't a Plain Man who's taken up to see the Heavens, I'd like to know what he is. And since Douglas Adams studied English at Cambridge, I'm guessing he came across this author and his work at some point, and considered his name suitable for his lost and bemused traveller in space. Either that, or it's a very pleasing coincidence.
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Date: Sunday, 8 May 2005 22:03 (UTC)I very much doubt it would be a coincidence.
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Date: Sunday, 8 May 2005 23:20 (UTC)Love of a good mystery,,,
Date: Monday, 9 May 2005 00:54 (UTC)I have never read it.Now might be a good time? 1600's seem to have been a very unsettled time in human history.Enlightenment is held down,confused with witchcraft.Any religion other than the main three,was to say the least,squelched.
"These be times,oh yes these be times."
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Date: Monday, 9 May 2005 16:56 (UTC)- I get those too.