Some of my other interests include sports,photography, videography, calligraphy, poetry and song.
Book of sacred music and songs, published by my great-great-great-great-grandfather John McVity of Belturbet, Ireland, Professor of Sacred Music, 1787.
Kalligraphia XVI Art Exhibition, San Francisco Public Library, Skylight Gallery, Marjorie J and Karl G. Stern Book Arts & Special Collections Center, 100 Larkin St. May 14-August 28, 2022.
Calligrapher's exception: Library of Congress legislative excerpt, p. 9, Circular 21: Reproduction of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians.
Some of my recent work
Some work of others I admire
Poetry/Songs Some poetry/songs I enjoy: Classical Antiquity to the "Dark" Ages: 2100 BCE- AD 900
Epic of Gilgamesh, Foster 2001 English verse translation (Cunieform Akkadian, Mesopotamian, Babylonian, transliteration, Ahurbanipal Library and Uruk), ~2100 BCE. World's earliest known surviving notable literature.
The Exaltation of Inanna (Ishtar) (Hymn 42), Enheduanna, (Cunieform Akkadian, Sumerian) (Åke W. Sjöberg English translation) ~1790 BCE. The first known poet is a woman.
𓇋 𓏠 𓈖 𓎸 𓄂 𓀱 𓀼 Cartouches, Hatshepsut (hieratic hieroglyphs, unicode, also English translation) ~1507 BCE, (also Book of the Dead; Hymn to the Sun, Amenhotep IV). Studied this queen pharaoh since I was little.
מִזְמוֹר לְתוֹדָה 'Mizmor l'Todah' (Latin- Jubilate Deo omnis terra- Song 100 (ψαλμοί Psalm 100), (Hebrew ~800 BCE, Latin Vulgate translation doxology, AD 382, King James Bible English (Make a joyful noise, all ye lands; Serve with gladness and come with singing) AD 1611. Drummed into our heads by my first choirmaster.
Ὀδύσσεια, Homer, (The Odyssey, Lattimore verse translation from the Greek, also English prose translation) ~725 BCE (dactylic hexameter- Homeric hexameter, no rhyme scheme). My first bedtime story.
Brothers Poem, Sappho (English translations and Willis Barnstone translation) ~610 BCE (dactylic hexameter, no rhyme scheme).
Aeneid, Virgil (John Dryden English rhymed verse translation from Latin and here), ~19 BCE (unrhymed dactylic hexameter). Builds on Homer's Iliad. Reference for Dante's La Divina Commedia.
La Chanson de Roland, Anonymous, (scribe: Turoldus) (Rabillon English verse translation from the old French) ~1045 (decasyllabic laisses). Theme of betrayal.
Aestuans intrinsecus ira vehementi , (Confessio Goliae- Confession of Golias), Carmina Burana manuscript,Archipoeta, ~1163 Pavia (tr. Helen Waddell 1948 and The Wandering Scholar) (unrhymed dactylic hexameter). Tradition of drinking songs by medieval scholars and monks.
The Origin of Poetry, Snorra Edda, Snorri Sturluson, ~1220 (Icelandic). Links Virgil's Aeneas to the Norse god Vidarr of the Æsir. Basis of Norse mythology.
La Divina Commedia, Dante Alighieri, (Norton English prose translation from the Italian, Ciardi; Longfellow), 1320 (terza rima, hendecasyllabic). Build on Virgil 's Aeneid. Learned Italian by memorizing Dante.
Ci Dit Semiramis, Livre de la mutation de fortune, 1403 (Natalie Margolis translation); Le Livre de la Cité des Dames, 1405 (Here begynneth the boke of the cyte of ladyes, Anslay, Brian, translation, London: Henry Pepwell, 1521); Le Tresor de la cité des dames de degré en degré, 1405; L'Epistre Des Dieu D'Amours, 1399; Le Dit de la Rose, 1401, Ci Dit de Semiramis, (works- Harley MS 4431 also here; and here and here, also Project Gutenberg) Christine de Pizan. So beautiful I had to hand letter it.
Song by Jehan Chardavoine, Recueil de chansons en forme de voix de ville, 1576
Kinmont Willie, Bard of the Border Reivers, Debatable Lands, after 1596, Sir Walter Scott, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 1806, based on Scott of Satchells' History of the Name of Scott 1688 (quatrains of iambic tetrameter). Song by Fyre & Sword and Song. When the nightly news was sung, and in style.
Le Cid, Pierre Corneille (The Cid), December 1636 (alexandrine- iambic hexameter couplets)
L'École des femmes, (and English verse translation), Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin), 1662 (alexandrine)
Jonathan George Kelley McVity (1959- ) Chorister, composer, pianist, organist, author, editor, translator
Kraus, K. Dicta and Contradicta(Sprüche und Widersprüche), Aphorisms of Karl Kraus. Translated and with an introduction by McVity, Jonathan George Kelley. Urbana & Chicago: The University of Illinois Press, 2001. Print
James Henry Seymour Moynahan (1898-1972), Original Hot Five Dixieland Jazz Band. Clarinetist, sax, piano. Novelist, pulp fiction writer (e. g. Black Mask magazine)
Colonel the Venerable ArchdeaconFrederick George Scott (1861 – 1944) Canadian poet and author, known as the Poet of the Laurentians
Prof. John McVity 1740-1844, composer, professor of sacred music, author, sacred music arrangements