Christian Culture Lecture

To be honest, almost the entire lecture went over my head. I didn't know what Maria Rosa Menocal was going to be speaking about so I was not "mentally prepared" which might have helped. She was very charismatic and I enjoyed her lecture regardless, the pictures she showed were also amazing. It made me want to go to Spain!
She started by tying what she was speaking about with Don Quixote, which I have no knowledge of, and was again, lost. But as I started to try harder to really pay full attention I recognized a few ideas which I thought were really interesting. She talked a lot about the relationships between Muslims, Christians, and Jewish people. She mentioned Peter Cole's The Dream of the Poem.
The part that really grabbed my attention was when she put a picture of a palm tree that looked out of place in it's non-tropical background. And she quoted," far away in exile, long separated from family and friends, out of soil that is unfamiliar."which I think is from a book called Letters from Spain. I'm not entirely sure what this had to do with the original topic but I thought it was interesting, so I tried to look into it more online but I could not find anything.
Also one of her key points that I actually caught was the importance and difference of literature and history. She quoted, "on the land or in the poem..." When the author said "on the land" they meant the history and what is more logical and physically there. In contrast, "in the poem" means the "beauty and truth in poetry". In this sense poetry means all art.
I think this last quote could apply to the palm tree. When one looks at it for just history all they will see is a palm tree in the midst of the other landscape; but the poem written about it gives the seemingly mundane tree a story.