tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12301808682367278352012-02-16T03:17:55.716-06:00Chelseahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17627181439779802971noreply@blogger.comBlogger161100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230180868236727835.post-24856101318654632172007-11-17T11:24:00.000-06:002007-11-17T11:30:53.942-06:00

I was hoping this semester to keep up with this blog especially as I'm excited about the papers I'm working on and a lot of what I'm reading/teaching. But, unfortunately, my schedule (2 grad classes, 1 undergrad class, plus 50% teaching appointment) is barely going to allow me to finish this semester. In fact, I'm getting a little worried about that. So, I'm on blog hiatus.Next semester I'm

Chelseahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17627181439779802971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230180868236727835.post-31855084948382252082007-08-20T19:55:00.000-05:002007-08-20T20:03:34.291-05:00

I passed my exam!But I'm not closing down this blog. Instead its shifting to the second purpose I created it for: academic work in general. My semester starts in a few weeks and I'm taking classes that are exactly what I'm interested in (art, monsters, maps, religion, politics, alterity and so forth) and either Medieval or Early Modern. Therefore, look for posts on such things in the

Chelseahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17627181439779802971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230180868236727835.post-34101143275643042007-07-16T09:12:00.001-05:002007-08-01T12:34:38.311-05:00

One of my undergraduate professors (a stately gentleman who had been to Harvard in the 50’s, was steeped in the beauty of the classics and older criticism and believed strongly in the unity of personal experience -- how what surrounds us helps to develop and channel the poetic energies) once facetiously recited to me an Ashbery poem of his own making. I don’t quite remember what the poem was, but

Chelseahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17627181439779802971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230180868236727835.post-69436712428213448782007-07-12T22:16:00.000-05:002007-08-01T12:37:38.146-05:00

Here you'll find the Medieval Dream visions, Medieval Drama (with the exception of Mankind which is not easy to find) and the Arthurian material on our list (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the selections from Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur). I'll post this before I completely finish the study guides, so check back until they're complete. It's nice that some of these ideas I will return

Chelseahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17627181439779802971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230180868236727835.post-21583030722364168592007-07-12T08:25:00.000-05:002007-08-01T12:34:28.432-05:00

Here's my study guide for Emily Dickinson. I think the major two focuses for E.D. are form (how she manipulates form, subtly and obviously -- particularly her rhymes schemes and dashes) & themes (how she adopts and departs from Transcendentalism, her relationship to established religion, use of everyday objects, etc). The study guide is pretty comprehensive (though very quickly thrown together)

Chelseahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17627181439779802971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230180868236727835.post-25890524872197966662007-07-06T08:58:00.000-05:002007-08-01T12:37:53.274-05:00

When I started this post, I intended to post it alongside the rest of week 6's reading. That hasn't happened, so I've kept the questions, but am only going to post the Old English Poetry study guide.I'm particularly struck by the theme of exile in The Wanderer and Goldsmith's The Traveller. Exploring this should lead us to be able to consider how the two characterize human communities, their

Chelseahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17627181439779802971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230180868236727835.post-23378953710233830822007-06-27T15:19:00.000-05:002007-08-01T12:34:57.041-05:00

Sorry for the delay in this going up -- I moved on to other things and was only updating the files a little a day. Now they're finished though!I decided to group Browning's dramatic monologues, Tennyson's poetry (except for Idylls) and Arnold's poems in a single document to further highlight the connections and trouble the move towards modernism. (Which is one of the reasons I find this period

Chelseahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17627181439779802971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230180868236727835.post-10920030308402920042007-06-23T10:41:00.000-05:002007-08-01T12:35:10.172-05:00

This represents #24 on our Reading List: Oliver Goldsmith, William Collins, James Thomson & Thomas Gray. Here's the STUDY GUIDE. Haven't anything really profound, so please comment & enlighten me!Queries & NotesThe first thing I'm curious about is how we define satire, which of course is the predominant mode of Pope, Dryden and Swift and the heritage of the #24 poets. Goldsmith in particular is

Chelseahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17627181439779802971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230180868236727835.post-77289536743102689592007-06-19T21:47:00.000-05:002007-08-01T12:37:53.275-05:00

Here's the final study guide for the Canterbury Tales. I've updated the last two items and also very briefly addressed some overarching themes; finally, I added one and a half pages of questions from previous MA exams to help us think about the diverse ways we can approach the CT.I'm most interested in continuing to explore the interactions between genre, narration & theme. The Canterbury Tales

Chelseahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17627181439779802971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230180868236727835.post-70865053943949288312007-06-19T11:16:00.000-05:002007-08-01T12:37:53.275-05:00

Here's the updated Canterbury Tales study guide -- I've only updated stuff under the section "The Marriage Group." Questions, Connections, etcold age and youth A major theme running through "The Marriage Group" (which I didn't include in the study guide) and a few other texts we've read (Middlemarch, some of Yeats' poems, Tennyson's Ulysses and Tithonius) is the relationship of old age to youth

Chelseahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17627181439779802971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230180868236727835.post-17621158679184814122007-06-16T18:03:00.000-05:002007-08-01T12:37:53.276-05:00

As Chaucer is fairly long and detailed, I will be breaking my posts up into logical sections. This first post details Fragment A, which contains the General Prologue, The Knight's Tale, The Miller's Tale, The Reeve's Tale & The Cook's Tale. (The latter is a fragment and we are not required to read it -- it is bawdy and ends abruptly. Paul Strohm has made an interesting connection for it

Chelseahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17627181439779802971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230180868236727835.post-2801996472310832362007-06-09T20:42:00.001-05:002007-08-01T12:35:04.019-05:00

17th century religious poetry. Not as thrilled with Herbert, but did enjoy Crashaw (perhaps why I'm a Medievalist?!); overall, though, while there are some interesting ideas, it's just not my thing. Here's the study guide.Connections with Other Poets/PoemsJohn Milton -- both Crashaw & Herbert live within a generation of Milton and are faced with similar concerns: the emerging Protestant

Chelseahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17627181439779802971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230180868236727835.post-29635834895060961362007-06-05T15:11:00.000-05:002007-08-01T12:35:04.020-05:00

Yeats is all over the place! His interest in a variety of things makes it into his poetry and makes it hard to classify his themes (as you can tell by the number of them). But he also connects himself deeply to the tradition that influences him: Irish mythology, British literature, etc thus there are a number of broader comparisons that can be made. Here's the study guide.Questions/Connections/

Chelseahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17627181439779802971noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230180868236727835.post-1415749669859483042007-06-03T01:43:00.000-05:002007-08-01T12:35:01.348-05:00

Delightful play. I've used The Portable Oscar Wilde for references throughout. Here's the study guide.Some thoughts to jump-start our brains: The class issues that are brought up, most notably by Lady Bracknell, are also paralleled in Pygmalion. In particular, both challenge the notion of "class" and manners, suggesting that the ability to perform and pretend social roles successfully is all that

Chelseahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17627181439779802971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230180868236727835.post-73893065515808608232007-06-02T17:05:00.000-05:002007-08-01T12:38:01.236-05:00

I'm experimenting with the format for how to compose these blog posts so feel free to let me know what you find useful/unnyt. I've written quite a bit on Beowulf in the attached study guide, so won't include more here: Beowulf Study Guide For a way to start comments, perhaps we should consider how some of these themes can be considered in light of other items we're reading. How about "othering

Chelseahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17627181439779802971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230180868236727835.post-733961800249791122007-05-15T21:54:00.000-05:002007-05-15T22:18:14.910-05:00

The bear is my upcoming MA exam in English literature, but also refers to academics in general. It threatens to overwhelm, but we tame the bear. The purpose of this blog is two fold: to provide a space to comment on the books I'm reading (or not reading) for the MA exam 7 August 2007 to comment in general on books I read and enjoy or read and despise.And with that in mind, I'll go write my last

Chelseahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17627181439779802971noreply@blogger.com1