|
Brainworm posted:Tom Bombadil What do you think of The Lord of the Rings in general? What kinds of errors, mistakes, or just poor choices do you see in it? What do you think it's staying power will be?
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2009 23:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 05:43 |
|
|
halesuhtem posted:What do you think of The Lord of the Rings in general? What kinds of errors, mistakes, or just poor choices do you see in it? What do you think it's staying power will be? That's a tough question. The short answer is that I've always liked the idea of LOTR more than the actual trilogy. But I should make a distinction first. I think Hobbit will probably outlive LOTR, since by the standards of its genre it's in many ways a plain better book. It does what kids' books are supposed to do: introduce children to adult realities to train them to (eventually) navigate real life. And it does it remarkably well. Hobbit Economicus The Hobbit is a good introduction to money, especially if you want to feed kids culturally useful economic and contractual principles. Let's face it. These are need-to-know, and they go entirely untreated in children's literature. I'm dead serious about this. You don't see contracts or contract disputes in Harry Potter or Curious George, but they're the engine behind just about everything in The Hobbit. If you don't see how this works, re-read Hobbit and look at the money. It's all over the place. Bilbo and the dwarves form a company, if you'll remember, and have a contract about how the shares of Smaug's treasure are going to be divided. It's a dispute over the terms of that contract (plus the Wood Elves' and Lake Men's rival claims to shares of the treasure) that lead to the Battle of Five Armies, and successful navigation of that dispute is what makes Bilbo a rich(er) and happy hobbit. Contracts are how he wins. Contracts begin the story, contract disputes drive it, and a smaller contractual dispute (between Bilbo and his self-appointed heirs) ends it. Killing Smaug, that's incidental. So kids get introduced to lots of useful legal and economic concepts by the main contract (between the Dwarfs and Bilbo) and its resolution. Obviously there's contractual obligation, and the idea that simple contracts can give rise to complex interpretations. There's the idea of fungibility -- that the Arkenstone is not fungible (does not have a monetary equivalent) leads to the standoff between Bilbo and Thorin, since Thorin demands what might be called "specific performance" (return of the Arkenstone and punishment of the "thief") rather than compensation (which is what the language of the original contract seems to specify, and how Bilbo justifies his taking it). And of course there are matters of jurisdiction and standing. It seems clear that the Wood Elves and the Lake Men have some claims on Smaug's hoard, and that the Dwarfs and Bilbo do as well; there, you've got child-sized treatments of thorny questions surrounding who gets to decide how treasure should be divided, who has the right to represent the parties involved (like with Thorin and the other Dwarfs), and under what conditions the original contract between Bilbo and the Dwarfs is valid. And you'll notice that all these disputes play out in miniature when Bilbo gets back to the Shire. Of course he's a black belt at contract negotiation by then, so a legal hassle that might have sunk the old Bilbo is barely an afterthought for the new one.* Point is, Hobbit introduces kids to the idea that (non-wizard) adults are basically economically motivated, and then sorts the licit motivations from the illicit ones in the process introducing kids to the basics of contract law and custom. That's a gently caress of a topic for a kids' book, and Hobbit does it swimmingly. So my guess is that it'll be around for a while. So What About LOTR? Well, that's the thing. LOTR is about fifty times as long and not nearly as thought provoking, plus I think it's clear that Tolkien could have undertaken another big revision without much damaging the work. Of course there's Tom Bombadil, who might belong in the LOTR universe but whose presence in LOTR is at best baffling. And there are smaller points that get picked up and never really carried anywhere -- that's a byproduct of setting a long story in a complicated world, I think. But more important: Where Hobbit presents real moral ambiguity that characters grow by navigating, LOTR only seems to build characters according to two rules: (1) characters are either entirely good or entirely evil and (2) Gandalf can tell you everything you need to know to separate one from the other. That's a recipe for an epic, sure, but it doesn't make for interesting characters. I mean, I could write a long list of the ways Bilbo changes as a result of his adventure, but the only ways Sam and Frodo seem to grow is their ability to kick (powerless) Saruman and Grima Wormtongue's asses from pillar to post. I guess you could make the case that Frodo doesn't kill them because he's learned mercy by sparing Gollum on Gandalf's advice, but Frodo never seemed bloodthirsty enough for this to be a real issue. So I'll leave it there. LOTR is good reading, and there are probably more frequent readers who could find more worthwhile complexity in it than I remember. But the text's real achievement seems to be immersing the reader in a detailed fantasy world rather than telling a story that succeeds on more conventional terms. That's something, but I don't think that nearly as much as you get from a careful reading of The Hobbit. * And let's not forget the contractual dispute with Gollum over the whole riddling deal, plus Bilbo's ring's echo of the Ring of Gyges (for a fuller history of Greek myths surrounding the ring and Gyges, check out Chapter 1 of Marc Shell's Economy of Literature). Both rings turn you invisible, and Gyges' ring allowed him to become King of Lydia; the Greeks credited him for inventing both money and, oddly enough, tyranny. This last was allowed by the ring, too, and seems to be a clear inspiration for the way LOTR treats it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2009 01:21
|
|
|
Brainworm posted:Hobbit Economicus I love you, Brainworm. Throughout my life, english teachers taught me a bunch of junk. Anybody should have known part of it just by being able to read worth a drat, whie most of the rest was simply not worth knowing. I only ever felt something about one literary book, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, because it spoke to my love of curiosity and adventure, both intellectual and physical. You have recaptured a bit of that sentiment and made me at least mildly interested in what you talk about, which quite a feat when it comes to literature given that it's been tainted for me (as, I bet, it has been for most people). I pity everyone who was not your student. I've forgotten if you explicity touched on this, but why do teachers who should know better wrt symbolism not know better?
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2009 02:58
|
|
|
Brainworm posted:The Hobbit and Contract Law. That was amazing. Can I just skip the MFA and be your TA for a few years? This explains so much about what separates truly good kid lit from the chaff. It just occurs to me that Watership Down is about being a war refugee. Maybe even the formation of Israel? Edit: and really this applies to action movies just as much if not more! Well crafted action movies take an important topic that would be seen as boring by the 18 to 30 male demographic and explain it with violence. From High Noon being about Hollywood blacklisting to Die Hard being about the plight of the working man at the hands of big business in the 80s. Bad action movies are just excuses to blow things up. Paladin fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Jul 18, 2009 |
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2009 03:03
|
|
|
Between making impromptu songs and dissecting LOTR this thread continues to earn its 5. To contribute: I finished reading Harold Bloom's How to Read and Why and the guy really hates Poe apparently. What are your thoughts on Poe and why do you think Bloom hates him so much?
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2009 04:04
|
|
|
How did you formulate that Hobbit reading? Where does something like that come from? Pretty much all of my lit crit has been for low stakes stuff like the use of coldness in Ivan Denisovich and Greek theatre tradition in the Pirates of Penzance. I'd love to be able to pull off that kind of close reading jujitsu. On lyricism, what do you think of Bob Dylan? And how does playwriting relate to something like that? *edit* What about plot construction in LotR? It seems like every so often the main characters need to take a break from chasing down orc raiders for tea and biscuits and it destroys pacing. Wolfgang Pauli fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Jul 18, 2009 |
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2009 04:24
|
|
|
Sorry to interrupt the LotR circlejerk going on... I've been wondering for a while, why do we capitalize the letter "I" all the time? Why don't we do the same for the letter "A?" Second question, in the above sentence, did is the question mark suppose to be within or outside of the quotation marks? The word won't, is it a contraction, and of what? Similarly, what about ain't?
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2009 04:30
|
|
|
Brainworm, what works outside the Canon do you consider Quality Literature of highest order? What I'm most curious about what (if any) examples you could give that's waaaay out there. Like if you genuinely thought something by Dan Brown was a diamond in the rough, it would be interesting to hear your opinion. Failing that, what are your guilty pleasures?
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2009 08:27
|
|
|
Einsteinmonkey posted:I love you, Brainworm. Nothing moistens panties like talking Tolkien and contract law. quote:I've forgotten if you explicity touched on this, but why do teachers who should know better wrt symbolism not know better? I wish I knew. At some point it seems like the text turns into something you strip mine for symbols rather than a complex interplay of ideas and devices, so interpretation turns into "spot the whatever"* , instead of "here's an interesting thing the text is doing, and here's how it seems to be doing it." Why that happens, I don't know. I'd like to think part of the problem is apathy toward either the text or to reading as a practice -- like enjoying a book and figuring out how it's put together are mutually exclusive. Done right, these should compliment each other. * You know: here's a botanical metaphor, here's a reference to scandals of the Belgian Congo, here's an allusion to Middleton.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2009 14:26
|
|
|
Brainworm, this is a brilliant thread. A get-a-credit-card-just-so-I-can-register-and-post-in-it thread. Anyway, sorry this won't be an English-related post. I'm going to grad school next year (a Master's) and I've been all over the place asking for advice about how to set myself up well for a Doctoral program afterward. English lit. is not the subject, but I imagine there are some tips that would hold true across the world of academia. And seeing how you've done rather well for yourself, I imagine you might have some of these to share. Right now, I find myself a few months away from a MSc course at a world-leading social science institution with a kick-rear end grant. The problem is, while I'm interested in the subject matter (Global History), I'm not passionate about it. I applied to one other program, the subject matter of which was very dear to me (Migration and Settlement). The funding packages for each were day and night. The thought of living on one shoestring short of a pair while attending a less-than-prestigious university was just too unbearable when I had all that valuable foreign currency and name recognition waved at me. And so you can figure out which program received my acceptance letter, and which my rejection. I'm 22 and I feel I've sold out already... Will having a Master's degree in History make myself only eligible for History PhD programs in the eyes of admissions committees? Or will having a degree from a top university and a prestigious grant to my name free myself from any pigeonhole? Also, if I do continue in academia, just how helpful is it to have a degree from a highly-reputed school? Does it really make that much of a difference? You mentioned earlier that the school from which you got your PhD is not highly-regarded, but you seem to have one of the best gigs imaginable. Halisnacks fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Jul 18, 2009 |
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2009 14:55
|
|
|
Paladin posted:It just occurs to me that Watership Down is about being a war refugee. Maybe even the formation of Israel? I've never really considered that last before, but it does seem like there are parallels -- a bunch of innocent rabbits escape genocide to settle "unclaimed" territory that hostile neighbors would rather not have them on. It makes some sense. I'm not sure that I'd say that's what the story is about, though, because that suggests that the story is really a political statement. That I'm wary of. I'd be more comfortable claiming that Israel may have inspired Down to introduce kids to political complexities common to politics of diaspora. The book is British, after all, so some familiarity with these politics seems essential for navigating a culture essentially composed of overlapping diaspoic populations. quote:Edit: and really this applies to action movies just as much if not more! Well crafted action movies take an important topic that would be seen as boring by the 18 to 30 male demographic and explain it with violence. From High Noon being about Hollywood blacklisting to Die Hard being about the plight of the working man at the hands of big business in the 80s. Bad action movies are just excuses to blow things up. I like this, too. I like it a lot. But I'd still watch that "about," since it steps dangerously close to the HS English "the important thing about this text is what you can't see" methodology. I think what's going on is really more about access to the characters. I don't think many people can see themselves shooting hostage-takers like in Die Hard, since this experience is not widespread. But just about everyone knows about getting screwed by big business, so you make that the inroad to unfamiliar territory -- that is, take an experientially familiar "big business vs. working man" conflict and use its terms to describe how John McClane relates to the terrorists. It's a sort of shorthand for explaining what everyone's motivation is, who's good, who's evil, and so on. But yeah. Three good readings here.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2009 00:31
|
|
|
Doran Blackdawn posted:Between making impromptu songs and dissecting LOTR this thread continues to earn its 5. Thanks. I just back from my consulting junket like two days ago, so I'll have more space to give better answers faster. quote:To contribute: I finished reading Harold Bloom's How to Read and Why and the guy really hates Poe apparently. I wouldn't say I hate Poe. His place in the canon of American Lit. baffles me, though, because he never throws a knockout punch. He's got some good work, solid poems, solid short stories, but he doesn't seem to have a text that stakes a claim -- a text that says "here's where I stand in relation to the writers who came before me." Put a different way, a coherent canon has to be a conversation. You've got texts and responses, texts and responses, like Lear and Death of a Salesman. Without that, you don't have a literary tradition and -- more important -- you don't have artistic progress. Things might change, but if they don't change in response to some kind of tradition, that change isn't a meaningful statement. The problem with Poe is that he never joins that conversation. At least not in any way that I can see. So he may be a skilled author, and he may write good stories and poems, but he never sets himself up to change the way authors play the game -- like "you've all been doing this one way, and I'm going to do it another." That's the difference between good authors and great ones or, in other words, the difference between justifiably canonical authors and the merely skilled and popular ones. So fast forward to Bloom. Bloom's implicit standard for judging any text is its possible place in the canon; one assumption he constantly makes is that texts only have meaning in relationship to other texts. I can write a sonnet, but without the sonnet tradition and its conventions backing it up, it's just words on a page. Real meaning, Bloom's argument goes, comes from a text defining its relationship to other texts. That, I think, is why Bloom hates Poe (or, more specifically, thinks Poe shouldn't matter). Poe never builds these relationships that Bloom thinks are so valuable, so he just one of many skilled and popular authors who never stepped in the ring with a real heavyweight.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2009 00:58
|
|
|
Ziir posted:Sorry to interrupt the LotR circlejerk going on... That's cool. I'll just finish on my own. quote:I've been wondering for a while, why do we capitalize the letter "I" all the time? Why don't we do the same for the letter "A?" This actually comes from 13th c. scribal practice in the Midlands of England circa 1150. (The Barnhart Dic. of Etymology puts this at 1250, but I've got a sample from about a century earlier.)* The Barnhart says that "I" derives from the Anglo-Saxon pronoun ic, which was originally written i when placed in a stressed position, probably in response to the practical pronunciation of the word in its stressed state when spoken. Because of this, the standalone I was capitalized to emphasize its status as a distinct word -- we're talking handwritten papers here, so confusion as to whether "i" was part of another word was apparently a common problem. I suspect that a more common problem was differentiating "i" from the quantity "1", which a the time was rendered in lowercase Roman numerals: "3" was "iij," "2" was "ij," and "1" was plain old "i." This probably explains why "a" didn't undergo the same treatment. quote:Second question, in the above sentence, did is the question mark suppose to be within or outside of the quotation marks? Inside. The only punctuation that falls outside punctuation marks in common practice are colons, and even then full stops are almost always preferable. E.g. He said he couldn't "do it": this meant, in short, that he was afraid. quote:The word won't, is it a contraction, and of what? Similarly, what about ain't? "Won't" is a contraction of woll not where "woll" is an archaic form of "will." By archaic, I mean late nineteenth century. In the mid 19th century, there's a diversity of quasicontractions that mean the same thing: wunnet, wonot, willot, winnot, wunna and willn't to name a few. "Won't" doesn't come into common and exclusive use until the 20th c. An early and typical example of it looks like the August 1902 issue of the Monthly Review: "Already he was beginning to know the just value of a woman's won't, so he gave up the contest." "Ain't" is a slightly different case, since it's actually both a contraction (originally "has not" or "have not") and a dialect rendering. You'll sometimes see it as "hain't" in earlier texts, which clarifies it descent form "has" and "have" somewhat. And it seems to originate in the US circa 1840, which sharpens the rest. If you say "hain't" with something like a heavy Maine accent, the dipthong (ai) changes and you get something that sounds like "haan't" -- much closer to the grammatically appropriate "haven't" and "hasn't". * From the Anglo Saxon Chronicle: "anno 1137 [~1160], I ne can ne I ne mai tellen alle {th}e wunder."
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2009 02:25
|
|
|
I was reading the introduction to Asimov's book about Shakespeare's plays and he suggests that Shakespeare put a brake on the English language. He says that up until Shakespeare's time English was changing so rapidly that writing could become unintelligible within just a couple of centuries, but we are able to read Shakespeare without too much trouble four hundred years later. Is there any truth to this? If it is true, are Shakespeare's plays really a factor in slowing down change?
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2009 06:00
|
|
|
OctaviusBeaver posted:I was reading the introduction to Asimov's book about Shakespeare's plays and he suggests that Shakespeare put a brake on the English language. He says that up until Shakespeare's time English was changing so rapidly that writing could become unintelligible within just a couple of centuries, but we are able to read Shakespeare without too much trouble four hundred years later. Is there any truth to this? If it is true, are Shakespeare's plays really a factor in slowing down change? If Shakespeare actually came to you and talked to you, you'd be hard pressed to understand him.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2009 06:36
|
|
|
Brainworm posted:The problem with Poe is that he never joins that conversation. At least not in any way that I can see. So he may be a skilled author, and he may write good stories and poems, but he never sets himself up to change the way authors play the game -- like "you've all been doing this one way, and I'm going to do it another." That's the difference between good authors and great ones or, in other words, the difference between justifiably canonical authors and the merely skilled and popular ones. Isn't it more that Poe starts several conversations? He basically invented the detective story, for example. Also (and I might be showing that I'm not an English major here) what about the Hawthorne, Poe, Lovecraft, Stephen King line? The influence of Poe on Lovecraft and King can hardly be denied, and I'm pretty sure that King at least will eventually end up in the canon.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2009 12:15
|
|
|
Wolfgang Pauli posted:How did you formulate that Hobbit reading? Where does something like that come from? It comes from a few places. The first and clearest are the basic questions you ask about any narrative, whether it's a novel, a story, a play or a poem: how does one event lead to the next? Or, if you'd rather, how is this story built from a set of cause/effect relationships? Another way of thinking about this is in terms of dramatic action. In drama, an action is not an event. It's two events connected by a relationship. So Hamlet stabbing Claudius is not an action. Laertes, dying of swordpoint poison, tells Hamlet "the king's to blame" for poisoning Gertrude. Then Hamlet stabs Claudius. That's an action. The real question in any action is what the relationships between the two events are. Hamlet stabs Claudius after Laertes says Claudius poisoned Gertrude. What connection Hamlet makes there, and why it motivates him to stab Claudius, is open to interpretation. But in The Hobbit I think you'll find this connection often goes back to interpretations of a contract, at least for the major conflicts. The second place is genre study. I think of adventure stories as economically governed, since an adventure story is really just someone leaving civilization only to return to it changed. Conventionally, the razor that splits civilization from the wild is economy; characters are in a wilderness when then can no longer do business. Likewise, the "change" characters undergo almost always makes them better economic operators -- they come back with treasure, better equipped to navigate the wilds of local business, and so on. That's certainly true for The Hobbit, but also true in any modern adventure story you'd care to name, from Robinson Crusoe to that part in Legends of the Fall where Brad Pitt flees to the wilds of Africa. It's even part of the Hemingway Mythology -- you know, go to war, get yourself scarred, and write about it. Also, shoot exotic animals and make bamboo-frame furniture from their skins. The third place is just listening for what the gently caress moments. I came up with this reading listening to the Hobbit audiobook on a drive to New York. Next time you read The Hobbit, pay attention to the beginning. There's all kinds of crazy poo poo -- hobbit eugenics (a crazy gene from the Took side of Bilbo's family), Bilbo having some kind of flashback (struck by lightning! Struck by lightning!) while Gandalf and the dwarfs ignore him and eat the rest of his food, Bilbo's complete lack of interest in female hobbits (or female anything). The list goes on. The contract is the only one of these I can get any traction with. quote:On lyricism, what do you think of Bob Dylan? And how does playwriting relate to something like that? That I can't help you with, because I honest to God don't know any Bob Dylan songs. Or lyrics. But I'll listen to some and see what shakes out. quote:What about plot construction in LotR? It seems like every so often the main characters need to take a break from chasing down orc raiders for tea and biscuits and it destroys pacing. It does. I think the idea is to remind the reader what's at stake. That is, the kind of camaraderie you see at the Last Homely House is what's supposed to be at risk if Frodo fails. So my guess is that Tolkien puts those kinds of scenes in to periodically remind the reader of what's valuable in Frodo and Gandalf's world. The question I've always had a problem with is Sauron. I mean, he wants to take over Middle Earth. Fair enough. I have no idea why.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2009 17:08
|
|
|
Could you talk a little bit about theory? I know you're probably big on reader response, close reading, formalism, and new historicism in teaching undergrads, but what are your experiences with queer theory, post-colonialism, marxism, etc? Did you have any favourite theorists in grad school? I'm a sociology student, but I have an increasing interest in Renaissance theater history/performativity, especially when it comes to issues of race/gender/class. I love stuff like Shapiro's Shakespeare and the Jews and Thompson's Colorblind Shakespeare. Do you have any recommendations on books/scholars to look out for?
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2009 22:13
|
|
|
Angry Midwesterner posted:Brainworm, what works outside the Canon do you consider Quality Literature of highest order? I'm going to half fail this. I don't have a long list of specific books I think should make the canon, but I do have a few. Hunter S. Thompson's first book, The Rum Diary, is a fantastic response to Hemingway's Sun Also Rises, and probably his best work overall. That it's not canonized, much less read, is a crime. But the real problem with canonicity is that it excludes entire genres altogether. Creative nonfiction is a great example. I mean, people have been writing biographies since Plato, and it seems improbable that none of these warrant reading as literature. I can make a stronger case for essays, though. Especially critical and investigative essays. Chuck Palahniuk's Stranger Than Fiction is a great example of how writerly investigative essays can be. And I think we can all agree that Chuck Klosterman's criticism is best read as a creative act in a way that, say, bell hooks's criticism isn't. I mean, Killing Yourself to Live has as much to do with On the Road as it does with music. Whether it's good enough to warrant a canonical place is up for grabs, but there's no question it does the basic work of grappling with earlier texts. quote:Failing that, what are your guilty pleasures? TV. Especially new TV. There's something really interesting going on there. The thing is, I've noticed that the best examples of good, new TV are at least as well-written as most well-written movies, if not somewhat better. I don't think this was true ten years ago, and I think that's got everything to do with forces pushing TV in a desperately creative direction. One one hand, you've got competition from outside. Internet access is basically a utility now, so TV programming has to compete for people's attention in a way it didn't have to in 1999. It has to pull me off of SA or Facebook. After 9:00, it has to keep me from making free phone calls to anyone in the country.* And I've got a Wii. On the other hand, you've got DVDs of TV series. This means that TV is now in direct competition with film for home viewing, but it has to compete on different terms; it's got to convince people who've already seen a show to pay to watch it again, even when the same product is available for free in syndication (or on a DVR). And on hand two and a half, most TV has to do this on a budget that couldn't float even the most frugal film. TV doesn't have big actors, directors, or special effects. It can't afford them.** So how does TV compete? Writing. That's all that's left. So you get an institutional demand for good writing. Writers have the leverage they need to negotiate better deals and even make their own nationally-aired shows. Film writers wish they had that kind of opportunity. Hell, most novel writers do. And that leads me to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which has got to be the best writing I've seen on any screen, big or small, not to mention some of the most literate. If you want a good example of how skilled writers engage their predecessors, read that show against Cheers. I mean, these guys rewrote one of the mot popular comedies in the history of television, and they blow it out of the loving water. And they rewrite Othello. Othello. As a sitcom.*** And well. Blows my mind every time I see it. * It's difficult to overstate how big a deal this is. When I was a kid, my parents practically crapped themselves when some of the baby bells offered long distance calling rates of $0.10 a minute. That's in 1990 dollars, which is something just short of $0.20/minute in today's. At those rates, calling the grandparents to catch up would cost like ten bucks. ** Lost is the most expensive TV show in history, and it costs about $2.5 million an episode to make. That's like $5 million for two hours of content. Per minute, that's one fifth the cost of Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Juno, which has got to be the lowest budget national release film in forever, still had a budget of $6.5 million. Per minute, that's still like 50% more expensive than the most expensive show in television history. Just for reference, the thematically similar Knocked Up cost $33 million. A fairer comparison might be that a "big budget" film costs around (or at least) $200 million, or about fifty times as much per minute as a "big budget" TV show. *** S04E04, "Mac's Banging the Waitress." The episode concentrates on Othello's sexual betrayal, sexual jealousy, and homosocial relationships, excluding race and religious difference. But it's still Othello. It even ends on a bed.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2009 23:33
|
|
|
Halisnacks posted:Brainworm, this is a brilliant thread. A get-a-credit-card-just-so-I-can-register-and-post-in-it thread. Glad you like it. (I decided to stop editing out compliments). Seriously, answering these questions is keeping me sharp, so thanks. quote:Will having a Master's degree in History make myself only eligible for History PhD programs in the eyes of admissions committees? Or will having a degree from a top university and a prestigious grant to my name free myself from any pigeonhole? I think you made the right decision, even if you feel like you might have sold out. For one, this university/grant package makes you a sort of proven commodity on the academic market. Most programs are conservative with their admissions, meaning they'd rather bring in someone they're certain will be solid or good than someone who's either a genius or a nutjob. So even though your degree and grant aren't in the exact field you're looking at a PhD for, they do show you're well-adjusted in a broader, academic sense. Second, people get Masters' and Doctoral degrees in different ("kin") fields all the time, so your move isn't unusual in the slightest. Your admission might not fully credit your Masters' (that is, you might have to take a couple additional courses), but that's a hell of a lot better than not having a Masters' in the first place. Even if it were from a lovely college with no funding, it at least shows you've got the chops to do good grad work. quote:Also, if I do continue in academia, just how helpful is it to have a degree from a highly-reputed school? Does it really make that much of a difference? You mentioned earlier that the school from which you got your PhD is not highly-regarded, but you seem to have one of the best gigs imaginable. There are a couple different answers to this question. The first one's that it depends why a program is highly-reputed. There are all kinds of different metrics, so part of my answer depends on which metric you use. Job placement is a good one, and I'd listen to it carefully. Completion percentages and time to completion tell important stories, too. You should absolutely look at all of these, and look at them hard. And it's worth noting that the program I went to does well on all three, despite its unimpressive reputation. There are other, variously worthwhile, metrics. For a long time, the most popular method for ranking grad. programs in English was a survey sent to random, tenure-track English faculty at R1 schools that asked them to rank something like 150 programs in order from best to worst. Not based on anything in particular. Just what they thought. The US News rankings are only slightly better, since (like for the undergrad rankings), they choose criteria that are easily quantifiable but not necessarily relevant. So the first part of my answer: Pay attention to reputation as long as it's based on metrics that matter. Job placement is one of the best. The second part of my answer is that the choice isn't entirely about program reputation. It's about what you get to do as an individual scholar, and especially who you get to work with and on what terms. I mean, two people at an A-list Uni. can have radically different experiences depending on who they attach themselves to. It's totally possible to choose a stellar scholar who has absolutely no interest in helping you along, just as it's possible to choose a stellar one who wants to see you rip some poo poo up. All that said, programs usually have reputations for good reasons. If we're just counting tenure-track faculty, I'm the only one in my department who isn't from a top-ten program, and fully half the people on my floor are from Harvard. That says something. So all in all: Program reputation matters generally, not because it opens doors, but because it's likely a reflection of a program's overall quality -- by that I mean quality of admitted students, quality of faculty, quality of academic community, and quality of resources. Odds are, you'll get a better education and better research opportunities in a well-reputed program. But it isn't always that way, which is why you check job placement and other quality-of-education measures. There are some puppy-mill programs that people insist on thinking well of, just as there are programs outside the top twenty that get jobs for graduates, offer generous funding and research opportunities, or otherwise turn up the volume on graduate education. Unfortunately, I think there are more of the first kind of program than the second.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2009 00:21
|
|
|
OctaviusBeaver posted:I was reading the introduction to Asimov's book about Shakespeare's plays and he suggests that Shakespeare put a brake on the English language. He says that up until Shakespeare's time English was changing so rapidly that writing could become unintelligible within just a couple of centuries, but we are able to read Shakespeare without too much trouble four hundred years later. Is there any truth to this? If it is true, are Shakespeare's plays really a factor in slowing down change? I'm not sure where Asimov gets this idea. With two minutes of instruction and some practice, any undergrad can read a 14th century text about as easily as un-modernized Shakespeare (which would probably also need some instruction and practice, come to think of it). There was some rapid change in the English language before that point, but it's not a constant -- it owes itself to England being invaded and re-invaded by settling populations who brought their own languages with them. The last and most relevant of these is the Norman invasion, which mixed French with Anglo-Saxon (Old English) to eventually produce Middle English (a.k.a. Chaucer's English), which is generally intelligible to modern readers in spite of its inventive spelling. What really put the brakes on changes in English were (a) a lack of successful invasions and (b) the development of standardized grammars and spelling, which were made necessary by conditions I'm not certain of but would bet have little to do with Shakespeare. Johnson's Dictionary is as good a tipping point for this as any, though the OED is the first dictionary to catalog the history of English words in any detail.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2009 00:39
|
|
|
reflir posted:Isn't it more that Poe starts several conversations? He basically invented the detective story, for example. Also (and I might be showing that I'm not an English major here) what about the Hawthorne, Poe, Lovecraft, Stephen King line? The influence of Poe on Lovecraft and King can hardly be denied, and I'm pretty sure that King at least will eventually end up in the canon. "Conversation" might be a bad metaphor for this. What I mean is that there's something inherently valuable in the process a writer goes through when he responds to an earlier text, since it changes the terms of his writing from "originality" to "improvement." And "improvement" is really the important category. Anyone can be original. Just for instance, say I invent a toilet plunger with a bell-mounted tesla coil. That's original. Nobody's ever done that. And I might even sell a lot of them, because, hey: tesla coil. But nobody's going to pretend I improved on plunger design, since a tesla coil probably will not help unclog a toilet in a structurally responsible way. To further instance, say someone's writing a history of the plunger some time later. I think it's clear that my tesla-coil plunger is a footnote at best, because it's not an improvement in plunger design. It's in history's scrapheap, like those frozen eggs you could cook in the toaster or Stampede Light Plus. The Poe situation is like this: say, two hundred years after I'm dead, there's an epidemic of toilet snakes that can only be killed with lightning. So someone whips my tesla-coil plunger out of an antique store and saves Milwaukee. This does not make me a visionary or a game-changing plunger designer. It might get me a longer footnote in the annals of plunger history, and maybe make me a historical curiosity. That's about it. In other words, I'm not about to let the fact that Poe's been used as raw material change my appraisal of his work. He wrote Rue Morgue, sure, but detective stories had been going on for a while by then -- Voltaire had Zadig like a century earlier. And there were popular horror stories all over the place before Poe took a swing at them. Frankenstein was out when he was a kid. I don't mean to sound hostile to Poe. I'm not. But I think he's terribly misremembered. People always assume that horror stories have their roots in Poe, which I'm not sure is justified; he's really more about suspense, and deserves credit for that because he does it well. But the issue of his canonicity is, in my mind, about where he improves on earlier literary designs. There might be a case for this in the detective story, but I'm not in the genre enough to make a good call.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2009 01:12
|
|
|
Hopefully this wasn't asked already - When you are doing a close reading, what is your preferred method of taking notes and otherwise keeping track of information? Whenever I attempt a close reading I end up with a book overflowing with multicolored stick-it notes. I invariably feel like I'm losing track of important tidbits and references. unlimited shrimp fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Jul 20, 2009 |
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2009 01:44
|
|
|
Grouco posted:Could you talk a little bit about theory? I know you're probably big on reader response, close reading, formalism, and new historicism in teaching undergrads, but what are your experiences with queer theory, post-colonialism, marxism, etc? Did you have any favourite theorists in grad school? As a theorist, I'm a New Economic critic (which explains a bit about my reading of The Hobbit); that really doesn't have a cultural studies angle attached to it, though, since it's really just a different way of doing specific kinds of New Historicism and close reading. My two favorite theorists are ones I was lucky enough to work with: Jean Howard and David Hawkes. Of the two, I think you'd find Jean Howard more useful -- she's about as established a feminist/queer studies theorist as you'll find in Shakespeareana (she was president of the SAA when I started grad school if that tells you anything). I also really like Marc Shell, Baudrillard, Goux, and Eagleton, though Eagleton is the only person I bring into class with anything close to frequency. These are all Marxist or pseudomarxists, though the first three are really New Economic. And there are postmodern scholars who I think defy classification: Deleuze and Guattari, Jameson, Taussig. I've lately been rereading Guy Debord, and he's fantastic for thinking through theatricality. In general: high theory can be useful, but it's only useful for me if it stays inside a good close reading of a text. Most HT is more useful for reading historical contexts, which is really doing cultural studies rather than literature. Some people are about that, but I'm not. quote:I'm a sociology student, but I have an increasing interest in Renaissance theater history/performativity, especially when it comes to issues of race/gender/class. I love stuff like Shapiro's Shakespeare and the Jews and Thompson's Colorblind Shakespeare. Do you have any recommendations on books/scholars to look out for? If you want performativity, start with Jean Howard. The social and gender politics of theatricality is exactly where she's at with Shakespeare. You'll also want to check out Callaghan's Shakespeare Without Women (about staging racial and gender difference) and Newman's Fashioning Femininity and English Renaissance Drama (for context). For analyses that lean more toward racial complexity, I'd start with Hall's Economies of Race and Gender in Early Modern England, though Callaghan addresses this extensively as well. You'll also want Helgerson's Forms of Nationhood. Class study can probably start with Halpern's Politics of Primitive Accumulation. What you read next depends on how you want to parse class, so you should read Helgerson first -- that'll help you decide where to go. there's also a great history -- The World We Have Lost -- that should help with that. The author escapes me and I'm too lazy to look it up. Even on Amazon. Last, I think you should read Goldberg's Sodometries and Paster's Body Embarrassed. These are both classics and deal with the sometimes complicated politics of Renaissance sexuality. Good background even if you're not into queer theory. It might also be worth looking at texts from the so-called subversion/containment debate, since these take a cultural studies approach toward the relationship of theater to culture. Greenblatt has a famous essay, "Invisible Bullets," that's anthologized everywhere and should be available in JSTOR or Muse, and Jonathan Dollimore's Radical Tragedy is a good counterpoint.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2009 02:44
|
|
|
SpaceMost posted:Hopefully this wasn't asked already - I don't use anything as I read. Every once in a while I'll highlight or underline a passage, but as a rule I've found that anything approaching annotation distracts me, and I end up reading both slowly and poorly. I've also found that it gives me a kind of nearsightedness -- when I annotate, it's usually about word choice or something similarly local. Larger movements don't get a note. What I'll usually do when I need a review tool is finish the book, then write whatever information I think is vital on an index card. Then I'll periodically revisit and expand what's on the card as I work through whatever I'm reviewing the book for (like an article or a class design). Once it's done, the notecard can either stay in the book or be filed with the other project notes as appropriate. I know that might sound cavalier, like putting on the rubber after you've left her apartment, but I'm convinced it's best not to split your attention. Either write or edit, and either read or annotate. Never both at once. quote:How often will you call a student on their academic bullshit (not doing their readings, BSing on a paper)? I do it when I see a pattern. Everyone has a day where they miss the reading, write a lovely paper, or lose track of what they're saying in mid sentence. But this doesn't warrant correction unless it suggests a habit or behavior. Calling someone on it is usually as easy as giving them a look. If I need to do more I'll do it in private. Sometimes, though, the pattern is multiple people missing the same thing on the same day. If that happens, I bring it up in class to see what's going on. Usually there's a simple explanation -- widespread impending project deadlines for other classes, a badly written assignment, or some unanticipated trouble with the reading.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2009 03:06
|
|
|
Brainworm posted:That I can't elp you with, because I honest to God don't know any Bob Dylan songs. Or lyrics. But I'll listen to some and see what shakes out. I'd be interested to know what you feel as well. Try "Blonde on Blonde", it's objectively* his best album. I'd also like to know what you think of Leonard Cohen and Jim Morrison, seeing as they're both published poets. *subjectively
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2009 10:38
|
|
|
Like everyone has been saying, great thread, but I gotta take note on some things...Brainworm posted:TV. Especially new TV. There's something really interesting going on there. However, the utility aspect of the internet has been a boom to TV. It doesn't have to pull you off of facebook, a friend can share a Hulu link on your wall and directly send you to a show that you wouldn't have watched otherwise. Television has embraced the internet in a manner that's, frankly, shocking for the entertainment industry - traditionally it's very slow to change. You also have change on the user end - the DVR and VOD have changed the user experience greatly. TV competes with the internet and such, but it's been as much of a boom as it has been a hindrance. Brainworm posted:So you get an institutional demand for good writing. Writers have the leverage they need to negotiate better deals and even make their own nationally-aired shows. Film writers wish they had that kind of opportunity. Hell, most novel writers do. This is, sadly, very, very, very wrong. One of the things from the last WGA strike that was very disappointing was that the public didn't catch on to how little leverage the writers actually have (the length of the strike and the complete capitulation by the union at the end should have made it completely obvious). Most of the writers who can make their own shows with the ease that you imply generally have one thing in common: they're also in front of the camera as well. Brainworm posted:Per minute, that's one fifth the cost of Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Juno, which has got to be the lowest budget national release film in forever, still had a budget of $6.5 million. Per minute, that's still like 50% more expensive than the most expensive show in television history. Just for reference, the thematically similar Knocked Up cost $33 million. While it's an interesting comparison, it's important to note that film and tv budgets work very differently. The institutionalized nature of TV makes it easier to produce more content for less - they don't build a new island for Lost every 1.5 episodes, for example. It cost ABC $12M to shoot the first episode of Lost, which gave them a lot of sunk costs that didn't have to be dealt with afterwards.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2009 11:41
|
|
|
NeuroticErotica posted:Like everyone has been saying, great thread, but I gotta take note on some things... That's a good point. I was really thinking of how their situation compares to other professional writers like poets, short story writers, novelists, textbook authors, and so on. For these groups, there's no professional organization with any teeth -- I know the WGA strike wasn't productive, but that glass is 3/4 full. These writers have a union. They can make a living by writing. That's huge. I mean, poets and short story writers basically don't get paid for their work at all -- about the closest they can get is teaching creative writing. Novelists' royalties are about 7% (before an agent's cut). That usually works out to about $0.30-$0.40 a copy. That's why Toni Morrison's always had a second job -- until she won the Nobel, she needed it. But yeah, I've oversimplified the TV/movie accounting and the TV/internet relationship too. Goddammit.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2009 13:27
|
|
|
Does the graphic novel have a future in academia? With the amount of popularity and critical acclaim that authors like Alan Moore, Frank Miller, and Neil Gaiman have received, it's not entirely uncommon to see a graphic novel appear on a college syllabus. In fact, there have even been entire courses devoted to the medium. So I wonder, are comic books joining the literary canon? And are you a fan of comics yourself?
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2009 14:39
|
|
|
Scum Freezebag posted:With the amount of popularity and critical acclaim that authors like Alan Moore, Frank Miller, and Neil Gaiman have received, it's not entirely uncommon to see a graphic novel appear on a college syllabus. In fact, there have even been entire courses devoted to the medium. So I wonder, are comic books joining the literary canon?
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2009 15:04
|
|
|
Scum Freezebag posted:Does the graphic novel have a future in academia? I don't think they are, at least not yet. I think Wolfgang Pauli's experience is pretty typical: right now, comic books are genre fiction, like romance novels. They're really more pop culture than literature. For the most part, this seems like a sane treatment. Moore, Gaiman, Miller etc. are at the top of the comic form, but comics still need to make some huge leaps in character development and storytelling before they convince mainstream academics that the medium as a whole is capable of persuasive and complex art. I don't mean to pick on Art Spiegelman, but I will because Maus is taught comparatively widely in mainstream literature courses and is one of the few comics to be the subject of serious academic criticism. It's a good comic, but as an exploration of character it's pretty superficial: Vladek is difficult and a racist and a Holocaust survivor, but apart from presenting these character attributes as (basically) ironies, there's little meaningful exploration of why he's that way. This doesn't mean the medium isn't capable of this. Bechdel does a much better job of character development and storytelling in Fun Home which, if the comic's widely recognized as literature, has my vote for the moment critics will later say it happened. A bigger barrier to academic success is, I think, going to be the insularity of the comics world -- especially when it comes to the works that comics communities call artistic successes. I don't mean to pick on Alan Moore, but the 2006 Eisner for Best Graphic Album went to Forty-Niners (over Fun Home). I'm not saying that's the wrong decision. But whatever Forty-Niners's virtues, nobody in his or her right mind would seriously teach it in, say, an Intro to Lit class. That's how far apart the standards of academic and comics communities are; an award-winner in one can't even get in the door of the other. quote:And are you a fan of comics yourself? I used to read them back when -- I think the last ones I finished out were 300 and Preacher. I've got a close friend who used to edit for Marvel, and now freelance edits for a bunch of different companies, so I get some regular reports on what he thinks is or isn't good. The thing is, a few things would have to change about comics in order for me to be a regular reader. Again, the attention to storytelling and character development need to ratchet up considerably -- what passes for well-developed character with complex motivations in the comics world would generally be hopelessly superficial in any other medium. The same is largely true of storytelling techniques, where most comics plot like a 1985 soap opera. That doesn't make them bad. It's just not for me. The second thing that'd have to change would be comic culture. I'm the first to admit that I'm a big loving geek, but seriously. I'm also, dare to say it, a fit, handsome, emotionally and intellectually complex man who, as a rule, dates fit, pretty, emotionally and intellectually complex women.* Let's say I meet one. I could say: (a) You really need to see Let the Right One In. Fantastic reworking of the vampire movie, startling emotional complexity. (b) You might want to read Ellis's Lunar Park. Sure, it's a reworking of Hamlet, but it stands on its own as a story of startling emotional complexity. (c) Oh wow. Try Brady Earnhardt. Workmanlike singer, but a killer writer. Witty songs of startling emotional complexity. (d) Check out It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Surprisingly literate. Assuming for a moment that I want to ever see this woman again, there aren't many comics I could recommend on similar terms. Maybe From Hell. Maybe Fun Home. Keep in mind that if she follows up on whatever I recommend, she'll also (probably) have to go to a comic book store, which with my luck will have a couple racks of the latest from Top Cow by the door. You see the problem. * This is just a generic disclaimer. Brainworm fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Jul 20, 2009 |
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2009 16:47
|
|
|
What's your opinion on Westerns and the way they treat the canon (and Shakespeare for that matter, they seem to love Lear).
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2009 18:46
|
|
|
Wolfgang Pauli posted:What's your opinion on Westerns and the way they treat the canon (and Shakespeare for that matter, they seem to love Lear). They do love Lear. And Lear loves them back, apparently. I don't read or see many Westerns, so I'll have to go off my admittedly limited experience. First, I think the Lear plot translates well to the American West because it's partly about dynasties, partly about land, and partly about unchecked violence, all of which are already part of Western formulas. So the translation's an easy one. That's why I think you get a dozen King of Texases and A Thousand Acreses for every King is Alive. A sort of auxiliary feature is the modern audience. Lear ages well as a play partly by accident; turns out that lots of modern families can sympathize with the rivalries that come from caring for a declining parent. Or at least more than can sympathize with pretending to be a semiprostitute so someone'll get you pregnant and reluctantly marry you.* Not that this has much to do with Westerns. But I think it has everything to do with which plays get popularly adapted and which stay on the shelf, and (consequently) why Lear sees more popular adaptations than, say, Julius Caesar. But Westerns seem a more malleable genre than most, both in terms of what they import (Seven Samurai) and export (Star Wars). I say this because the more I think about it, the more I think a Western is really defined by a cultural conflict: you've got a traditional mode of life (e.g. rural peace, unchecked cowboy violence, managing your own ranch without government interference, Jedi doing whatever Jedi do) confronted by some new, more controlling condition (e.g. a gang of bandits invade the peaceful farm/native community, the law comes down on the cowboy outlaws, national government regulates cattle grazing, the Republic becomes an Empire). I don't think it matters whether the principle characters are cowboys with six shooters, cavemen with tree-branch clubs, or LARPers with plastic samurai swords. In that sense, I think of the Western as a specific kind of mythology: Thar was this kind a freedom a man use'ta have, ta sort out his own. An' mebbe he waren't allus right in't, but he allus dun it. An' he were right ta do it. In other words, I think the Western's about celebrating a small-scale autarky that's safe because it's closed off by civilization. You know: I resent political and corporate impingements on my freedom, but thank God for interstates and McDonalds and penicillin. * At least, I'd hope this is true.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2009 22:45
|
|
|
Uh oh Brainworm! Guy Montag just moved in next door and is currently clearing your shelves and tossing the contents into the fire. What book are you closest to having memorized?
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2009 04:09
|
|
|
Brainworm posted:I wish I knew. At some point it seems like the text turns into something you strip mine for symbols rather than a complex interplay of ideas and devices, so interpretation turns into "spot the whatever"* , instead of "here's an interesting thing the text is doing, and here's how it seems to be doing it." Brainworm posted:The US News rankings are only slightly better, since (like for the undergrad rankings), they choose criteria that are easily quantifiable but not necessarily relevant. These two things are related. People favor structured information, even about subjects that it's not suited for, because it's easy. A syllabus based on symbolic "facts" is easier to standardize, teach, and test for.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2009 08:45
|
|
|
Brainworm posted:But yeah, I've oversimplified the TV/movie accounting and the TV/internet relationship too. Goddammit. Hahahaha. Really, really, really don't worry about it. They're such ridiculously complex subjects that people who do this for a living don't even pretend to understand how it all works. Brainworm posted:That's a good point. I was really thinking of how their situation compares to other professional writers like poets, short story writers, novelists, textbook authors, and so on. For these groups, there's no professional organization with any teeth -- I know the WGA strike wasn't productive, but that glass is 3/4 full. These writers have a union. They can make a living by writing. That's huge. Some writers can support themselves. Common wisdom* says there's more professional basketball players than professional full-time tv/film writers. Now this is offset by the people who are showrunners (Television writers who also produce, J.J. Abrams, Larry David), people who also act in their projects (half of the cast of the office, Tina Fey, Seinfeld, etc) and miscellaneous diversifications (Charlie Kaufman - in addition to directing Sychendote, NY - also co-wrote the music. Because of the way that music royalties are structured he may end up making more money off the music than the rest of it.***). Now this helps TV writers as in showrunner/actor/etc duties they have more control over their product, but it requires a lot of diversity and other abilities as well as less of a dedication to being a pure writer. That said, the equivalent of poets and short story writers - experimental and short form filmmakers don't get paid for it, either. But that's more because there really isn't a market for them (or an outlet to distribute), which is actually probably the same problem for poets and short story writers. Sure, compilations exist (in both forms) but who buys them? I'd say the equivalency is that TV writers are serial writers (Comic Books, pulp serials), and Feature writers are novelists. It probably works out the same - there's more money in the shorter, more sustained, regular volume, and more prestige in the longer volume that comes out irregularly. * What some guy at some panel says and it becomes true because everybody repeats it enough. ** ** I hate Hollywood ***Famously Robert Altman let his 14-year-old-son write the lyrics for "Suicide is Painless" - the M*A*S*H theme song. The son has seen more money than his father has from the film
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2009 09:25
|
|
|
Bolkovr posted:Uh oh Brainworm! Guy Montag just moved in next door and is currently clearing your shelves and tossing the contents into the fire. What book are you closest to having memorized? For one glorious second, I was totally sure this would end with "are you a bad enough dude..." I'm not disappointed it didn't. So on a bet at a conference three years ago, I wrote the first act of Richard III on a bathroom stall wall of some no-name bar in San Antonio. I'm not sure how much of it I got right, but I'd bet I could do about 90% of the play from memory. Same goes for Hamlet. But neither of those are really books, and I've got them memorized because I listen to the Arkangel audio productions on long car trips. For books proper, I'ma say Elements of Style (the fourth edition, with the introduction by Charles Osgood). It's been a go-to book for my writing classes for almost ten years. So not only do I have like eleventy-one copies peppering my home and office bookshelves, but I've got the sections for entire rules memorized. Especially Rule 17, Omit Needless Words.* This book is worth memorizing, I think, since having its rules to hand makes revision quicker and more certain. And poetry is also worth memorizing, though you can shortcut and just memorize the good parts, like the last stanza of "Dover Beach."** * A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. Gold. ** If you find yourself in the rare someplace where you can quote poetry without sounding like a douchebag,*** any ten lines of "Dover Beach" will get you famously laid by the most pretentious woman in earshot. It's like bringing coke to a sorority house. *** This excludes anyplace where anyone is reading poetry into a microphone.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2009 22:59
|
|
|
Brainworm posted:I think you made the right decision, even if you feel like you might have sold out. (And other good grad school advice.) Thanks for the reassurance and the help. I guess I have another question about applying to PhD programs after doing a Masters'. Will my undergraduate courses and GPA be given much less weight after this? I am kind of hoping so, only because I hosed up for a good deal of my BA.* But I'd prefer truth to goodthink, so give me the straight goods. Also here's an English question! I'm currently reading the works of a historian and I noticed he was conjugating certain verbs (i.e. to come, to become, etc.) with the 'to be' auxiliary. I soon realized he was doing this with all the verbs whose French translation would be conjugated with 'être'. The effect sounded pretty nice to me and then I thought of two other examples I had heard this before: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds" and "The Lord is come." Anyway this sort of construction seems a little archaic. But is conjugating intransitive verbs this way, as the French/Germans do, correct or at the very least acceptable? Would you cringe to read a student doing it? What about a student writing French history paper--how's that for style? *I realize this sounds a little rich considering I got into a good school with a good grant for my Masters', but I should clarify: my rather pedestrian GPA probably played less of a role than one of my letters of rec., written by a good friend of a selection committee member. (A little corrupt, perhaps.) And I didn't gently caress up horribly, but I have a strong feeling that had I applied to a top PhD program right out of undergrad, I wouldn't have stacked up favourably against most applicants.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2009 00:25
|
|
|
Which of Shakespeare's sonnets are your favourites (don't say 116)? I'd have to go with 27-30, 57, 64, and 91, although every time I read through them I find myself falling in love with one I'd previously not really cared for. Also, Wyatt or Howard? Grouco fucked around with this message at 04:13 on Jul 22, 2009 |
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2009 04:11
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 05:43 |
|
|
Brainworm posted:Inside. The only punctuation that falls outside punctuation marks in common practice are colons, and even then full stops are almost always preferable. E.g. He said he couldn't "do it": this meant, in short, that he was afraid. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this an American/British distinction? At least, I'm sure that punctuation often falls outside the quotation marks in New Zealand...
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2009 04:39
|
|
