mae fy hofrenfad yn llawn o lyswennod
ritaxis linked to omniglot.com just now -- it's a fabulous site -- and consequently I've just spent far too much time attempting the Welsh tonguetwisters they have there, since I have to speak a bit of Welsh in 1H4. What have I gotten myself into? The double L will be the death of me!
Though it does amuse me that one of the tonguetwisters -- by far the worst of the lot from a pronunciation standpoint -- is about the toad-licking habits of one Llewellyn the librarian from Llanelli.
In other news, a meme, borrowed from pretty much my entire flist.
Look at your LJ "interests" list. If you have less than 50 interests, pick every fifth one. If you have between fifty and seventy-five interests, pick every seventh one. If you have over seventy-five interests, pick every tenth one. If you have fewer than ten, pick all of 'em. List them on your LJ, and tell everyone exactly what it is about these things that interests you so much.
blackadder What can I say? It's the ultimate comedy for history geeks. (Also it's impossible to look at this picture and not be instantly cheered up.)
deep space nine My favorite of the Trek series! I like it because it's more serialized than the other Treks: things stick around and cause problems, and there are a whole bunch of interesting recurring characters (who really managed to take over the show in the last seasons) and situations. Unfortunately, it also had Ferengi episodes.
elizabeth cary I'm surprised I'm the only person who has her listed as an interest! Cary is author of the first play known to have been written by an Englishwoman (it's a closet drama -- i.e. not meant for the stage -- called The Tragedy of Mariam, The Fair Queen of Jewry, c. 1603), and she's likewise the first Englishwoman to have written a prose history. This latter is called The History of Edward II (well, the full title is about three times as long) and is really, really cool; its examination of speech and sexual politics at court is fascinating. Though I'm not going to say much more as I want to publish the paper I wrote on it. ;)
futurama At its best, complete brilliance, and even at its worst (the obviously topical episodes never did it for me) pretty darn watchable. This show never really got a fair shake from the network, although it may be just as well: look what happened to The Simpsons.
henry vii I have a metric assload of monarchs on my interests list, because, you know, that's What I Do. Henry VII I actually didn't know a whole lot about until fairly recently, because like most people I had that gap in my knowledge of Tudor history where he took over after Bosworth Field (for good or ill) and then for a long time nothing happened until Henry VIII started chopping off heads. Incidentally, Francis Bacon's biography of him is -- well, parts of it are pretty boring, but other parts are terrific (the whole section about Perkin Warbeck is just amazingly good). Henry himself seems to have been sort of a git, but that's true of most of the kings of England. ;)
james i Oh, come on, I'm practically a professional Jacobean!
katherine philips One of my profs called her the good girl to Aphra Behn's bad girl, although this is sort of reductive on both sides. Her poetry focuses largely on female friendship (although not exclusively on it; she writes some rather nifty political poetry. The one called "On the Double Murder of King Charles" is pretty cool) and is very much in the metaphysical vein -- inspired by John Donne especially, but she spins some rather fun riffs on his conceits.
mark rylance Okay, so he holds Unfortunate Opinions regarding Shakespearean authorship (*sobs*) but I do admire the work he's done at the Globe -- reading SHAKSPER I occasionally fear I'm the only person in all of academia who does, but they don't like anything on that list, really. Also I've never seen anybody who can hold an audience like Rylance does. He's totally amazing.
new historicism If pressed to align myself with a particular critical school of thought, this is the one I'll go with, because I'm a great fan of cultural context, and the intersection of literature and history and politics and all of that good stuff. Certainly I agree with numerous objections to that line of thought I've heard recently, for instance that it's important not to lose sight of the internal workings of texts as well, and that if you get right down to it, it's rather soul-crushing to focus on how texts you presumably are studying because you love are actually implicated in all sorts of nasty things -- although I haven't had this problem because I think that everything is subversive. Still and all I'm fond of the basic premise. Although I think Stephen Greenblatt is a big sellout and have taken to fangirling David Scott Kastan instead (and you should all go read Shakespeare After Theory now ;) ).
pink floyd Dude. Because they rock.
royal shakespeare company Do I really need to explain this one?
t.h. white He was sort of a strange man with issues, I gather, and if you've read The Once And Future King you can tell what they are -- but nevertheless he did write one of my very favorite books ever.
thomas campion To be honest I always mix him up with Weelkes -- whose first name I can't remember, unless he's another Thomas which seems likely. Anyway he's on the list because English Renaissance music makes me happy, and he wrote "Thrice Toss These Oaken Ashes" and that amusing song about Cupid's fire:
Beauty, since you so much desire
To know the place of Cupid's fire,
About you somewhere doth it rest,
Yet never harbored in your breast,
Nor gout-like in your heel or toe:
What fool would seek love's flame so low?
But a little higher, but a little higher,
There, there, O there lies Cupid's fire!
(At least, I'm pretty sure it was him. I can't tell Campion and Weelkes apart.)
tudors Because, as the colorbar on my info page says, they're scary, headchopping love.
wwi poetry Because it's so viscerally bleak. Wilfred Owen I especially love: it's the sort of poetry that hurts.
Though it does amuse me that one of the tonguetwisters -- by far the worst of the lot from a pronunciation standpoint -- is about the toad-licking habits of one Llewellyn the librarian from Llanelli.
In other news, a meme, borrowed from pretty much my entire flist.
Look at your LJ "interests" list. If you have less than 50 interests, pick every fifth one. If you have between fifty and seventy-five interests, pick every seventh one. If you have over seventy-five interests, pick every tenth one. If you have fewer than ten, pick all of 'em. List them on your LJ, and tell everyone exactly what it is about these things that interests you so much.
blackadder What can I say? It's the ultimate comedy for history geeks. (Also it's impossible to look at this picture and not be instantly cheered up.)
deep space nine My favorite of the Trek series! I like it because it's more serialized than the other Treks: things stick around and cause problems, and there are a whole bunch of interesting recurring characters (who really managed to take over the show in the last seasons) and situations. Unfortunately, it also had Ferengi episodes.
elizabeth cary I'm surprised I'm the only person who has her listed as an interest! Cary is author of the first play known to have been written by an Englishwoman (it's a closet drama -- i.e. not meant for the stage -- called The Tragedy of Mariam, The Fair Queen of Jewry, c. 1603), and she's likewise the first Englishwoman to have written a prose history. This latter is called The History of Edward II (well, the full title is about three times as long) and is really, really cool; its examination of speech and sexual politics at court is fascinating. Though I'm not going to say much more as I want to publish the paper I wrote on it. ;)
futurama At its best, complete brilliance, and even at its worst (the obviously topical episodes never did it for me) pretty darn watchable. This show never really got a fair shake from the network, although it may be just as well: look what happened to The Simpsons.
henry vii I have a metric assload of monarchs on my interests list, because, you know, that's What I Do. Henry VII I actually didn't know a whole lot about until fairly recently, because like most people I had that gap in my knowledge of Tudor history where he took over after Bosworth Field (for good or ill) and then for a long time nothing happened until Henry VIII started chopping off heads. Incidentally, Francis Bacon's biography of him is -- well, parts of it are pretty boring, but other parts are terrific (the whole section about Perkin Warbeck is just amazingly good). Henry himself seems to have been sort of a git, but that's true of most of the kings of England. ;)
james i Oh, come on, I'm practically a professional Jacobean!
katherine philips One of my profs called her the good girl to Aphra Behn's bad girl, although this is sort of reductive on both sides. Her poetry focuses largely on female friendship (although not exclusively on it; she writes some rather nifty political poetry. The one called "On the Double Murder of King Charles" is pretty cool) and is very much in the metaphysical vein -- inspired by John Donne especially, but she spins some rather fun riffs on his conceits.
mark rylance Okay, so he holds Unfortunate Opinions regarding Shakespearean authorship (*sobs*) but I do admire the work he's done at the Globe -- reading SHAKSPER I occasionally fear I'm the only person in all of academia who does, but they don't like anything on that list, really. Also I've never seen anybody who can hold an audience like Rylance does. He's totally amazing.
new historicism If pressed to align myself with a particular critical school of thought, this is the one I'll go with, because I'm a great fan of cultural context, and the intersection of literature and history and politics and all of that good stuff. Certainly I agree with numerous objections to that line of thought I've heard recently, for instance that it's important not to lose sight of the internal workings of texts as well, and that if you get right down to it, it's rather soul-crushing to focus on how texts you presumably are studying because you love are actually implicated in all sorts of nasty things -- although I haven't had this problem because I think that everything is subversive. Still and all I'm fond of the basic premise. Although I think Stephen Greenblatt is a big sellout and have taken to fangirling David Scott Kastan instead (and you should all go read Shakespeare After Theory now ;) ).
pink floyd Dude. Because they rock.
royal shakespeare company Do I really need to explain this one?
t.h. white He was sort of a strange man with issues, I gather, and if you've read The Once And Future King you can tell what they are -- but nevertheless he did write one of my very favorite books ever.
thomas campion To be honest I always mix him up with Weelkes -- whose first name I can't remember, unless he's another Thomas which seems likely. Anyway he's on the list because English Renaissance music makes me happy, and he wrote "Thrice Toss These Oaken Ashes" and that amusing song about Cupid's fire:
Beauty, since you so much desire
To know the place of Cupid's fire,
About you somewhere doth it rest,
Yet never harbored in your breast,
Nor gout-like in your heel or toe:
What fool would seek love's flame so low?
But a little higher, but a little higher,
There, there, O there lies Cupid's fire!
(At least, I'm pretty sure it was him. I can't tell Campion and Weelkes apart.)
tudors Because, as the colorbar on my info page says, they're scary, headchopping love.
wwi poetry Because it's so viscerally bleak. Wilfred Owen I especially love: it's the sort of poetry that hurts.