English Lit. Week 8. (technically)
Ok, I know this is a late entry but I have an excuse. I was planning on posting a poem I've been writing in my common place book. The problem is it's rubbish. It has gone through three writings and I'm still far from happy with it. I cannot rhyme and find the words tend to trip over each other.
So having not managed a (good) creative piece I'll write something else!
I was watching a DVD my librarian mother-in-law gave me for christmas. It's a history of the English language. It's really interesting but you've got to be in the mood. Anyway it traces English from old english (Beowulf and "summer is a couming in") through to our modern global (commercial) English. The episode I was watching was on about Shakespeare, apparently he added something like two and a half thousand words to our language. How cool is that! can you imagine being in a time where a language is being invented/expanded? I mean these days every new word is just a technology of 'hip' word. There are no new words that express real meaning. I think it would have fascinating to be reading these works as they were written and having to learn words that were new, not just to me but to the world!
It really is interesting, on a more related note, the presenter guy (name alludes me) told of a theory where in the tempest, Prospero is not so much a Shakespeare mirror but that his Staff is to be seen as Shakespeare's quill. It may not seem like a big distinction to what MG said but I think it's telling. Prospero is a bit of a tyrant who looks down on Caliban, which as MG said wasn't really Shakespeare's attitude to 'native' peoples or the 'wise' fools in his plays. So Prospero is Prospero but his staff can be directly linked to Shakespeare's quill.
Anyway I've prattled on enough.
A week late,
a weak post,
my own work
another's words
but it'll do.
This weeks comment (kinda) is on reilly's LJ: http://reilly88.livejournal.com/18134.html
So having not managed a (good) creative piece I'll write something else!
I was watching a DVD my librarian mother-in-law gave me for christmas. It's a history of the English language. It's really interesting but you've got to be in the mood. Anyway it traces English from old english (Beowulf and "summer is a couming in") through to our modern global (commercial) English. The episode I was watching was on about Shakespeare, apparently he added something like two and a half thousand words to our language. How cool is that! can you imagine being in a time where a language is being invented/expanded? I mean these days every new word is just a technology of 'hip' word. There are no new words that express real meaning. I think it would have fascinating to be reading these works as they were written and having to learn words that were new, not just to me but to the world!
It really is interesting, on a more related note, the presenter guy (name alludes me) told of a theory where in the tempest, Prospero is not so much a Shakespeare mirror but that his Staff is to be seen as Shakespeare's quill. It may not seem like a big distinction to what MG said but I think it's telling. Prospero is a bit of a tyrant who looks down on Caliban, which as MG said wasn't really Shakespeare's attitude to 'native' peoples or the 'wise' fools in his plays. So Prospero is Prospero but his staff can be directly linked to Shakespeare's quill.
Anyway I've prattled on enough.
A week late,
a weak post,
my own work
another's words
but it'll do.
This weeks comment (kinda) is on reilly's LJ: http://reilly88.livejournal.com/18134.html