Texts I Have Known, Recently
It's 3:14 in the morning, and I have work and class tomorrow. Ah well, nothing like a bit of contemplative evaluation before I sleep.
And since I study English now and not a century ago, I must describe texts, not books. Texts are open, books are closed. There are other distinctions. Barthes wrote explicitly of the dichotomy. He wrote explicitly of a great many things, some of which I have read recently. He is my preferred dense French theorist.
I also read excerpts from Nietzsche recently (and if I at least learn to spell his name from those exploits, so much the better). The man can write, a rare quality for those I encounter in theory. Perhaps I'll seek out more Nietzsche, which I can do with greater ease now that I can spell his name.
My lack of knowledge of Classical culture and literature (especially the unread Oddessy) harms me on all sides, considering my other reading choices of late:
Antony and Cleopatra, by Shakespeare. What does one say of Shakespeare? I recently uttered ten pages of banalities revolving around other texts in whose formation Shakespeare played a part (that is, the part of the author. I suppose Shakespeare is already dead, so he cannot be further pained by his generic obituary). A & C has supplied the English language with quotable quotes for nearly 500 years. The titled lovers have supplied many writers with plots and tropes for a couple millenia. But previously to actually reading the play, I did not know that the Bard included details of their gender-bending role-playing sex life. I recently read an article on bluffing your way through books you haven't read. Well, this is one of those texts where the bluffing is less fun than the reading. Really. I do not blindly say this of all Shakespeare. For example, Troilus and Cressida bored me and induced still more depression about my failure to read the Homeric epics. But Antony and Cleopatra delights and disturbs, and displays an exceptionally strong leading female.
Also, read http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1268/article_detail.asp . Shakespeare's genius holds up to the Obvious Greatness Theorum so effectively that we can watch it in other languages and cultures and still notice how great he is.
The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood. The great feminist writer takes on the great sexist epic. (She subtitled the book "The myth of Penelope and Odysseus.) Did I mention that not having read the Oddessy hinders my ability to read a lot of things? Anyway, Penelope gets a voice in this version, and so do the maids her husband slaughtered. Penelope's narrative is a fairly straightforward first-person speaking from Hades after all is over--a style that will be familiar to any Atwood fan--but the maids express their plight in various genres: free verse, ballad, dramatic dialogue, etc. My favorite is the postmodern anthropology lecture about what the maids may or may not "mean." Short and readable. Fun.
Now, I wish the Oddessy were on this list somewhere. Also, half a dozen books about Darwin and literature. Also, Woolf's "Jacob's Room." All in good time, my dears. All in good time.
Good night, and good reading.
And since I study English now and not a century ago, I must describe texts, not books. Texts are open, books are closed. There are other distinctions. Barthes wrote explicitly of the dichotomy. He wrote explicitly of a great many things, some of which I have read recently. He is my preferred dense French theorist.
I also read excerpts from Nietzsche recently (and if I at least learn to spell his name from those exploits, so much the better). The man can write, a rare quality for those I encounter in theory. Perhaps I'll seek out more Nietzsche, which I can do with greater ease now that I can spell his name.
My lack of knowledge of Classical culture and literature (especially the unread Oddessy) harms me on all sides, considering my other reading choices of late:
Antony and Cleopatra, by Shakespeare. What does one say of Shakespeare? I recently uttered ten pages of banalities revolving around other texts in whose formation Shakespeare played a part (that is, the part of the author. I suppose Shakespeare is already dead, so he cannot be further pained by his generic obituary). A & C has supplied the English language with quotable quotes for nearly 500 years. The titled lovers have supplied many writers with plots and tropes for a couple millenia. But previously to actually reading the play, I did not know that the Bard included details of their gender-bending role-playing sex life. I recently read an article on bluffing your way through books you haven't read. Well, this is one of those texts where the bluffing is less fun than the reading. Really. I do not blindly say this of all Shakespeare. For example, Troilus and Cressida bored me and induced still more depression about my failure to read the Homeric epics. But Antony and Cleopatra delights and disturbs, and displays an exceptionally strong leading female.
Also, read http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1268/article_detail.asp . Shakespeare's genius holds up to the Obvious Greatness Theorum so effectively that we can watch it in other languages and cultures and still notice how great he is.
The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood. The great feminist writer takes on the great sexist epic. (She subtitled the book "The myth of Penelope and Odysseus.) Did I mention that not having read the Oddessy hinders my ability to read a lot of things? Anyway, Penelope gets a voice in this version, and so do the maids her husband slaughtered. Penelope's narrative is a fairly straightforward first-person speaking from Hades after all is over--a style that will be familiar to any Atwood fan--but the maids express their plight in various genres: free verse, ballad, dramatic dialogue, etc. My favorite is the postmodern anthropology lecture about what the maids may or may not "mean." Short and readable. Fun.
Now, I wish the Oddessy were on this list somewhere. Also, half a dozen books about Darwin and literature. Also, Woolf's "Jacob's Room." All in good time, my dears. All in good time.
Good night, and good reading.