LIt crit and a funny obscure joke!
~~ The field of literary scholarship is an unmitigating, antagonistic struggle between those who like books worth reading, such as myself, and those whose weird and monstrous taste in literature should be condemned, such as those who disagree with me. O John Ashberry! Whoever took you seriously as a poet?
Speaking of poetry, I'm almost done with all the American 20th-century on my Preliminary exams. For the first time ever, I understand both Eliot's The Waste Land and Ginsberg's Howl. Amazingly, I remember reading Howl during my MA comps. Couldn't figure it out. Now I read it, and it's relatively straightforward. Granted, I still take the Beats all that seriously, but I no longer charge them with obtuse high modernist aesthetics.
UNDER THE CATEGORY: "I BELIEVE I PROMISED YOU A FUNNY JOKE. . . . "
So, there was a bit of a "last hurrah" in the TA office, with both Ms. Ribbet and Lutes&Ladders. *R is about to do her thesis before going off to rescue orphans in Honduras (for reals), and as she's my best favorite and favorite American lady, the prospect has me quite bummed. Anyway, we were talking. *R, whose main focus is Robert Penn Warren, is explaining how she wants to re-institute the New Criticism.
I cut in, "So the title of your new monograph will be, I'll Take my Stand: Everything except New Criticism Sucks."
Granted, this is the sort of joke where "you had to be there." Still, isn't it delightful obscure? Only English graduate students in the American South would ever get it. First, you'd have to know that Robby Warren had been one of the originators of New Criticism. Second, you'd have to know that many of the New Critics are also participating in the infamous 1930 manifesto of Southern agrarianims, I'll Take My Stand.
If I could only start making puns in Latin, life would be golden!
Speaking of poetry, I'm almost done with all the American 20th-century on my Preliminary exams. For the first time ever, I understand both Eliot's The Waste Land and Ginsberg's Howl. Amazingly, I remember reading Howl during my MA comps. Couldn't figure it out. Now I read it, and it's relatively straightforward. Granted, I still take the Beats all that seriously, but I no longer charge them with obtuse high modernist aesthetics.
UNDER THE CATEGORY: "I BELIEVE I PROMISED YOU A FUNNY JOKE. . . . "
So, there was a bit of a "last hurrah" in the TA office, with both Ms. Ribbet and Lutes&Ladders. *R is about to do her thesis before going off to rescue orphans in Honduras (for reals), and as she's my best favorite and favorite American lady, the prospect has me quite bummed. Anyway, we were talking. *R, whose main focus is Robert Penn Warren, is explaining how she wants to re-institute the New Criticism.
I cut in, "So the title of your new monograph will be, I'll Take my Stand: Everything except New Criticism Sucks."
Granted, this is the sort of joke where "you had to be there." Still, isn't it delightful obscure? Only English graduate students in the American South would ever get it. First, you'd have to know that Robby Warren had been one of the originators of New Criticism. Second, you'd have to know that many of the New Critics are also participating in the infamous 1930 manifesto of Southern agrarianims, I'll Take My Stand.
If I could only start making puns in Latin, life would be golden!