an entry which has no connecting thread running through it

[hermionesviolin]

more Princess Bride icons if anyone’s interested

Lileks begins to redeem himself
(Eugene Volokh has more on the Bill O’Reilly Internet thing, and InstaPundit has numerous posts about it, particularly this one)

my mother: i'm back in grief mode, just to warn you
my dad: any particular reason?
my mother: well, my dad died ;-)

offbalance called me a “visiting LJ dignitary” *grinsblushes*

Am disappointed that tranceballerina won’t be visiting, but it does mean that i don’t have to clean my room. ;)

Desperate for conversation, he blurts out the first thing that comes into his head that doesn't include the words 'naked' or 'sex.' "Interesting style of dance they have around here."

Lindsey snorts, looks at his watch and gestures to the couples groping each other more or less in time to the music. "At this point there's no dancing. It's just rubbing until they both realize they wanna fuck."

-from "Rainmakers" by Lar

"Like all good postmodern tales, this one begins out of sequence." Word. The fact that i liked neither the protagonist nor any of the other characters in Naipaul’s The Mimic Men was the main reason i was so pleased that my professor cut it out of our list (I had plodded through 72/300 pages when i got the e-mail.), but the lack of linearity was really bothering me as well. I like knowing what the fruitcake is going on, what can i say? I like my modern(ist?) literature, thank you very much.

I don’t really like any of the characters in Zadie Smith’s The White Teeth, either, but i am actually enjoying reading it.

”Where I come from,“ said Archie, “a bloke likes to get to know a girl before he marries her.”

“Where you come from it is customary to boil vegetables until they fall apart. This does not mean,” said Samad tersely, “that it is a good idea.”

Literary Makings of the Modern Self. Got an e-mail today.

Valentine Cunningham, your tutor for Literary Makings of the Modern Self, has requested that you purchase the following books for his course. He was quite specific about the editions he requires; these books are available on Amazon and may be available at book stores in the States. Otherwise, you can purchase them at Blackwells when you get to Oxford.

Hamlet, by William Shakespeare. Norton Critical edition (You will be reading this in the first four sessions)
Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe. Norton Critical edition
The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot. Oxford World's Classics edition.
Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Becket (any edition)
Money: A Suicide Note, by Martin Amis (any edition)

The only books on my 2 class lists that i didn’t get from the public library system were the books my family owns. I assume. I will raid the Oxford library or borrow from my classmates or whatever, but i am not purchasing special editions of classical works just because my professor wants us to read some critical essays on them. Have they any idea how much money i’m spending on this program as is? And 4 bloody sessions on Hamlet? You have got to be kidding me. Am i the only person who is goddamn sick and tired of Hamlet?

Oh, while we’re on the subject, i give The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) overall a thumbs up, but i had some real issues with it. The Hamlet thing went on too long, and i had hoped the Prelude would be all they did of Romeo and Juliet (why yes i do hate that play), since really it tells the whole story, though it was amusing. This all made me doubly angry that “The Scottish Play” (my favorite Shakespearean play) only got about 2 minutes. Lots of great lines throughout. “Where better to begin the complete works of the greatest playwright in the English language... than in Italy.” “Four Weddings and a Transvestite.”

In other randomness, my paid account runs out the 28th of this month. I would much prefer things like cash and film/disposable cameras as birthday gifts, but i just thought i’d put this out there ;)

Comments

[zzrg.livejournal.com]

Brain fart, who was the Italian author Shakespear borrowed so many of his plots from?

Hamlet, again? It is a good play sure, but hardly his best. Lear, Othello, and MacBeth are all more timeless and just as good. Otherllo just barely squeaks in there, but until you have met Iago you have not met the great villionous archtype of the century/millinium in English literature.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Was there only one Italian author? I thought there was more than one.

Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare says:

The first version of a play which is specifically that of Romeo and Juliet appeared in a collection of romances, Il Novellino published in Italian in 1476 by Masuccio Salernitano. It was adapted, and in the process, made into something considerably closer to the Shakespearean version (down to the names of the characters) by Luigi da porto in or about 1530.
The first important English version of the story was in the form of a long narrative poem, The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, published in 1562 by the English translator Arthur Brooke. It was Brooke's poem that Shakespeare used as his direct source, following it quite closely

Flipping through the volume there doesn't seem to be much information about where he got any other plots from. It does mention that he used Plutarch as a major source for Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, and a third play, but obviously that's a bit different from using someone else's story for the base of Hamlet or Macbeth.

A quick Gooogle search gets me this (http://www.melicreview.com/archive/iss16/cechaffin.html):

Shakespeare was not original except in his treatments, as he stole his plots from Italian Renaissance romances or English histories (esp. from Holinshead's Chronicles), with a few borrowed Greek and Roman tragedies from secondary sources. Most of his mythology appears directly derived from Ovid, whom he likely read in grammar school. Although he added psychological depth to inherited characters, and created new characters as the dramas demanded, he rarely invented a story, except perhaps The Tempest, for which we lack a principal source. This fact makes me sometimes wonder if Eliot had Shakespeare in mind when he said, "Great artists steal."

[zzrg.livejournal.com]

There was a particular Italian author who had a collection of stories that I always meant to go look up and read. *phwt* I did a search but could not seem to find who I was thinking of.

I still cannot believe they are doing "Hamlet". Not that "Hamlet" is not wonderful, just every American is so overexposed to the play it becomes painful. I think I read it at the college level for at least three different courses. (Drama, Early English Lit, & Shakespear I)

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Hmm. You'll have to let me know who the Italian author is if you ever think of it.

Hamlet at least i can understand for this course: Literary Makings of the Modern Self. The course description lists it as "a foundational text for western self-consciousness." Frankenstein, interestingly, is the text which seems to get done in every other Lit. class here (by which i mean Smith, not Oxford).

[suspectplaces.livejournal.com]

according to helen gardner as ventriloquised through the body of sharon seelig, hamlet draws most strongly from norse revenge sagas.

[tannymonster.livejournal.com]

shakespeare in general bothers me.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Why?

Re:

[tannymonster.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure. The language is fine, I generally understand what's going on (don't laugh, half my English class didn't) I just can't get into it and it all just seems like a big "wanky" waste of time.

Just my personal opinion.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Well partly it's just important to be well-grounded in Shakespeare (and the Bible and Greek mythology) because so much Western literature throughout the ages alludes to it, so many famous sayings come from it. Shakespeare didn't come up with many original plots, but he took all of what was floating around and improved upon it and got it performed and ultimately (whether because his versions were so damned good or so popular or whatever) got those stories preserved, passed down. So yeah, that's my off-the-cuff answer to why it's important. And some of the stories are just damned good. :)

Re:

[tannymonster.livejournal.com]

Nice to hear the other side of the argument. *grin*
Still I'm done with school and thus done with Shakespeare...and I'm too lazy to read it now anyway.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Nice to hear the other side of the argument. *grin*

:) That's what i'm here for.

Still I'm done with school and thus done with Shakespeare...and I'm too lazy to read it now anyway.

:) Fair enough.