#english major
The English write Dictionaries.
The French write Rule Books.
It is the cheese, and Gordita is the crunch.
It is the East, and Superman is the sun. (ohhhhh)
Who needs tattoos when I have ink constantly staining my middle finger? It suggests writer and also a big fuck you- figure out which one matters more.
did you know that after five semesters of boring shit, economics can be fun?
my bestie jonathan is helping me with my assignments.
this year’s poetry class goes so hard. real knowledge about victorian poetry is gonna make me so much worse.
Summer showers the first week of fall
I just got accepted to be the GTA (Graduate Teaching Assistant) for my English MA and I am scared. But happy. But nervous. Yet elated. Send help and advice
“We sat down on a cramped Victorian sofa..”
The End is Near: An Update of Sorts
The End is Near: An Update of Sorts
I always wanted to say “The end is near!” but I wanted to say it without being looked at as a religious nutjob. Afterall, the prophalizing of the End Times is a religious trope that gained a lot of folowers in the 1960’s when an interest was taken in eschatology, that part of religions that deals with death, judgement, rebirth, and the end of times. Think of the Jesus Freak hippies. Before anyone…
Memoirs of an English Major: I Do Not Want to Write This Paper
New book! Bc individual copies of books are easier to cite lol
Wrapped up my third chapter earlier this afternoon and now it’s time to start on chapter 4 (technically I didn’t finish 2 so I’ll have to go back and write another section of that if I have time but I can turn in the draft without it I think so we’ll see. This is the last full chapter to write though!)
Also got an email today that my university is requiring either double masking or kn95s on campus and they’re going to provide us with one (1) kn95. I’m not loving it bc disposable masks are not very sustainable but safety first I guess? I’ll have to be on campus every day of the week this semester which will be a big change from my life since March 2020 and I can’t say I’m looking forward to it
Hi yes just me trying to remember the plot and details of a book I haven’t read in like years to write about it for my honors thesis and it’s not going well y'all. Had to ask my family for a word for “being aggressive to scare someone into doing what you want” yesterday (spoiler alert I was looking for intimidate) and I think my brain is melting. One week left until my draft is due and I’m freaking out slightly.
So I got exactly nothing done yesterday, which was really bad for me mentally but probably good like physically/in terms of my project because it let things stew and develop a little bit. Still made me kind of frustrated and upset with myself though, because my project is due in just over a week and I still have more than half of it to write.
(Calling myself entirely unproductive yesterday isn’t strictly true, because I folded my laundry and finished a book and went grocery shopping with my mom, but I didn’t work on my essay because I was just so tired and couldn’t focus on it and it made me feel awful.)
So today’s all about getting stuff done–at least something, though realistically I need to write two sections/long paragraphs a day in order to finish my draft on time so that’s the minimum goal–and I’m still struggling but at least I’m getting somewhere today. Still feel a bit like I’ve bitten off more than I can chew though (and that’s my fault bc I basically didn’t work on the project all summer/autumn and have left it to the last minute like an idiot).
So I hope everyone else’s day is going better than mine!
We interrupt your regularly scheduled book blogging to bring you this important message. My bestie bestest most best fabulous wonderful amazing friend Morgan lent me her copy of The Fall of Arthur. It is beautiful and I was in love before I even opened it. Tolkien writes in Modern English but in Middle English style, preserving the alliterative verse form and utilizing the standard rhythm, INCLUDING THE CAESURA. YO.
So in a lot of Middle English alliterative verse there’s this nifty little thing called the caesura. In poems like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight the caesura splits each line into two distinct sections. It’s basically invisible unless you read the poem out loud with correct pronunciation, at which point it becomes an integral part of the recitation. Most translators are forced to abandon the caesura when turning Middle English into Modern English, so most students never encounter it except as a dead device. This is a shame. I have a lot of love for the caesura because a) it’s a fabulous word, b) I can read Middle English and when reading poems out loud it sounds so sexy, and c) the skill required to write a poem in alliterative verse with a perfect meter is astronomical, and dropping the caesura in translation, unavoidable as it may be, diminishes the apparent skill of Middle English poets.
In short, Tolkien was very smart, and when writing his poem about King Arthur he elected to follow in the footsteps of the greats and write an alliterative poem in Modern English that preserved the Medieval meter. That’s badass.
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