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pipistrellafelixI realize this is like choosing between chocolate cake & Elliott's grand marinier fudge, but humor me...I need some outside opinions, I've been poring over these for too long.
So I have to choose classes when I apply to Royal Holloway (& then hope like hell I get the ones I want). I've chosen my first history class--Social & Domestic Life in Baroque city-states in Italy, squee. I have to choose another history class (between two--essentially I have to decide if Archeology is going to be too boring as a lecture, or not). My main problem is picking two English classes. Anyone wanna help me out? I have to pick two (possibly three) of these:
* Shakespeare from Page to Stage --the literary text, & in performance. Fairly straightforward, but fun, & can I really go wrong delving into these texts at all?
*Romantic Poetry: Blake, Wordsworth & Coleridge-- the poems, plus a little of their literary criticism. I could get a different perspective than Taylor's (though I do think he rocks my world), & Coleridge makes my literary pulse flutter, so...
*British Drama 1956-1996 -- I feel like it would be good to get outside the Renaissance a little, exploring the "avant-garde..within the context of political change." Ooo.
* Dark Reform: Scandal & Satire in American Culture -- American lit, from a Brit perspective, looking at the darkness below the American myth, often in grotesque, scatalogical, sexualized and carnivalesque imagery. Possibly disgusting. Certainly interesting.
* Poetic Practice - a course one level up from the others--reading comtemporary poetry, but also writing our own, the portfolio being nearly half our grade. Oh, it would kill me--& I might actually get something written for once in my life.
* Drama & Witchcraft 1576-1642-- also upper-level. The description is filled with phrases like "unmediated text" (no glosses to save me), "morally inadequate to the inherently distressing subject the texts handle" and "the challenge of assesing plays in which the moral authority of the dramatist is in itself debateable"--which I underlined thrice & wrote "yay." (Dork.)
* Odysseus' Scar: Time in Modern Literature & Film-- it would be like that amazing two-hour discussion last year on time in "Orlando"--but for a whole semester. Mmm.
...& clearly I cannot take all of these even though I really want to. So. Chocolate cake, Elliott's fudge? Shakespeare or Wolfe or morally ambiguous writers? Thoughts?
In other news, I love Paradise Lost, it is effing cold here, I want a new coat (that fits & actually keeps me warm), dear god alive I have too much reading to do & not enough time organizational skills, I am worried about someone whom I cannot in any way help, I am definiteivly not off-book for Act five, we open way too soon, I am still slightly afraid when people talk to me about Three Sisters (Wes of the Nine-Fingers, my old theology teacher, in the library, today), the library really ought to lend books for longer than three weeks (especially books so obscure that no one else is seriously going to want them ever), I bought a plane ticket, my roommates are lovely people, my room is finally clean, & I love chai tea. ...I think that's about it.
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Date: 2007-01-30 12:04 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2007-01-30 12:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 02:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 12:29 am (UTC)* Drama & Witchcraft 1576-1642
I vote for one of these two because SQUEEEE!
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Date: 2007-01-30 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 02:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 12:35 am (UTC)The Shakespeare would be awesome, but it sounds pretty standard, as opposed to all your other options. And I bet you'd get to do Stoppard in the modern British Drama class!
Plus chai tea is manna. Yum.
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Date: 2007-01-30 02:52 am (UTC)...Stoppard! I had not thought of that!
(Chai = better than coffee always.)
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Date: 2007-01-30 01:09 am (UTC)Drama and Witchcraft - that description (unmediated text) is trying to scare you away. Don't let it. Drama/witchcraft as a continuum/relation is HUGE during that period (I might suggest an article by Greenblatt on Shakespeare & Exorcism).
Oh, and take it from me, Archaeology is NOT boring in lecture; unless you get a bad teacher, and that could happen in any subject.
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Date: 2007-01-30 02:54 am (UTC)(The only thing about Archeology is that I'd really like to take a field course in it...so a lecture seems kinda sad in comparision. I'm sure it would be fascinating anyway, but that's my thought.)
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Date: 2007-01-30 06:07 pm (UTC)(A) Usually you have to do lecture to get into field classes later, B) It really isn't sad. I've taken 4 archaeology lecture classes, and they rock)
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Date: 2007-01-30 09:06 pm (UTC)& I know. But I doubt I will be able to take any field courses later anyway...
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Date: 2007-01-30 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 11:56 pm (UTC)And do remember what I said about Archaeology in lecture rocking. I've spent the majority of my electives on it.
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Date: 2007-01-30 01:21 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2007-01-30 04:42 am (UTC)it's ok in small doses, but i've had it for over six weeks now, and if i have to read "This Lime Tree Bower My Prison" or "The Eolian Harp" one more time, I might go get myself in a shipwreck a la Percy Shelley. I kid, but honestly---I'm REALLY not a big Romantic poetry girl. Perhaps it's a matter of personal taste, but I thought I;d let you know.
As for the others.... Drama and Witchraft! Dark Reform!!! British Drama!!!!!
how in the world can you lose ;)
xoxo
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Date: 2007-01-30 04:56 am (UTC)Mmm. Drama & Witchcraft & Dark Reform are edging out...
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Date: 2007-01-30 06:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 06:51 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2007-01-30 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 09:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 11:34 pm (UTC)Also, technically what you are thinking of are brownies, but they are so fudge-like that I have no problem with them being called that.
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Date: 2007-01-31 02:55 am (UTC)...Ignore the fact that Philip and Kenna's birthdays are before mine.
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Date: 2007-01-31 03:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 11:24 pm (UTC)Odysseus' Scar sounds interesting, not only because I can't see the direct connection of the title to the actual subject, so it might be interesting to find that out, and by the looks of it you'd get a bit of movie in it too, so the diversity might be fun?
Honestly, I wouldn't know either.
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Date: 2007-01-31 03:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 11:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-31 01:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-31 05:21 am (UTC)2. Variety is a good thing: British Drama 1956-1996
3. See above + actually writing your own stuff can be so very thrilling when it's not making you tear out your hair: Poetical Practice. As we both well know, sometimes hair-tearing-out difficult work is SO worth it.
You are so so lucky. But you know that. :)
When are you going again? I can't seem to keep track of everything in the world, funny how that works.
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Date: 2007-01-31 05:56 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2007-01-31 08:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-31 05:13 pm (UTC)-Maggie
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Date: 2007-01-31 05:28 pm (UTC)