During my undergrad (Go Cougs!) I had to take a bunch of English classes. Mostly because I was an English major. Some of these classes were lame, some were inspiring, and most involved me writing a paper on either My Antonia or Young Goodman Brown. Occasionally both. There are a few memories of that time that really stick with me--when I did my senior seminar on Wallace Stegner, when I had an Early English class where the girl behind me knit chainmail the entire time, and when my Brit Lit professor told us that we were addicted to p*rn.
Guess which one I am complaining about?
Here is the gist:
Brit Lit prof (who was an honest to goodness cowboy) was of the school of thought that literature was to be read, analyzed, and re-analyzed. When one of my classmates said that he was missing the vital part of literature, the experiencing, he told her it sounded like she was comparing the classics to p*rn*graphy. All of the women in the class freaked out on him. Because we were FEMALE ENGLISH MAJORS. One of the pre-requisites for that department is to have an unnatural attachment to LM Montgomery and to have acted out scenes from Laura Ingles Wilder in the shower. Come on.
He would not be swayed, and I think that some people's grades eventually suffered because they refused to submit to his textual-analytical school of thinking. (Not me, though, because I know how to play the game, peeps. Principles? Not when I can get an A!)
But I often think of that conversation, that diatribe, and I wish that I would have recited this to him--my favorite poem, "Sonnet II," from Edna St. Vincent Millay, who is one of the world's greatest everythings. Read on, and I defy you to simply analyze and go tend your cattle.
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go - so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, 'There is no memory of him here!'
And so stand stricken, so remembering him
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6 comments:
LM Montgomery? Laura Ingles Wilder? I could have been an English major. ;-)
I like books that move me...
By the way - our book group just read Pillars of the Earth... my second time through because you recommended it the first time.... guess what most of the women focused on? And... then the one who sneers... says... "would you consider this a spiritually uplifting book" (says...because you know she wasn't asking)...
Needless to say I commented about that... some people need to dislodge their prissy sticks out of their arses.
Wow, that is beautiful.Not the p*rn part, the poem part. Really beautiful.
And yes, your two suggestions have already changed my life for the better! Thank you.
As a fellow English major and Laura Ingalls Wilder/LM Montgomery lover, I must tell you that that poem makes me long for someone who isn't even gone. Intense. And gives me the shivvies.
And also, when I was watching "Millionaire" today and the contestant had to use a lifeline to identify "Trust thyself" as Emerson, my inner English major threw a fit.
finger snaps
(nod. nod.)
Queen, that is your problem for joining an LDS bookclub. They are not going to be happy unless you are reading The Work and the Glory.
Fig, I may have had to use a lifeline for that, but only because my brain is mostly occupied with crap right now.
I had to quit my former Book Club because some of the ladies, who had all voted on and agreed to read The Red Tent, freaked out about the content and insisted on changing the book. I had enough and left. (It was really fun to tell one of the ladies that yes, I had read the book, and yes, I thought it was a great book. She was shocked. Ha, ha, triple ha.)
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