Hurray! Rather a lengthy week has now come to an end – it’s been pretty exhausting, and the final hurdle isn’t, erm, hurdled over yet – but it’s also been nice to share the experience with you all here. This will my last report, since my final exam (next Wednesday) is a commentary paper, and, love you though I do, I’m not going to type out a page of Middle English text for your delectation.
The title to today’s entry is my favourite quotation from Thomas Duffett’s 1675 The Mock Tempest or The Enchanted Castle – a parody of Dryden and Davenant’s 1667 The Tempest or The Enchanted Island, in turn an adaptation of Billybob’s The Tempest. Can you work out which line it satirises? I’ll give you a moment.
Any guesses? ‘Thy Daddies Dead! Thy Daddies Dead!’ is Duffett’s reworking of ‘Full fathom five thy father lies’. Which is why I had so much fun doing the Restoration Adaptations of Shakespeare essay – well, an essay I had to squeeze into the first of the following:
‘The Great Man’ (satirical name for Robert Walpole). Discuss how any writer or writers in the period represent greatness
‘Haywood’s importance as a writer is contingent on the theme that informs virtually all of her novels: the power of women’s desires’. Discuss in relation to Haywood and/or any other female writer of the period.
-I wrote about Aphra Behn and Eliza Haywood, and how desire (esp. women’s desire) is used to present comic situations in the former, but more didactically in the latter
‘Our minds our perpetually wrought on by the temperament of our Bodies: which makes me suspect, they are nearer alli’d, than either our Philsophers or School-Divines will allow them to be.’ (Dryden). Examine the relationship between mind and body in any writer or writers of the period.
-Well, I wanted to write on Katherine Philips and coterie writing, so I used this question a little dubiously. She was published by some scoundrel or other, and reacted indignantly against this – I argued her response was due to the correlation between mind and body possible in a coterie, but impossible in publication. A bit hurried, but by this point I was so excited to be leaving the exam hall that I didn’t much care!
Hat’s off to you Simon, though I suppose you can’t actually wear it yet to take it off but you can still throw it.I’ve really enjoyed reading your exam summaries and hope you can almost relax and think about reading for pleasure.Now,here’s my advice, as you’ll now be leaving the hallowed corridors and historic environment of a revered Oxford College the window of opportunity has arisen, yes indeed the time has come, for you to embrace some contemporary fiction before you head into yet more antiquity at the Bodleian…aren’t I awful, I just love causing trouble me:-)
Here Here dgr. I think Simon should make a note of the Waterstone 25 and steadfastly work his way through them during the summer months. Change is a good as a rest so they say! There must be one amongst them who will thrill as much as the blessed Jane.
Ps I was looking forward to a page of ME text – and lo her nose became as Pinnochio’s.
You’ve been tagged! For the Eight Things About Me meme if you can spare the time between exams.
Exactly abc because all Jane and no Jodie makes Simon a dull boy and he really doean’t know what he’s missing unless he tries…Jodie just fitted my sentence there btw Simon,not a cast iron recommend but I think we could set you a challenge or two with some suggestions so I’ll start the ball rolling with The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood.
Just finished the Blind Assassin myself – an intriguing read once I got the hang of the very different styles employed. Couldn’t put it down. Now reading Lorna Sage ‘Bad Blood’ – not sure about the juxtaposition… but,come on Simon – anything will come as a refreshing change after so much intense study!
Annie
Hmm… we’ll see… let me get my grounds in the twentieth century again, before I dash off to 2007