mid-day update

[rivendellrose]

God bless Launch radio on Yahoo. I adore their "Adult Alternative" station - it's become pretty much all I listen to. And I'm finally finding out what bands produced a lot of songs that I adore - I'd never been able to figure out who did "Blurry," (or, for that matter, what the title was) before. Good ole Puddle of Mudd. ;) Now if they'd just play "Ordinary" by Train, I would be a very happy Jen.

Had coffee with erynn_lasgalen this morning after my first class - it was great getting to visit with her again after so long. And I forgot to mention that I ran into stormwolf and jyuu_chan on Sunday night, on the way to work - that was a wonderful coincidence! I've been such a bad little hermit, living almost exclusively in my house lately. Must get out more and see more people more often. *Nods firmly*

I am a Bad Person for working on the infamous ethnography-fic in my seminar class and Modern Poetry. But notice that this does not stop me from doing it just about every day. XD Hey - at least I'm not drawing, and I do pay attention and respond to questions and stuff. I just get so boooored, I have to keep my brain going somehow.

On the other hand, writing the ethnography-fic is preferable to writing any other sort of fic that might be coming to my mind right now, and I find that reading the sagas is really adding some good depth to the ethnography idea. Very fun stuff.

Must remember to visit my professor from last quarter and get my paper back, and also to visit an English dept. advisor and... well... basically beg them for ideas about who might let me write my honors thesis on Tolkien. *Winces* I'm sure that'll be a big hit. I have this dreadful fear that pretty much any professor in the department will hear That Name and automatically lose all academic respect for me. Eeep. I hate that feeling. But damn it, that's what I really want to write on, and I have the proper background for it and... and... I can't think of anything else I could write on comfortably, either. What else would I do? Shakespeare?? As if there's anything new I can offer on that subject - there's only four hundred years of previous literary analysis to try not to copy!

Shit, I'm gonna be late for Modern Poetry if I don't leave now.

Comments

[ursula]

You'd be surprised, actually, on the Shakespeare stuff-- you have to allow for four hundred years of people being dumb or not doing analysis you care about. At least, that was my experience as a classics student, where you have at least a thousand years of stupid commentators! :)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Good point. Of course, I really don't know what the heck I would analyze in the Shakespeare canon, using what theory, so... that could be a bit tricky. But it's a thought, nonetheless.

[ursula]

Somebody else from the same time period might be more fun, anyhow :)

If you do end up looking at Tolkien, you might talk to ashfae: she just wrote a master's thesis on Tolkien, Le Guin, and Susan Cooper.

How long is your thesis supposed to be?

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Possibly - I've never done any work on Marlowe or any of the others, so I'd have to do a lot of new work.

I will definitely keep that in mind - that's still my top choice, if I can find someone willing to accept it, but I'm trying to come up with other stuff, just in case it's percieved as too 'non-intellectual' to find a willing mentor.

15 to 25 pages, if I recall. Biggest thing I've had assigned yet, but I get a whole quarter to research and write it, basically as an independent study, if I understand the set-up correctly. In addition to whatever other classes I take that quarter, of course.

[ursula]

I wrote a paper about that long for my Aeneid seminar, so I know it's at least survivable :)

What aspect of Tolkien are you interested in? (I'm having a sudden tangent about mythologies-for-England in Tennyson's Idylls of the King.)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's do-able. Nasty, but totally do-able. I just want to make sure I get a subject I can survive spending that much time and attention on. ;)

I'd love to write on the connections (plot-wise, thematically, and stylistically, or just one or two of the three) between Tolkien's major works and the Scandinavian sagas. I've been studying the sagas and the mythology of the Viking era a lot, and it's become more and more clear how much inspiration he took from, and direct reference he made to, those works.

So far, the most significant connections I've found have been in the Saga of the Volsungs, but I'm sure I'll have more by the end of this quarter.

Mmm, must read Idylls of the King still.

[ursula]

*One* saga plus Lord of the Rings is more than enough for a twenty-page paper :)

Have you read Possession? I'm guessing you could write the same sort of paper about connections to Norse mythology in that book-- and though it's still not the most 'serious' text it might attract a different sort of unserious professor.

I thought of Idylls of the King because of the Return of the King, of course:

This heard the bold Sir Bedivere and spake

O me, my King, let pass whatever will,

Elves, and the harmless glamour of the field

But in their stead thy name and glory cling

To all high places like a golden cloud

For ever: but as yet thou shalt not pass.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know - and believe me, Saga of the Volsungs has *more* than enough material. I just like to be a bit broad in my pitches, in case someone throws down part of what I'm saying. ;)

Possession... no, I don't think so. What author would I look it up under?

Ooo, interesting! Now I'm going to *really* have to hunt that text down and read it.

[ursula]

Possession is by A.S. Byatt. If you've read the play Arcadia, it's structured similarly: two strands of plot, one in the past, one academics uncovering the past. One of the characters in Possession is a Victorian poet named Ash who writes a long poem about Yggdrasil.

Here's the Passing of Arthur from Idylls of the King. I've only just read bits of it here and there, but skip to the very end of the piece:

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/idyl-pas.htm

Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb
Even to the highest he could climb, and saw,
Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand,
Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King,
Down that long water opening on the deep
Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go
From less to less and vanish into light.
And the new sun rose bringing the new year.

[narsilion.livejournal.com]

How's your ear doing, is it better?

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Nope. Ear is still nasty, and everything else has decided to go nasty, too. Headache, beginnings of a sore throat, and every other sign that says "congratulations, you got yourself sick."