“My Words Are Swallowed Up”
I would say that this Fall semester is in its terminal stage, but before it concludes there are tests and reports (papers), so it winds up before it winds down. I have three papers to write (for a total of about 24 pages), and will take at least five exams by the middle of this month. This profoundly sucks.
It all means that my writing here will be limited so I can focus on status inconsistency in Oliver Twist and Lady Audley’s Secret; and how Robert Lovelace fails Clarissa Harlowe by viewing her within the narrow prism of his Restoration-era rakish conventions, and neglecting to show her “honest proofs of a feeling heart”.
As I have written here before, Clarrisa is an absurdly long novel. My Penguin edition is based on the first edition (of 1747-48), and the 537 letters fill 1,500 pages of tiny type, and more with introduction and notes. It it weren’t for Dr. McCrea guiding the class through it, I’d be lost. I am worried about his final exam, though. The essay will be bad enough, but the IDs will be worse. I know I’ll have forgotten the various minor characters from Joseph Andrews, A Simple Story, The Fair Jilt and The Man of Feeling. And identifying quotes is going to be similarly impossible.
I’ll let you know how it works out.
Filed under: Literature and Books, School on December 3rd, 2008
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