(no subject)

[felis_ultharus]

I feel slow. Gulliver's Travels is one of my favourite literary works, and it only just clicked that Gulliver's mentor in medicine is named "master Bates."

I find I'm catching a lot of jokes in these works I haven't before. Especially in Rape of the Lock.

I'm way behind. There's no way I can cover all the material, so I'm going to take a sample of each era. This exam seems to be designed the way classes are designed -- for people who read like machines and don't like to think about what they read.

Next week, no matter where I'm at I'll switch to Canadian Lit. I don't want to look stupid writing about my main field, at least.

Oh well. At least I'm almost three-quarters through this semifinal edit of my novel.

Comments

[jenjoou.livejournal.com]

*flips through Gulliver's Travels* You're right! I never noticed before... I didn't realize how old that horrid joke is. ^_^

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Funny thing is, the OED's first citation for "masturbate" is 1839 -- more than 100 years after Gulliver's Travels was written.

But it already existed, and already had several variations, so it's probably much older and just no one dared put it into print (the OED only lists first publication date).