(no subject)

[felis_ultharus]

Having spent the day poring over an hot essay and reams of critical theory, I have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that critics rarely offer what they promise. I've been going over many of the critical works promising an examination of Byron's use of history, and discovered that very few of them can stay on topic long enough to offer a useful idea.

James Chandler launches into a digression on casuistry -- the study of causes, at its most cerebral and abstract. Jane Stabler got sidetracked into showing how Byron playing the part of Iago in Othello influenced the 6th Canto -- though at least she had some useful things to say before she got lost. Jerome McGann's pretty useful, but I can't just keep using McGann over and over again. Alan Liu is crazy -- he starts in with history, and then talks about how Wordsworth's Prelude is all about tourism.

None of these people can keep on topic, and they all seem to be missing some pretty basic themes -- like how Byron is ripping into the English public for caring about his sex life and not the evil actions of their own government. That's a message that resonates today.

And that's most of what he uses history for -- showing that all the great writers that England admires were just like him, political radicals with wild personal lives. He's asking them, "If you like Sappho and Socrates and Milton and Shakespeare, etc, then why do you hypocrites hate me?"

With both my essays this semester, just like last semester, I feel like I'm pointing out the obvious to people who are supposed to know a lot more about the subject than me. And I got an "A" on each of those, so here's hoping.

Meanwhile, after ubergreenkat pointed out the obvious to me, I snagged some books from the Concordia library before my classmates could get to them, including one about homophobia in the poem. Along with Homophobia: A History (I always feel like using a snotty Hermione voice when I say that title -- like Hogwarts: A History), and Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality. I got these books from montrealais. I think I'll have enough evidence to prove my thesis.

In other news, I coined a new word today. The Woefare State -- the opposite of the Welfare state since "woe" is the tradional opposite of "weal" (which is where the word weal-fare comes from).

Comments

[em-fish.livejournal.com]

Well, as long as you're floating in the world of literary criticism, you can notice that stuff and get good grades for it, so at least you have something to work with. And maybe if you take the tangential ramblings of the other critics as a warning and keep them in mind, you won't end up like that.