felis_ultharus

--Hnuy illa nyha majah Yahoo
--Take care of thyself, gentle Yahoo

This is now, officially, my new favourite way of saying goodbye in any language ^_^

Finished Gulliver's Travels, and I'm now almost one-fifth of the way through Joseph Andrews. It's hilarious.

Things are down to the wire, so I realized I could make more efficient use of my time if I devote myself to poetry (which I'm getting online) whenever I'm at home and have net access, and whenever I'm out of the house I'll bring a novel with me. That way, I'll get ahead, and have a smattering of the other centuries.

On that note, I won't have time to read my friends-pages for a bit, so lt me know if I miss anything vital. At this point, I'd probably miss the destruction of alll civilization and the reduction of the human race to scavenging mutants.

Right now, I'm reading the alleged poetry of Wordsworth -- the most overrated poet of two eras (Romantic and Victorian).

But I can't be too harsh with him. "We Are Seven" is proving to be quite educational. Until this moment, I had no idea that six-year-old children spontaneously burst out into metrical quatrains of 8/6/8/5 syllables, with an ABAB rhyme scheme.

This is Wordsworth trying to capture the unaffected spontaneity and simple wisdom of childhood.

Tomorrow I'm off to Ottawa by car for the day, for the parade. But I think I'm going to make a very anti-social travelling companion.

I finished Paradise Lost again. I swear, someday I'm going to write Paradise Lost in 15 minutes and save everyone a lot of time

Then it was on to Milton's "Lycidas." The helpful footnoter to my edition, trying to work out what each of the Pastoral elements is allegorical for, suggests that the wild satyrs might symbolize "Cambridge undergraduates."

I swear I'm cracking up. Whenever I've spent a few hours reading iambic pentameter, I get that infamous line going through my head,

Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?
No wonder she's got keel marks on her lips.

Next up is The Rape of the Lock by Pope. I haven't read it since high school.

Been reading up on Pope's life, and realized it was actually a lot worse than I'd know. I knew things were bad for Catholics, but I didn't realize he'd had to go to grammar school in secret, and that he was denied a chance to go to university -- or that he was the first writer to make a living writing in English without a day job or court patronage.

He had to be, because no one would support a Catholic or give one a decent job.

I also didn't realize that nasty spine disease he'd had stunted his growth at 4'6", and killed him at the young age of 56.

No wonder he developed such a brilliant sense of humour. It was probably a survival mechanism.