Second Term = Win

Yesterday, I submitted my Milton seminar paper, finally concluding my term-that-would-not-end. In hindsight, I really enjoyed the challenge, and being at U of T feels like I made the right decision. Of course, it helps that I’m now starting to feel at home in the city and the department, after moving (for the second time).

Each of my courses was rewarding in some beneficial way, even if I didn’t always enjoy the hours spent in class. For example, editing a previously unedited medieval text engendered a number of difficulties, including learning to read Anglicana script in a week (a particularly messy scribal hand at that) and randomly searching libraries for analogues that didn’t actually exist or were written in ancient Greek or Syriac. Discussing said searches in class was less fun.

I read a bunch of early English history plays, and I discovered a love for Shakespeare’s first tetralogy — 1-3 Henry VI and Richard III. One stars Joan of Arc, one has a séance, and the others have children murdered on (or off) stage! What’s not to love? Okay, so the kid dying onstage in 3 Henry VI was kind of tragic. I also learned from George Peele’s Arraignment of Paris that Paris would give lousy testimony defending why he gave the golden apple to Venus, when it should have gone to Elizabeth I. But, of course, that’s obvious.

My frustration with Milton only grows stronger, despite how much I loved Paul Stevens’ seminar on early modern nationalism and that seventeenth-century assho—I mean, poet. Every minute of that class was enjoyable; every minute of Milton was Milton. And by Milton, I mean sadomasochism without a happy ending. A list of un-"safe" words would include "Catholicism," "liberty," "republicanism," "multitude," and any form of woman.

Anyway, the term was fantastic. Now it’s over, which means it's time to prepare for the comprehensive exams all the first year PhDs write at the end of the summer. The first exam covers literature from Old English through the seventeenth-century; the second, held a week after the first, covers the eigthteenth-century to today. My study group is phenomenal, too. We started meeting last week, and we’ve already read and discussed some medieval drama, John Locke, two 18th century comedies, and Book III of Spenser’s Faerie Queene. So stay tuned for comps-related reading reports throughout the summer. On Friday, we’re discussing Frances Burney’s Evelina and Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband!

Jane Austen, Undead

Against my better judgment but for the sake of my sanity, I've been doing a lot of “extracurricular” reading over the past few weeks, including Ann-Marie MacDonald's Belle Moral: A Natural History (2005), David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross (1984), and several volumes of the graphic series Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina. However, I'm most happy to say that I've read the new Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009) by Seth Grahame-Smith. It's Jane Austen's classic regency romance “featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem.” For example, compare the original Pride and Prejudice (1813), which opens famously with “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” The new Zombie-infused opening reads, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.” Mmmmm, delicious!

What I find surprising is that Grahame-Smith actually infuses zombie-genre conventions into Austen's narrative in clever ways that don't necessarily undermine her satire. Needing a conceit to explain the Bennet sisters' madcap zombie-slaying skills, Grahame-Smith invents a past sojourn to the “Orient” where the sisters received kung fu training. But he even situates this style of training within the novel's larger concern with class consciousness. Based on class presumptions, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, for example, cares little for Elizabeth's training:

“I assume you were schooled in Japan?”
“No, your ladyship. In China.”
“China? Are those monks still selling their clumsy kung fu to the English? I take it you mean Shaolin.”
“Yes, your ladyship; under Master Liu.”
“Well, I suppose you had no opportunity. Had your father more means, he should have taken you to Kyoto.” (126)

When Lady Catherine de Bourgh later challenges the shrewd heroine to spar with some ninjas, a ruthless Elizabeth cuts them down with ease, taking a bite out of one's heart, only to exclaim, “Curious... I have tasted many a heart, but I dare say, I find the Japanese ones a bit tender” (132). She certainly meets my definition of FEARce. Though this new warrior Elizabeth may seem ridiculous gratuitous, I'd argue it's only an extreme extrapolation of the original character: in Austen's novel, Elizabeth's a bitch in speech; in Grahame-Smith's, she's a bitch in deed.

True, the zombies leave something to be desired (i.e., subtlety), as their intrusion into the text transforms the verbal sparring of her characters into actual combat, but they also highlight some of the genre expectations and formal qualities of Austen's original. Before reading the mash-up, I'd not realized how dialogue-heavy and relatively unpoetic Austen's prose is. Maybe that's something simple I should have noticed earlier, but the zombies helped me see it.

Ding, dong, another book is read!

Another late post. In January, I finished reading Iris Murdoch's The Bell (1958), but I've been busy moving into a new apartment and trying (mostly without avail as usual) to keep up with my work, not to mention blog posts. My only previous encounter with Murdoch's fiction had been The Black Prince (1973), which I read before starting my master's degree two years ago.Where The Black Prince relies on a metafictional conceit (the novel proper is supposedly the first-person testimony of a writer, followed by two letters from other characters contradicting his story), The Bell is a noticeably more straightforward, if digressive, third-person narrative. The novel features an odd ensemble of characters, gravitating mainly around Dora Greenfield, the somewhat fickle, young wife of a pompous academic-type, and Michael Meade, a former schoolmaster with a “perverse” past. (You can guess where that one's going.)

Murdoch centers the novel in the Gloucestershire countryside at Imber Court, an old house made into a commune, only a stone's throw away from the walls of a Benedictine cloister sealed-off from the outside world. In fact, the crux of the plot is a ceremonial religious event: the cloister plans to replace its current bell, while, at the same time, accepting a new votary, a young girl named Catherine, into its order. Murdoch's characters, each brought to Imber's pastoral utopia for various reasons (research, religious devotion, etc.), thus live in a liminal world between public and decidedly private lives, and the novel questions their motives repeatedly. Murdoch's brilliance perhaps lies in her ability to hail morality yet refrain from moralizing.

Although I've only read two of Murdoch's novels, I can see Murdoch quickly becoming one of my favourite novelists—not that her novels display any particular skill at “poetry,” but that she uses fiction to represent ethical and artistic problems in their complexity. Of course, to be fair, I should consider more carefully what I mean by “poetry," especially as a criterion defining great literature. Until then, I can read Murdoch's The Green Knight.

The Complete Pr0n of ShaXXXspeare

Earlier today, I bought a used copy of Richard Burt's Unspeakable ShaXXXspeares: Queer Theory & American Kiddie Culture. Burt promises to explore how Shakespeare appears in 1990s popular culture, including pornography. My undergraduate thesis supervisor had mentioned the book to me when I was writing on Shakespeare and sexual desire, so it seems fitting that I finally get around to looking at the book three years later.

In any case, on the subway ride home, I had a chance to read the preface to the paperback edition. Burton spends most of the time discussing what he calls "Shakesploitation" films, specifically contrasting 10 Things I Hate About You (which "covers" Taming of the Shrew) and Never Been Kissed (which pimps As You Like It). His discussion is interesting but not entirely compelling so far. The preface, however, is wonderful if only because it contains the best footnote ever written:

In a review of Unspeakable ShaXXXspeares, Stanley Wells writes that [Shakespeare in Love] is an exception to the rule I note in Shakespeare pornography, namely, that Shakespeare as a character never gets laid. Yet Shakespeare is not represented here as he usually is, bald, middle-aged, and with a paunch. We will have to wait for a porn spin-off I expect will be entitled Shakespeare in Lust. (The 1999 compilation of anal scenes by that title unfortunately has nothing to do with Shakespeare.) (n.7 xxv)

The bracketed aside kills me. And now I wonder what Burt thinks of the bastardization of Twelfth Night that is She's The Man. For more on Burt, see his (eccentric?) personal site.