Too much work, too few subcontractors doing it for me
 Aargh. I just realized that something I've committed to write, which I thought wasn't due until Fall 2007, is in fact due December 2006. This now leaves me with two projects due in October and one in December. Given that I'm changing jobs this fall, moving to a new city, and teaching new courses, I really need to get these three things done this summer. Remind me to stop accepting writing invitations please.The problem is compounded by the fact that, for whatever reason (probably having to do with selling the house--which, thank Jeebus, is now sold), I have been unable to do any work for the past three weeks. So really what I need to do is stop pity-blogging and get off my ass starting tomorrow morning. |
by Hieronimo @ 6:59 PM
At 5/17/2006 01:36:00 PM,
Anonymous wrote…
Say, are you the same Hieronimo as the one that's on fanstory.com? No wonder you're so busy!
At 5/17/2006 01:40:00 PM,
Hieronimo wrote…
Nope. No idea what fanstory.com is, in fact!
At 5/17/2006 03:04:00 PM,
Anonymous wrote…
it's fan fiction stuff. you should check it out, but be warned: hieronimo is already taken.
At 5/17/2006 05:22:00 PM,
Greenwit wrote…
As is dragonz, disappointingly.
At 5/17/2006 07:12:00 PM,
Anonymous wrote…
ey!
At 5/17/2006 09:33:00 PM,
Greenwit wrote…
sorry... just a gentle poke from a guy who was stupid enough to name himself after the most pretentious character in all Stuart drama.
At 5/18/2006 04:41:00 PM,
Simplicius wrote…
Truewit: most pretentious character in all Stuart drama? Any other nominations?
I'm still loving Inkhorn's theory of Spenser as the arch-nerd of the English Renaissance. I'm afraid that's how I'll always think of him.
At 5/18/2006 06:01:00 PM,
Hieronimo wrote…
Well, it depends exactly how you're using pretentious. I mean, Truewit may not even be the most pretentious character in his own play, if you think of Amorous La Foole, for instance. Within the terms the play sets, I think, La Foole is more pretentious and Truewit simply witty and gallant. But I think our Truewit is reading against the grain of the play here, and I think from a critical perspective he's right that his namesake is the most pretentious. So the question is whether we're looking for characters who are mocked as pretentious within a play or those who are pretentious from our critical perspective? In the case of Truewit, are we saying he's pretentious, or are we really saying that Jonson is pretentious for constructing the idea of wit in that play in the way he did?
At 5/18/2006 07:15:00 PM,
Inkhorn wrote…
I've never been able to sell Jonson to State U students, precisely because they find him too pretentious. I've tried *Bartholomew Fair* -- perhaps a mistake -- and *The Alchemist* (one of the three most perfectly plotted works in the English language!). I've stayed away from *Volpone*, but maybe I should give that a try. I always think that if they could get into the language, there's a lot there they'd like to talk about -- but they never seem to get past the "I don't like Jonson as a person" bit. Maybe it's an inkhorn taste?
At 5/18/2006 07:16:00 PM,
Hieronimo wrote…
I taught Epicene with a fair bit of success. Never tried the other ones... We had already read Knight of the Burning Pestle just before, so they were prepared to talk about issues of wit and dramatic taste.
At 5/18/2006 09:51:00 PM,
La Lecturess wrote…
I've taught Volpone to my Brit Lit I students, two semesters in a row, at a school that I imagine has a similar population to yours, Inkhorn, and with a fair amount of success.
In the fall, the students in both my sections LOVED Volpone (maybe it's the conman? Such an American achetype, after all). We had fabulous discussions and I got quite a few papers on the play. This spring, however, my students weren't nearly as enthralled, and for reasons that I couldn't quite figure out. But I did get some inspired enactments of the scene in which Peregrine gulls Sir Politic.
At 5/18/2006 09:53:00 PM,
La Lecturess wrote…
P.S. I always do the biographical intro for Jonson, in which I bill him as the bad-boy, Russell Crowe of the Early Modern Stage--killing a fellow actor, being thrown in jail, blah blah blah. I think that helps to offset and give some context to what my students would otherwise see as pretention.
At 5/18/2006 11:49:00 PM,
Pamphilia wrote…
Jonson is so *totally* an inkhorn taste. I think he was probably thought of as an inkhorn taste even in his own day. Maybe not an "arch-nerd" like Spenser or Harvey, but, I mean, look at Poetaster. (something I wouldn't dare teach my students unless it was in a class on Ovid. Which is pretty damn likely, actually. Oh, nevermind . . .)
Scribble some marginalia
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