Re: hmm....birthdays...

Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Wed, 10 Feb 1999 13:40:56 +1100

Anyone else out there want to compete for Most Peripheral Reference To
Salinger In An Otherwise Totally Unrelated Essay? (: I worked Holden into
an essay on Romeo and Juliet, which wasn't *that* difficult really - how
about the rest of you? (Managing to force Nabokov into a discussion on
Wilfred Owen remains another high point)

Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
@ THE INVERTED FOREST http://www.angelfire.com/pa/invertedforest

> somewhat on topic and obSalinger:  today in my later British Romantics
class I
> compared Byron's Childe Harold to Holden Caulfield.  the prof. didn't
know
> what the hell i meant so i had to go into all this disillusionment with
the
> present state and idyllic journey that puts the traveller right back
where he
> started but oh so much the better for the travelling.  it was all very
much
> off the top of my head (or out of my ass, depending on your level of
> propriety) and i'm getting the feeling i've botched it terribly here.  it
may
> be enough to note the prof eventually understood and told me never to
bring up
> american lit in his class again.  and we all had a good laugh and
burrowed
> through the rest of the second canto (i mean of canto the second)...matt
> (stevenson, who will henceforth sign his posts as yahweh due to the
rising
> population of "matt"s on the list)
> 
> 
> On Tue, 09 Feb 1999 17:15:38 -0500 (EST) jrovira@juno.com (blah b b blah)
> wrote:
> 
> >Thank GOD Wordsworth wasn't the only English Romantic Poet :)  I always
> >thought he was Up to Here in Feces.  I much prefer Blake -- more honest,
> >more real, more thoughtful, plenty of ideas without idealism.
> >
> >Blake also provides a good paradigm for the growth out of innocence.
> >While we do pass through experience (disillusionment, selfishness, etc)
> >we do not have to stay there.  We can enter into the Old John state,
> >where we attain an informed innocence once again.  If you want to give
> >Wordsworth some credibility, I would say we pass out of a
"body-centered"
> >experience into something less "physically" passionate into something
> >more thoughtful, directed, and "effectively" passionate.
> >
> >In short, we know what we want, value, and how to serve those ends in
the
> >real world. We accept limitations and work within them; and when we're
> >really experienced, we use them to our advantage.  In short, we learn
how
> >to win and how not to defeat ourselves.
> >
> >At least, we CAN know :)  We can also stay Stupid our entire lives...
> >
> >Jim
> >
> >