aglarien-Literature (EN) @[email protected]

Definition of the word "Canon" in theatre studies:
In theatre terms, canonical texts are those that enjoy an institutional privilege that allows them to be disproportionately studied, read, performed and referenced in relation to their peers.
--The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Contemporary Performance

I am sure Yeats wouldn't like the poem In Memory of W.B.Yeats. It's so blunt and it's less metrical than it should.

Justice is an interesting theme in the later part of the story of David. As David got older, he seemingly started to lose his competency of imposing justice on his people. He's the second King of Israel, before him and Saul there were numerous "Judges". Kings were supposed to be with greater power than the Judges when perpetuating justice. But the aged David were no longer adroit as a King, nor would he be more competent than the previous Judges when judging people. In the cases of Absalom, of Amnon and of Mephibosheth, he all miserably failed. On the contrary, Absalom cared for and revenged Tamar, and tried to judge in his father's place when he started to behave dissolutely.

Jane Austen was the master of the free indirect speech. Today's literature students use this term "free indirect speech" quite frequently to analyze dialogues in fictions while studying. But it was Jane Austen who invented this way of writing along the way she wrote. By transforming this very genre of fiction, she's able to narrate stories in a more discursive manner and her fictions, as a result, became more nuanced. There were a lot of stylings going on in the conversations she penned.

I delete some posts that I mistook to boost on this account earlier. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you, since some of you might only follow me to see breadcrumbs of literature here. I will try to use the right account as much as I can in the future!

This is a very rudimentary comparison of the masculine desire and female agency in Love's Labour Lost/Won(Much Ado About Nothing).
I shall give the presentation at the seminar tonight and here is my PPT.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15ty1vfCix8DMKf7Q-poacWph83IQW-XRDhK0SS5JHKw/edit#slide=id.p

Here're two widely-known facts by the academic research about Eve in the Biblical literature that I think you would be interested in:
1. There're two different stories about the creation of men in Genesis, each incompatible to the other. One is which Eve was created from Adam's rib. (Genesis 2:21-25) One is which both men and women were created at the same time. (Genesis 1:27). It further proves that Genesis itself is a combination of texts from multiple resources.
2. There're many translation errors in the popular English version of Genesis, most of which concerning the status of women. For example, in King James Version (KJV), Eve was said to be created to be "an help meet for" Adam, which indicates that she's made as the assistant of Adam. However, the Hebrew word here is more of a "tutor"/"advisor" than a "helper". God himself has also been described to "help" Adam with the same word.

@blanc67 @reading …and I find in the poetry of Mr. Bridges in the plays, but still more in the lyrics, the pale colours, the delicate silence, the low murmurs of cloudy country days, when the plough is in the earth, and the clouds darkening towards sunset; and had I the great gift of praising, I would praise it as I would praise these things.
（叶芝这段真好）

@blanc67 这个故事在希腊神话和圣经参孙里都有出现，感觉是跨文化的folklore/folktale继承……现代诗人也会写

In 2018 Globe's Hamlet, Polonius looked like a Jew. When watching the first act I felt puzzled: was there any evidence in the playtext to imply that he should be a Jew? Then, when it came to Act 2 Scene 2, when Polonius interrupted the 1 Player, saying the monologue is too long, Hamlet said "It shall to the barber's with your beard." Suddenly, it all makes sense now. Apparently, Polonius won't easily cut his beard because he's a Jew, therefore, Hamlet's words was an insult!
There're many stories in the Hebrew Bible concerning cutting one's hair or beard. David's missionaries, when degraded, were cut their beards by the enemies. Samson, a Nazirite, never cut his hair because that represented his covenant with the God in some senses. Absalom, a narcissist, regularly cut his own beautiful hair and in the end he died because his head stuck in the branches of a tree; his beautiful hairs hanging in the air.
This new interpretation that Polonius is a Jew may shed new light on Hamlet's sanity: he's quite reasonable, considerate even, when he inquired Polonius about Ophelia, alluding to the Jephthah's story. Jephthah was a Judge of Israel, after all.

@color_fool I was reading some research papers on the authors and their professional jobs other than writing recently and I'm interested in this topic, so please allow me to explain this a little bit further: most of the English authors by the 19th century were relatively wealthy; they were either aristocrats, or well-educated middle-class people. As to the fiction writers, publishing "fictions" was not a badge these writers would be willing to wear on their bosoms, on the contrary, most of them avoid being known as "fiction writers" by their relatives and friends because writing these things for leisure might sound unbecoming for people with their social status... Poets enjoyed higher reverence though. William Blake, conversely, was stone broke in his lifetime. Nevertheless, he did not count on earning much money by his poetry when he lived, letting alone conceiving a future fame. Blake's case may further prove that, whether rich or poor, authors mostly did not expect much afterlives of their works or their fame after death. However, in the 20th century, things were a little bit different...but that's an age too close to us.

Willam Blake died at the age of 70. It is said that on the day of his death, he was fervently working on some illustrations of the divine comedy and he said to his wife, "Stay! Keep as you are! You have ever been an angel to me: I will draw you!"
Several hours later, he passed away.

@color_fool Most of the authors simply don't care. I mean, they would be happy if they could make a living by writing(Blake could not though), but they generally wouldn't go as far to assume that readers would still be interested in their works 100 years later, and even if future readers would, the authors themselves wouldn't live that long to benefit anything from their fames. Besides, a large proportion of the "pop literature" of one generation usually won't make the textbooks 100 years later. Some poets in the 19th century were very well-known and sold well in their lives, but nowadays even the literature students at the unis won't spend any time looking at their works. The literary "canon" itself shifts from time to time.

I strongly suggest everyone who has some interest in English literature or Western culture to read the Bibles, preferably from a literary perspective. I also recommend using a small amount of commentary works to company your reading. After all, there's a large chance that you'll discover that the Bibles are not what you think. You would have assumed that they're all boring allegorical stories or strained apologies written by theorists, only if you don't read the Bibles on your own.
They are first-class fantasy novels with a small dose of history. They are beautiful. They have been inspiring generations of artists and authors over the last three thousand years.

I'm taking four courses this month. Shakespeare Studies,Biblical Literature, Close Reading, Poetry. And I'm also reading Romantic literature and fantasy literature in my spare time. So generally my posts in May and June will focus on Shakespeare, the Hebrew Bible, Romantic Poetry and their intertextuality pertaining to the contemporary fantasy novels.
From mid-June to August, my eyes will shift to Homer's Odyssey and it's afterlife in contemporary culture.
That's my plan. Let's see how it goes.

@Hydrangea R就很棒……但我觉得大部分excel做不出来的图表，要去做，学习成本都挺高的