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.

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.

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.

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.

#Realconversation
My classmate: I'm wondering if the past authors would know that their works might become "literature" taught at schools one day.
Professor: I read too much William Blake to answer this question.

Professor at tonight's seminar: repetition is a good thing in literature as well as in discussion.

The early English fiction mostly tried to teach the readers as well as to entertain them. Jane Austen, (if we dared to guess her great mind,) was believed to do this teaching enormously.
Women in her era could not get in the university, and would be lucky if received any schooling at all. It's all upon the parents' whim really. Therefore, Austen tried to teach her (female) middle-class readers in her novels, to encourage them to learn something from those novels and even to read them critically.

Why did Shakespeare write so many characters in parallel to those in the story of David? Partly because Shakespeare's patron King James was obsessed over King David...

When I'm using this very English language I'm like a bull in the china shop—though I'm Chinese！