Whatcha whatcha whatcha want
I got up at 4 a.m. to study for a Latin test, finish reading Troilus and Criseyde, draft a “philosophy of teaching comp” thing, finish up a little Malory, and start a little Tennyson before the sun came up today, and now I’m so exhausted I can’t sleep. Funny that.
Since I can’t sleep but my brain is so fried I can’t possibly say anything intelligent, I thought I’d take a long overdue peek at what brings people to this blog, and see if I can’t help them find what they’re looking for since I know they didn’t find it when they got here.
As usual, one of the top search terms is “Sir Marrok.” Poor Sir Marrok. As usual, I have to say that 1) I don’t know why this blog turns up among the first five hits when you Google Sir Marrok, and 2) Malory did not write a Tale of Sir Marrok if Google is bringing you here. I should put up a Sir Marrok bibliography in case any of these hits come from students slouching towards research topics. Jeff Massey should help me; I hear he knows a thing or two about medieval werewolves.
“bibliography beowulf seamus norton”
I’m not sure what you’re looking for.
“importance of loyalty in lay of the were”
I am just going to assume that wordpress is truncating the search term, and this was actually “Lay of the Werewolf,” aka Bisclavret. I’ve got nothing on this that I haven’t already posted, and most of that in a strange mixture of jest and haste. If you’re looking for an online text of the lai, you could do worse than Judith Shoaf’s translation here. If you’re looking for a web page discussing ideals and complications of loyalty in Marie de France’s lai, and you’re fortunate enough to be enrolled in a college course in which you have a professor available to you for consultation, then I strongly recommend you ask your professor for recommendations on resources, because Google is going to get you nothing more than a bunch of role playing game hits (and, apparently, my blog, and frankly, I’ve seen role playing games that were better researched than my blog).
“marrok”
I have *got* to come up with some new material.
“a summary for the second shepherd’s’ “
What I like best here is the way the searcher covered all the bases with punctuation. It’s a pesky play to punctuate, and this person was taking no chances. Hint: if you search with no punctuation, you’ll still get decent hits; amusingly, Google will ask you if you’re sure you don’t mean “second shepherd’s play.” Dear readers coming here via Google: you *don’t* mean “second shepherd’s play.”
Here’s an edition of the text. If you want a summary, here’s one that’s short and sweet (but that is probably not the shortcut you wanted). If you’re looking for a modern English “translation,” you could do worse than this one.
“latin word obsess history”
Cool! See, these “radical homosexual agenda” people have it all wrong. The most dangerous people I know are the radical philologists – we’re lying in wait, poised to corrupt your freshmen with OED homework assignments, your elderly Christian aunts with copies of Louise M. Burkhart’s Holy Wednesday, and your neighborhood film-goers with Angelina Jolie doing philology naked.
In my mind, that was all going to have a rousing and funny punchline involving The Naked Philologist. Somewhere between brain, fingers, and screen, it didn’t quite work out. Must mean the sleep dep is catching up with me.
update, and a plea
No, I’m not posting much these days. In fact, I’m not reading much these days (well, that isn’t about Myrmidons or King Arthur or Pedagogy or Crashaw or St. Foy). Coursework is kicking my rear end.
Note to those thinking about grad school in medieval anything: beg, borrow, or steal to do some of your languages before you start coursework. I started a PhD program in my mid-30s, and I didn’t know I wanted to be a medievalist until fairly late in the game in my MA program. I had French from my first undergrad institution in the early 90s, and it needed some serious dusting off before I could pass my MA exam, but the good news was PhD Institution accepted that exam for its department requirements. Fine. Great, even. If I weren’t trying to be a medievalist, I would be all done with everything the department wanted me to do.
But I’m not 
I came here with no Latin (and no Anglo Saxon) and you wouldn’t believe the course juggling the last two years trying to get undergrad-level language classes to fit in around weekly grad seminars and TA assignments (well, if you’re reading this, maybe you would believe it). I have the system-override equivalent of a Time Turner this semester, which enables me to take two classes that happen at the same time. It gets pretty confusing when you’re sleep-deprived.
Anyway, if I’d known then what I know etc.
In theory, I should be done with coursework after this semester. In practice, I’ll be picking up another year of Latin, a semester of medieval Latin, and a summer paleography somewhere, as well as a distribution requirement in 18th or 19th century lit that I haven’t been able to make work before now. I’m hoping there will be some directed reading in Anglo-Saxon happening too, as my Latin is *already* better than my Anglo-Saxon, and that is not saying a lot.
I have to put together a committee for the PhD exam this semester, in order to get my reading lists together and then take the exam early next Spring. So I’m at a point where I’m looking up from the trenches a bit and saying to myself, “How did it happen that all that stuff you intended to do didn’t get done?”
That leads me to the “plea” section of this post, which is in some ways a plea for perspective. What do you wish you’d gotten to in your PhD program that you didn’t? Would it actually have been easier to pick up that Art History knowledge in coursework, in retrospect? Or do you find yourself thinking you wish you’d spent more time getting the hell out of dodge (dodge being grad school) and less time trying to take every class under the sun? Do you wonder what would have happened if you’d published more, or less, or spent more time thinking about teaching philosophies (or less)? Eternally regret not taking that Victorian poetry class, or not starting some independent study of Old Norse, or not playing more badminton?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Saxon burial ground discovered…
…by two members of the Eastbourne District Metal Detecting Club: Bob White and Cliff Smith. The skeletons of a man and two women were accompanied by weapons and jewelry, among other artifacts.
