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Mar. 14th, 2006 09:15 pmThis eating thing needs to stop. Now. Either I am hungry or I am not. But it isn't okay to have a headache because I haven't eaten and feel nauseous at the idea of food.
After much effort and travail, I have finally got my copy of The King's Two Bodies via interlibrary loan. Of course, now that I have a paper to write this week that isn't even on Percival (making the book kind of unnecessary, or at least unjustified) I really don't need anything else to distract me. Which means that I have started it, of course.
It's nice to be back in the early Middle Ages again, particularly as I'm now able to recognize many of the heresies floating around. My brain is now pleasantly tied into knots over all of this duality, though (and its infectious: I started applying it to Tamora Pierce novels on Sheroes this afternoon), particularly the "Tiberius in his capacity as Ruler is greater than Christ in his capacity as Man" bit. It does make sense in theory, but… Tiberius? Although I suppose that the 'Anonymous Norman' was not up on his Tacitus.
I like having background knowledge. I completely understood the prof's reference to medieval theologians' conceptions of purely rational sexuality before the fall today, thanks to Augustine.
This morning I read a (disappointingly short) review of a Measure for Measure playing in New York. The list of Things Lydia Would do If She Only had the Time, Money, and Means to go Down to the City gets longer and longer. In that vein, I remember an introduction to Twelfth Night that I read once that made comparisons between Malvolio and Shylock. They're both outsiders -- a Puritan and a Jew -- who have to be humiliated before the romantic plot can be closed. I shall now proceed to make some very tenuous connections. Angelo is certainly neither Jewish nor an outsider at all (although perhaps self-proclaimed, a bit), and he isn't explicitly a Puritan. But he does have Puritanical characteristics, and he does, like M. and S. fall by his own choice/presumption into a trap that has been set up for him. And then, there is this money thing running all around Angelo (this is the tangental, very iffy, and probably coincidental Shylock connection). His name, and all that coinage metaphor, and that great line of Isabella's about bribing him "not with fine shekkels of tested gold." This is particularly cool because it looks back (and forward, I suppose) to the idea of good vs. bad vs. unknown-quality coin and underscores (as I see it) Isabella's Pagan judge-Christian virgin slant on the whole incident(s), and (taking 'shekkels' another way), almost gets at an Old Testament-y, even Jewish feel, although I am not sure whether this train of speculation is at all useful (cf. Susanna and the Elders, perhaps?).
So where is this going? I really am not sure. Nowhere, I think.
I really need to write that stupid paper on The Knight of the Cart. Dear Self, So shame cultures and Chrètien de Troyes may not be two of the most thrilling things in the world, but they aren't bad, and in any case that essay still needs to be written. Preferably sooner rather than later, so you can have something intelligent to ask about at the Dreaded Meeting over the Last Essay tomorrow.
After much effort and travail, I have finally got my copy of The King's Two Bodies via interlibrary loan. Of course, now that I have a paper to write this week that isn't even on Percival (making the book kind of unnecessary, or at least unjustified) I really don't need anything else to distract me. Which means that I have started it, of course.
It's nice to be back in the early Middle Ages again, particularly as I'm now able to recognize many of the heresies floating around. My brain is now pleasantly tied into knots over all of this duality, though (and its infectious: I started applying it to Tamora Pierce novels on Sheroes this afternoon), particularly the "Tiberius in his capacity as Ruler is greater than Christ in his capacity as Man" bit. It does make sense in theory, but… Tiberius? Although I suppose that the 'Anonymous Norman' was not up on his Tacitus.
I like having background knowledge. I completely understood the prof's reference to medieval theologians' conceptions of purely rational sexuality before the fall today, thanks to Augustine.
This morning I read a (disappointingly short) review of a Measure for Measure playing in New York. The list of Things Lydia Would do If She Only had the Time, Money, and Means to go Down to the City gets longer and longer. In that vein, I remember an introduction to Twelfth Night that I read once that made comparisons between Malvolio and Shylock. They're both outsiders -- a Puritan and a Jew -- who have to be humiliated before the romantic plot can be closed. I shall now proceed to make some very tenuous connections. Angelo is certainly neither Jewish nor an outsider at all (although perhaps self-proclaimed, a bit), and he isn't explicitly a Puritan. But he does have Puritanical characteristics, and he does, like M. and S. fall by his own choice/presumption into a trap that has been set up for him. And then, there is this money thing running all around Angelo (this is the tangental, very iffy, and probably coincidental Shylock connection). His name, and all that coinage metaphor, and that great line of Isabella's about bribing him "not with fine shekkels of tested gold." This is particularly cool because it looks back (and forward, I suppose) to the idea of good vs. bad vs. unknown-quality coin and underscores (as I see it) Isabella's Pagan judge-Christian virgin slant on the whole incident(s), and (taking 'shekkels' another way), almost gets at an Old Testament-y, even Jewish feel, although I am not sure whether this train of speculation is at all useful (cf. Susanna and the Elders, perhaps?).
So where is this going? I really am not sure. Nowhere, I think.
I really need to write that stupid paper on The Knight of the Cart. Dear Self, So shame cultures and Chrètien de Troyes may not be two of the most thrilling things in the world, but they aren't bad, and in any case that essay still needs to be written. Preferably sooner rather than later, so you can have something intelligent to ask about at the Dreaded Meeting over the Last Essay tomorrow.
