Mrs. Dalloway

Whoa, what a crazy week. I just finished an intensive flurry of writing 12 new poems for a creative writing class. I hope they're up to snuff, it's no secret among my friends that I've never liked it. However, this time I enjoyed several of them. I'm also reading "Mrs. Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf. It's an interesting book with several different characters taking up the narrative. It's been praised as expertly making just everyday activities engaging to read, and this is for the most part, true. I think it's a double edged sword - preparing for parties and watching people play or walk, for example, can only be so intriguing. But Woolf puts us right into the heads of all these characters, even some minor ones, just so we can get a glimpse into their life and feelings. It's growing on me the further I get into it. I'm also writing 10 more pages on a screenplay that's going pretty well so far. I'll have to have 50 done by the end of the semester, and I've got 26 or so now. 4 or 5 more pages to be done by late Monday, shouldn't be too hard. Oh, I'm rambling. Hope everybody's weekend's going well!

Poetry, Poetry, Poetry!

I just read "The Wasteland" by T.S. Eliot and "The Dead" by James Joyce. Neither really did that much for me. I suppose I was impressed by the complexity and vast scope of "The Wasteland," (he alludes to many works, some old, some ancient, some new, like Dante's "Inferno," "Tristan and Isolde," and Ovid's "Metamorphoses") but for the most part I was lost. I know Eliot has said that poetry should be difficult and complex, but that certainly doesn't add to its "enjoyability factor." "The Dead" took a while to get going, but over time I started to relate to the main character Gabriel (once I knew he was the main character, there's so many) and really felt for him by the end, but I think the story is uneven. The ending shows that it should be about Gabriel and his wife's relationship, but there are too many diverting subplots about various attendees at the party and other things that make it difficult to understand what the reader's really supposed to be looking for. That's my opinion, though. Still, it's been good to get into some "new" works. Well, they're new to me.

New Territory

By "new territory," I'm referring to my creating a web page. For my English Lit class I've had to create a page related to the material we've been going over, and my page is dedicated to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, writer of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I used Google Page Creator through Geocities and it really wasn't that difficult. Mind you, it's not a very elaborate page, but it has text and 6 links as well as a picture! Isn't that nifty. It can be found at http://www.geocities.com/wolvie2004/coleridgelit.html . So enjoy!

What else have I been reading?

I just read "Goblin Market" by Christina Rossetti. It was an interesting poem about a group of women who are tempted by "Goblin Men" to buy and partake of their fruits, which seem to have a "forbidden fruit" effect reminescient of the Garden of Eden in the book of Genesis. One of the women gives in to the Goblin Men's spells and buys their fruit, resulting in her near demise due to the fruit's effects. Her sister saves her by resisting the extreme pressure of the Goblin Men to force their wares on her and gains the antidote. Though there seems to be several possible real world themes behind the story such as women empowerment and anti-conformity (and I can definitely see both), it was still an engaging read on its own. The poem was also well developed in terms of metre, rhyme and lyrical quality. It often felt very much like a song, which always makes poetry easier to enjoy for me. I had never heard of Rossetti and very much enjoyed this piece. On to the weekend!

Great Expectations?

In case you haven't guessed the point of this post's title, then I'll just say it: I've been reading Great Expectations again. For some reason I don't remember it to be near as rich, funny or dense as it's turned out to be. I read it once before in ninth grade, I think. I liked it okay then, but now I see a whole lot more depth in Pip and his character, as well as in his surrounding characters like Joe, Biddy, Magwitch, etc. I'm also finding a lot more humor in the novel, and a lot of its fairly dark humor, which I enjoy. I've been reading "Adventures of Huck Finn" by Twain and I admired how Twain captured the youth's voice in the first person in that novel, and I think Dickens nearly does as good as a job with that by using the third person in this novel, especially in the early scenes. Anyway, I've definitely enjoyed revisiting a lot of these old works. Though I'm enjoying the book again, I have to close with a quote from one of my favorite comedies: "What are you reading?" -"Great Expectations." -"Is it any good?" -"Ah, it's not all I hoped for."

As the Weekend Dawns...

It's 4 AM and I just went through some more poetry, including Matthew Arnold's "The Forsaken Merman" and Robert Browning's "The Last Duchess." I enjoyed "Merman" just fine; I really felt sorry for the lonesome seaman. Moving on, I have to say "The Last Duchess" is darkly entertaining to read - the guy's calmly rationalizing why his former wife deserved to be disposed of, and he's also quite obvious about how he's in the market (unless I'm interpreting this thing wrong, then let me know) for a new bride! I'm sure this fellow is quite easy to please. I'm pretty positive the Duke had something to do with the Duchess' demise, though I'm sure there's some interpretation out there that can show the opposite. Regardless, I liked the poem about as much as I liked it the last time I read it, which was a few years ago. Well, I'm yawning more wider and louder by the second, so....*snore*

Tennyson, Browning, and more!

Good evening! I've had quite the busy week so far. I got my first ten pages of my screenplay completed, and finished a short story I'd been working on here and there since the start of the summer. In my online class, we're looking at poets such as Tennyson, Elizabeth Browning and Robert Browning. By this point, I've read by Elizabeth Browning's "Say over again" and "The Woman's Cause is Man's" by Alfred Tennyson. Browning's sonnet includes a plea for true, requited love, and I felt it it's a well constructed and powerful poem that wasn't too cryptic or difficult to interpret, which is a plus for me. "The Woman's Cause Is Man's" was also a strong statement to read, albeit a more politically charged one, though this isn't a bad thing. It brings up some very good points about how better the world would be if men and women were allowed to work hand in hand. So there's some examples of my literary explorations this week. The weekend's coming!