Classes start in a week, and I don’t think I’m ready. I thought I had more time than this. I thought the 21st was further away.
I have all my books for this semester’s lit classes already, which I have stacked up on my dresser, waiting to be read. The top three books I have a week to get through, as they aren’t required for this semester. Rather, they were recommended through the other lit classes of last year, and I have yet to tackle them. Most of them are dead British authors which seem to be my favorite genre.
There are a few books on the pile that I’m not particularly excited to be reading. Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville is one. I don’t particularly like classic American writing, and so am not looking forward to the American Lit class at all. If it wasn’t required for the English degree, I wouldn’t take it.
Another book I’m not looking forward to reading is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Which is depressing really, because it had been on my reading list before it had even been assigned for the Myth Lit class. Unfortunately, flipping through the book, it appears that it is written in Middle English, which is even harder to understand than Old English.1 I can only hope that I some how picked up the wrong copy, and we are really reading the translated version. After all, we’re reading Beowulf as well, and that has been translated from Middle English.
My Womens Lit class has been dropped by the college, and that means not enough people signed up for it. On one hand, it’s good because I couldn’t really afford another $70 in Lit books. On the other, it sucks because I was really looking forward to the class. Women often get overlooked in classic Lit selections because there were so many more prolific male writers during that time period.
So, other week until classes. I’ll be passing the time by avoiding the thought. Now that it’s right down to the wire, it turns out I’m not so excited to go back as I thought. Although, I’m sure that will change again when I finally do start classes. After all, it’s been a boring summer. And I do look forward to seeing all my school friends again.
- “Serve the Servants,” In Utero: Nirvana
- It seems strange, but Middle English is older than Old English. Old English being Shakespeare’s time, and Middle English being the second evolution of
English, which is occasionally unrecognizable as English.[back]
“Old English” is the English of Beowulf, a language that looks almost nothing like modern English and that predates Shakespeare by about five hundred years.
A lot of people call Shakespeare’s English “old English” (erroneously) because it sounds so strange, but that’s primarily because of the poetic voice. In fact, Shakespeare’s English was essentially modern English; linguistically, there is very little that differentiates his language from what we speak today.
As for Middle English, learning to read it will be your gateway to Chaucer, whose work is simply brilliant. I enjoyed my Chaucer class (knowing French helped).
John, thanks for the correction
I just hear Shakespeare refered to as “Old English” so often that I guess I just took it as true.
But, I really did think Beowulf was Middle English as well. We read parts of it before translation in Early English Lit, and it reminded me a lot of what I saw in Sir Gawain. Although, it was harder to understand.
And apparently I must be reading “translated” versions of Chaucer, because that was in modern English when we read it in the same Lit class. Go figure.
I’m sure by the end of the book, I’ll be able to read Middle English as well as Modern English. But, looking at it at the moment, it makes me not want to read it at all. Then again, it is my last lazy week of the year, before the semester starts. I don’t want to do anything at all that taxes my brain.
Oh, I know the feeling. I’ve been on vacation all week and I really, really don’t want to go back to work.
Get the version of Sir Gawain translated by JRR Tolkien.