<![CDATA[Literature Network Forums - Blogs - Life by Petrarch's Love]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/blog.php?9941-Life The largest classic literature discussion forum on the Internet. Read Write Teach Share. en Fri, 05 Jun 2026 13:44:34 GMT vBulletin 10 https://www.online-literature.com/forums/images/misc/rss.jpg <![CDATA[Literature Network Forums - Blogs - Life by Petrarch's Love]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/blog.php?9941-Life England Blog https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?9086-England-Blog Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:24:50 GMT Not having the time while abroad to keep up two blogs, the post here is to direct any interested parties to the blog I have recently started up about... Not having the time while abroad to keep up two blogs, the post here is to direct any interested parties to the blog I have recently started up about my travels through England. Good for anyone curious to see pictures of England or curious about Katherine Parr, last wife of Henry VIII:

http://katherineparr.blogspot.com/ ]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?9086-England-Blog English Food https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?8955-English-Food Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:31:30 GMT Hi All--Having a wonderful trip to England and just settled into Oxford where I have spent a heavenly afternoon among the ancient books of Duke... Hi All--Having a wonderful trip to England and just settled into Oxford where I have spent a heavenly afternoon among the ancient books of Duke Humfrey's Library at the Bodleian. Have been snapping hundreds of pictures on my tour thus far and, bearing in mind the lengthy discussion of foods that has taken place on these forums here http://www.online-literature.com/for...ad.php?t=46567, took some pictures of the local fare as well. Before posting anything so boring as pictures of Parliament or Buckingham Palace, then, I shall deal first and foremost deal with these rumors about the inferiority of British food that have been circulated. Thus far I have been eating very happily. Some photographic evidence:

Breakfast

As forewarned, the English do indeed appear to have but two sauces. HP and Tomato manifest themselves everywhere:



Eggs and sausage (even if HP free) are truly delicious:



Snack

It is apple season here and this delicious fruit is easily obtainable. This particular batch was bought for a pound from a local church before being stored in my hat and used for still life practice:



There are convenient tables everywhere to set one's apple on:



Unfortunately some specimens of the fruit are so large that they threaten to become too heavy for local landmarks to bear:



Lunch

As a sample of luncheon fare I present my three course Salisbury meal at the lovely Tudor hotel, The Rose and Crown:



A divine Tomato & Basil soup:



Chicken in wild mushroom cream sauce with beautifully tender veggies:



Melon and Sorbet:



And a charming view of the river, complete with swan and sheep worthy of a Constable painting:



Tea


Absolutely my favorite meal here is tea. There are a number of lovely variations on this theme:

Cream Tea--note the clotted cream, which is so called, no doubt, due to its affect on the arteries, but one is too happy eating it to care much:



This particular cream tea was taken on a bridge in Bath overlooking the Avon:



Special Cream Tea

Basically a cream tea with cucumber sandwiches and a Queen Victoria sponge cake thrown in for good measure:



Champagne Tea

All I can say is that the Dorchester Hotel is heaven on earth at tea time (though if one is a budgeting student then it helps if a generous Mum comes along):








Dinner


Off to the Pub for some local fare. Fish 'n Chips:



Cheddar Jacket Potato:



And, naturally, a Pint with good old Milton:

]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?8955-English-Food Response to Virgil https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6746-Response-to-Virgil Sun, 09 Nov 2008 19:06:26 GMT My response to Virgil's recent blog entry http://www.online-literature.com/forums/blog.php?b=6743 (itself a response to a post of mine to a recent blog of his) became so lengthy that I felt it was more practical to make it an entry of my own:

Thanks for the response, Virg. First, I realize I came off a little more partisan than I intended when I referred to the Bush years as "divisive." To begin with, you're absolutely right that there have always been disagreements among political opponents and bipartisanship, and that the president is always criticised by opposition. I also agree that there have been divisive presidencies before, under both parties, in the past. I think, though that Bush's presidency is going to be remembered as among these more controversial presidencies. There has been an escalation in this bipartisanship in the last several years that has created really strong and unhealthy animosity between republicans and democrats that, in many cases, has not been at all flattering to either side. I think there has been a much stronger cultural division along party lines, much more emotional involvement and polarization along party lines than under Reagan, or Bush senior, or at least the first part of the Clinton years. To be fair, I think this rift along party lines can be partly traced back to the Clinton scandal. I think that undermined the respect people felt for the presidency and opened the door for bad feelings between the parties. Follow that with controversial decisions and war under the Bush administration, and you start getting people thinking more about the agenda of their political party than the good of their country. You have one side talking about "real" and "fake" Americans and dismissing their opponents as out of touch, unethical, snobs, and another side dismissing their opponents as ignorant backwoods rubes and calling a sitting president (among the tamer things) a monkey. I don't think either party has been coming out looking all that great during the Bush years, and so in my comment I meant it when I said I hoped that we could reign back some of this particularly virulent partisan sentiment and think about ourselves as Americans first and members of political parties second, and I both respect and admire the way you expressed that sentiment, that regardless of our political leanings we should all be able to unite as Americans with pride in our nation. I think it is no accident in this election that McCain was emphasizing "Country First" and that Obama was saying there are no blue states and no red states, just the United States. Both candidates were recognizing that, whatever you think the reasons may be, Bush's presidency has had the effect of polarizing the political parties, and I was hoping that whichever of the candidates won, he would be able to mend some of that divide and get us all to place the good of our country first again.

As for the racial issue. Again, I absolutely agree with you that formally institutionalized racism is no longer a tremendous problem in this country. I also agree with you that there is a need and responsibility in the black community to develop some pride in self and to have the confidence not to believe that you are limited by the color of your skin or the position of your birth.
Here’s something else to put into perspective,more people have died from violence in Obama’s inner city of Chicago than American soldiers in Iraq over the course of the war. No one can tell me that racial victimization is the cause of that.
I'm well aware of that fact. I think it is shameful. I don't quite understand the point you're trying to make with this statistic though. As someone who lives in the area you allude to, I think it is very clear that one factor in the problems going on in these neighborhoods is the inheritance of the deeply segregated racial divide that existed in Chicago's past, and that hasn't yet vanished as completely as one might wish. I'm not saying that race is the only factor in the violence around here, which it certainly is not, but it sure doesn't help that there's a deeply ingrained history of racial resentment and conflict.

I don't believe in using the excuse of racial victimization, or any victimization as a catch all excuse for all the problems of a person or a community. Certainly that person or that community must also do their best to help themselves. All the same, living on Chicago's South Side, I've gained some insight into how difficult, even impossible, that can look from a certain perspective, and how much the after effects of segregation still have a very real impact on peoples' lives in this community. I can see how a kid growing up in one of the tough communities to the west of Hyde Park is living in a world full of people who look like him, and they are living in a sh**y neighborhood, while most of the white people he sees are better off and in nicer areas. I can see how this makes him feel a divide between himself and other races, and makes him feel, based on his own limited experience, that the lives of black people are generally speaking confined to a ghetto environment. In turn, I've got to say that there is the problem on the other side that the people that you think of as scary in this neighborhood tend more often to be black. It's actually just a fact that more (though not all) of the gangbanger, threatening looking young men are African American around here, but that then perpetuates an association of black men with crimanal activity that isn't healthy for anyone including those young men themselves. While I agree with you that it's important not to make this a "crutch" or an "excuse" for someone not to make something better of him or herself, I also think it is important to acknowledge the resentment and the anger that people carry with them based on the way that they've experienced the world. You can't simply dismiss race as an issue in the lives of people who think of it as a very real and immediate issue and expect that to help them any more than the other extreme of dwelling too much on race as an issue is going to help them. I absolutely agree with you that I think Obama's election is going to make a big difference in terms of how people in neighborhoods like this see themselves. I think a lot of black people in poor neighborhoods like this really have believed for years that it was impossible for a black man to become "the man," and the symbolic force of this election is going to have a big impact. Already I hear people talking differently, and more to the point sense people feeling differently about the unspoken racial divide around here. I think that the mantra "yes we can" has the potential to make as effective and practical a change in the unofficial segregation that still lingers (though in a much more complex and nuanced way) in the ghettos of our country as "we shall overcome" did when making those huge strides to end institutionalized segregation. So, to an extent I think you are right that Obama's election may help to bring an end to all people, including African Americans themselves, thinking in terms of racism being strong enough to hold black people back. I certainly hope so.

Putting aside the complex issue of impoverished black neighborhoods, though, I think it's still important not to say generally speaking that we have no racism in this country anymore. Again, I agree with you if you only mean institutionalized racism, and I agree that I don't think racism should be an "excuse" for a person not having applied themselves sufficiently to be successful in life. I also agree that there are other kinds of prejudice that are a problem in this country, including economic prejudices against low class people, or religious prejudices, etc. These are also problems for our nation. I wouldn't say that serious prejudice against social class isn't a problem that holds people back, and I wouldn't say that racial prejudice isn't a problem that continues to hold people back or at least to affect their lives more than you suggest. You are right that we all have personal prejudices, and that it is sometimes a fine line between judging the activities and the lifestyle of another person and beginning to judge and dismiss the person themselves. Still, I think there are racial prejudices that remain in this country that are distinctly different from a prejudice against tattoos or other lifestyle choices (and I'm sorry, I actually just don't understand how the flack Palin got as a political candidate is analogous to racial prejudice). I do think that it's productive to not focus on race when it isn't neccessary, but I also think that we should still feel a responsibility to focus on racism when it is neccessary.

One reason that I think it is important not to say that racism no longer exists at all is that I've seen how that claim can be used as an excuse to ignore the racial problems that do still linger or to act ignorantly. I remember once speaking (rather heatedly) in college to a group of white guys who thought it was "funny" on Halloween to dress up in stripped prison costumes, wear black face, and call each other n****. Their response was that this was totally cool because obviously there wasn't any real racism anymore, but it made a black friend of mine feel both angry and frightened at what kind of thinking those costumes might imply. In that case, it was really important to stand up and say that what they were doing was racist, and that racism wasn't over as long as people were behaving like that. It was important to acknowledge that it was racist when a friend of mine (who looks just as classy or not as I do, but happens to be black) was asked to leave a high end store because the saleswoman didn't think people like her belonged there (the woman didn't know we were together, and I not only wasn't asked to leave but was greeted with a broad smile, even though ironically my friend is the one who could have afforded their merchandise). I was just talking to a young woman who said while she was living in New Jersey she had a boyfriend who, when things started getting more serious after several months, told her that he could have fun with her but his parents would never ever approve of him actually marrying a black woman. Tell her racism isn't affecting the way she lives her life. There's also the more overt stuff that still crops up. How is racism dead when my black neighbors in California wake up one morning shortly after Obama won the primary to find swastikas tagged on their house? Or my friend who put out an Obama sign that was painted over with the N**** word? Or another friend of mine who has relatives living in the south who had a cross burned on their lawn just a few years back? I'll agree that these incidents are no longer typical in our country, and I have no problem with not making racism a central issue when it doesn't have to be. I certainly don't think that incidents like this define our country in any way or are a large part of our culture the way they once were, but at those times when stuff like this happens, you have to call a spade a spade, and you have to say that racism does still exist. ]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6746-Response-to-Virgil <![CDATA[Winter's Tale Part II]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6339-Winter-s-Tale-Part-II Sun, 14 Sep 2008 18:47:57 GMT [This is a continuation of the previous blog entry, "Winter's Tale" Part I]


The Tragi-Comic
On the one hand Shakespeare is definitely interested in a tragic-comedy blend in this plot, and in a way that directly re-uses material from his own straight tragedies and comedies. For example, both WT and its near predecessor Cymbeline begin with plots very much modeled on Othello, but Othello re-written with a happy ending. One way of understanding Leontes’ character is to imagine Shakespeare using this character to think through what Othello would be like without an Iago. How would the dynamics of a jealousy plot work without the voice of temptation there as a foil to show the audience how that jealousy developed? How do you represent jealousy in a character that comes from some place inside that character that the audience cannot witness? How does not having as much knowledge of what is driving and motivating that character change the way the role plays out? The idea of starting with the mistaken and seemingly irrational snap judgment of a character who subsequently learns how wrong he is, is also familiar from the start of [i]King Lear.[\i] Both Lear and Winter’s Tale are clearly interested in the ramifications of having of a powerful king who misjudges the character of those around him. Yet in Winter’s Tale, unlike Othello or Lear the playwright is also interested in how a tragic premise can find a comic ending. How can happiness come from a tragic start with wrongful judgment? How do tragedy and comedy play out in life? Rather than being interested, as he is in plays like Lear and Othello, in showing psychology of how the mind of one man is swayed to error in judgment, and the way this leads his fortunes on a slope from bad to worse, he is instead interested in how things can be recuperated after such an error. The last four plays are certainly not the first time that Shakespeare mixes tragic an comic elements, but they are different from the other plays in the way they are examining the way life continues after a tragic decision has been made. In Winter’s Tale jealousy does have some tragic results, but does not end as a story with death and despair in the way Othello does. Life, instead, goes on as it is wont to do.
Romance
So, thinking of this play in terms of a tragic-comedy that is rethinking some of the material of the earlier tragedies is one useful way to approach it. Another is to think of the play in terms of the genre of romance. A Winter’s Tale is based on the prose romance Pandosto, so there is a direct link to the play and to the genre. Romances were very popular across the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the most famous examples of the genre today being the Arthurian romances (of which there were many) detailing the adventures of the Knights of the Round Table. Spenser’s Faerie Queene is probably the most famous romance work (it can also be called, more specifically, an Epic Romance) from one of Shakespeare’s near contemporaries, and The Faerie Queene has also suffered from some of the same criticism that I had of Winter’s Tale when I first read it: that it is disjointed and a bit of a mess in terms of structure. Such criticism has been heaped on Spenser’s work by readers and critics expecting it to behave like an epic in the tradition of the Aeneid or the Illiad. That is, they expect a straight storyline that flows logically from beginning to end and focused on a single hero. Instead, of being failed epics, however, The Faerie Queene and other similar works are better judged as belonging to the genre of romance, which is characterized by a structure that intentionally incorporates multiple story lines woven together in a complicated interconnected fashion that involves abrupt shifts in time and place and follows the adventures of a large cast of characters. Rather than being a deficiency in the structure of the work, the multiple narrative strands and vast scope of settings in varied times and places in a Romance simply create a very different effect in terms of providing a sense of a great moving picture of the world in its complexities as opposed to a more focused picture of the single narrative of an epic hero.
Similarly, rather than thinking of the plot of Winter’s Tale as a failure at providing the sort of tightly structured focus that we see in other plays, it might be better to think of this play in terms of an experiment in utilizing some of the strengths of the romance genre on the stage. The seemingly abrupt shifts in time and place, most noticeable in the division between the pre- and post “exit pursued by bear” portions, can sometimes seem awkward and out of joint, but they also mark an interest in presenting a multiple lines of a story across time and space. Shakespeare had been interested in the problem of presenting a story of large scope in the narrow confines of a stage play for much of his career and since at least the Henry V prologue when, frustrated at his inability to properly present the huge distances and mighty battle scenes of his history, he wrote “Oh for a muse of fire…/A kingdom for a stage, princes to act/ And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!” He seems to have been increasingly interested in the later part of his career in plot lines that involved travel across great distances, especially sea travel around the Mediterranean, and the telling of a story across a long period of time. This can be seen in a play like Antony and Cleopatra, for example, which covers a large chunk of history in a compressed time with a great amount of travel between Rome and Egypt. A and C , however, is still structured more like one of the earlier English History plays in that it gives the illusion of being one compact story arc. There is an attempt to make the transitions in space and time so smooth that they are hardly noticeable. It is starting with Pericles a year or so later that Shakespeare begins to experiment with a romance style structure that purposely brings attention to shifts in time and place in the same way that he does in Winter’s Tale.
Another aspect of the romance genre that crops up in all four of the romance or tragic-comedy plays, is the juxtaposition between the world of the court or civilization, and the world of the rustic and pastoral. Though he made comic use of rustic characters throughout his career, it is in these plays that he most explicitly addresses the world of pastoral romance (which was exceedingly popular among contemporary poets), as well as the attendant issues of class that such plots bring up. The main thrust of the pastoral romance plot—in which usually some member of the nobility is disguised as/ accidently brought up as a shepheard(ess)—is that noble blood will tell. However, it is also a tantalizing space for suggesting questions about matters of class, as many have suggested the so called “grafting” discussion between Perdita and Polixenes does in act 4, scene 4 of WT.

The above are just a few suggestions about how Shakespeare may have been experimenting with the genres of romance and tragi-comedy in this late play. Hope it can be helpful in terms of sparking some thoughts about the way this play and its characters are working. I’ll be happy to answer any questions/respond to any comments posted either here at the blog or on the Winter’s Tale thread. :) ]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6339-Winter-s-Tale-Part-II <![CDATA[Winter's Tale part I]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6338-Winter-s-Tale-part-I Sun, 14 Sep 2008 18:39:53 GMT These two blog entries are a response to the Winter’s Tale discussion going on in the Shakespeare Discussion section of the forums... These two blog entries are a response to the Winter’s Tale discussion going on in the Shakespeare Discussion section of the forums (http://www.online-literature.com/for...ad.php?t=35848). It set out initially as a very short post, but I found myself becoming quite verbose. I thought that people who have either been following the thread, or have read the play before might be interested in the mini-essay I ended up with, so I decided to post it here for perusal. I've only really had a chance to skim the start of the great discussion everyone’s been having about this play, but I thought I'd respond generally to two questions that have been addressed in the act I thread. One, which was brought up immediately near the beginning of the thread, is the question of the genre of this play, and the other is the question of what to make of Leontes' very rapid descent into jealousy in the first scene. These are two big questions that both casual and scholarly readers of this play have asked for years, and which, like all good questions, have sparked much good though and debate. Here are a few of my own thoughts and reactions to these questions:

A Complete Mess
In certain ways the question of genre and the question of Leontes' character are closely related questions. When I first read this play I didn't have a very high opinion of it. I frankly thought it was a mess. The plot jumped around a lot and made little sense in terms of dramatic structure, and the characters seemed clumsily drawn. The opening with Leontes in particular bothered me because it leaped so abruptly from introducing the character to having him go mad with jealousy. It was impossible to follow the motivations of this character or to see him as the sort of more fully rounded character one would expect from Shakespeare at the top of his game (he had already written Hamlet, Lear...indeed most of what we would call his masterpieces at this point). One thing that makes some of Shakespeare's best plays so incredible is the way he orchestrates the drama with the same sort of accomplished control as a fine composer or conductor. Each piece and each level of the play is intricately coordinated with the whole. Each scene, indeed each line, connects back, echoing, imitating, and responding to the scenes and the lines that come before and come after, so that every part--like the instruments in an orchestra, or the motifs in a piece of music--both functions on its own and functions to form a consonance or dissonance with the other parts that ultimately connects into a fully formed piece. This is not to say that it is a perfectly formed piece. Indeed, part of what gives some of his characters the sense of what we often call being “full” or “rounded” is the things we don’t know about them, the questions we can’t answer about what is going on in the mind of a character like Hamlet. Just the way any good composer knows that he must pay as much to the way he uses silence as the way he deploys his notes, so any good writer—and especially a poet and/or dramatist—knows how to use what isn’t said just as well as he/she knows how to craft what is said. Still, even when there are gaps in what we know about a character or about what is going on in a scene, the things we do know usually all connect up enough in our mind that we have a sense of what is going on in between the lines, or to give us a tantalizing hint that engages our imaginations by giving us just enough of a peek into the workings of the character’s mind to make us wonder where that came from and what more is going on in there. The character of Leontes in the first act of the Winter’s Tale doesn’t work this way at all. We aren’t given a series of hints and insights about this character and his back story with a few gaps that make him intriguing; we’re given a man who seems fine one minute and insanely jealous the next with a gaping hole in our knowledge about either his back story or the way his mind works. As a result the character feels flat, distant, and completely irrational. This, combined with the disjointed wandering of the plot, so unlike the tight structure of many other Shakespeare works, led me to write this one off as a complete mess…at least for awhile.

A Late Experiment
To be honest, I still think Winter’s Tale is a bit of a mess, but not as much of a mess as I did when I first read it. I can also appreciate better why it has these messy qualities, and I’ve found that the best way to think of the play is in terms of it being an experiment. It’s a very late play, written just before The Tempest and possibly in the same year. It also has much in common with all four of the last plays definitely and fully attributed to Shakespeare: Cymbeline, Pericles, Winter’s Tale, and Tempest. (Of the two possible later plays, Two Noble Kinsmen is probably a collaboration with another playwright, and Henry VIII is probably by Shakespeare, but again may have been a collaboration). The first three of this set of four last plays have all been criticized for having unusually disjointed, wandering plot structures and rather uneven, sometimes flat feeling characters. Yet, it seems less likely that Shakespeare simply forgot how to write a good tight play at the end of his career, than that he was intentionally experimenting with a new type of drama. All four of these plays, including The Tempest (which certainly escapes the sort of scathing criticism the others have received) have been notoriously difficult to classify into a given genre. One of the most popular ways to categorize them is as tragi-comedies because of the strange mixture of tragic and comic elements found in the plays. The other most popular genre to assign to these plays has been that of Romance because their wandering plots, built around travel and happenstance, closely resemble the structure of Romance, a genre which includes prose works like Sidney’s Arcadia, or a poetic Epic Romance like Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Both of these categories, in fact, make a lot of sense for Winter’s Tale and help to suggest ways of understanding the type of experimentation Shakespeare is doing in this play. [Continued in next blog entry, "Winter's Tale Part II"] ]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6338-Winter-s-Tale-part-I In Memorium https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6317-In-Memorium Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:52:26 GMT My loss was a year before the attacks on New York but, because so many others lost people on this day, it seems appropriate... 9/11 This day of... My loss was a year before the attacks on New York but, because so many others lost people on this day, it seems appropriate...

9/11

This day of all the days in the long year
Reaches out to me with your arms
And speaks to me with your voice.
It makes me small and young again
Trusting your shoulder to be there
When I leaned toward it,
And your kiss to be there
To comfort me when I’d fallen.
This day extends to me the hope of all that
But gives me nothing,
Reminding me that the true pain in grief
Is knowing too well what we have lost. ]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6317-In-Memorium <![CDATA[Petrarch's Love: Renaissance Woman]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?5231-Petrarch-s-Love-Renaissance-Woman Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:50:04 GMT As some may have seen, there's been a nice lively discussion going on at this thread http://www.online-literature.com/for...609#post559609 regarding epic genre. This blog entry is partly a response to an excellent post by Bluevictim defending the possibility of a 21st century national epic and questioning whether fantasy is the appropriate genre for the continuation of an epic tradition. I found that there were so many thoughts I wished to express on the subject of epic and fantasy that I had better turn it into a blog entry rather than clutter up an ongoing discussion. Hope something in this may be of interest to both those following that thread and to others. Thanks for reading.

Homer is always a good place to start when talking about epic. In the thread we've been mostly referring to the Iliad, but now I'd like to bring in the Odyssey as well in contrast to the Iliad, because it's an essential work for beginning to consider the fantasy element of epic literature. The Iliad belongs to the line of what I like to term straight epic. It is based fairly firmly in reality in that (with a few exceptions) the majority of the actions that take place among the men could hypothetically take place in real life. There are fantastic elements, but they do not really progress to the realm of what most would call full blown fantasy. The fantastic tends to fall into two categories in the Iliad. One is hyperbole, in which say, the strength of one of the heroes is intensified beyond what is normal (or in some cases even possible) for a man. This is a fantasy element that is still directly rooted to the realm of the possible and the real, just intensified and carried to an inflated level: super human but still human.

The other fantastic elements are all in connection with the gods. Though readers today may perceive the gods as a type of fantasy figure, Blue makes a good point in suggesting that they were a part of the belief system of the Ancient Greeks and thus less figures of fantasy than of the credible supernatural or divine (though it is eternally up for debate as to what extent Homer and the people of his time regarded these figures as serious deities rather than in a more allegorical sense. I'm not going to delve into that muddle here). Regardless of how you interpret them, one thing to point out about the function of the gods in the Iliad in terms of the topic of fantasy in epic is that most of the results of their actions are things that are realistic. Apollo's arrows at the beginning manifest themselves as a completely believable plague. Despite its divine provenance, Achilles' sheild is also a realistic piece of armor--perhaps stronger than would be expected, and exceptionally well decorated, but not explicitly magical (i.e., it doesn't make him invisible or something of that sort). There are tinges of fantasy in the dealings with the gods, and some significant hyperbole about the actions of the men, but the point here is that if you took out the back story of the gods' activities, and you played down the more fantastic elements, the main story of the battle might be less fun, but it would still make sense and it wouldn't necessitate any huge holes in the narrative. For the most part, the world of the divine or supernatural does not explicitly manifest itself in the world of men in a way that creates any results significantly contrary to a basis in reality (one possible exception is the scene in which Hektor gets magically transported back to the boudoir in the midst of his duel with Achilles, though a dense fog makes it tentatively plausible).

One other thing to note is that the Iliad is also a straight epic in terms of its form. The story goes straight through on a linear track through all twenty four books, without an significant backtracking or narrative diversion. There's also a unity and cohesiveness to the story in that the focus and setting of the narrative both remain steady. We get scenes set in Olympus among the gods, but these always relate directly back to the happenings around Troy.

As many of you probably know already,this is in contrast to the Odyssey, which is both structured around a flashback narrative, and which essentially strings together several smaller narratives and folds them into a larger narrative as opposed to following the line of a single long narrative. The Odyssey is not a straight epic like the Iliad, but a traveling or wandering epic. It combines stories of what is going on in Ithaca, stories of what is going on with Telemachus both in Ithaca and on his travels, and, of course, all the many stories of what befalls Odysseus as he wanders the world. Furthermore it doesn't group all of these stories in straight chronological order, but does a little back and forth between narratives. It is cohesive in that it has an overarching narrative arc of Odysseus being missed at home and then Odysseus arriving home, but it goes all sorts of places, both in terms of plot content and structure, before it ties everything up at the end.

The Odyssey also differs from the straight epic of the Iliad in that taking out the supernatural or fantasy elements of the Odyssey, would leave significant holes at the mortal level of the story because there are many more explicitly fantasy encounters that occur. Monsters such as the Cyclops, Scylla and Charybdis, or witches like Circe who turn men into swine are clearly not realistic elements of the story. The journey to the underworld to converse with ghosts is another instance of mortals entering a realm of fantasy or the supernatural. None of these things is founded in the world of real life. The fact that these creatures and events take place in far off places where (to quote Star Trek) "no man has gone before," allowed the audience to open up to the possibility of entertaining these ideas, since the distant settings made them much harder to fully disprove than it is today. This might also mean that some people of the time could possibly have believed, or partly believed some of these tales. Still, such characters and events were and are clearly part of a realm of invention and fantasy, unlike the events that occur between the warriors of the Iliad, which are mostly things that a real Greek could conceivably experience, just exaggerated.

Thus, the Odyssey laid certain foundations in terms of wandering narrative style, use of explicitly fantasy elements, and the association of fantasy with exploration and distant lands. Since both of these epics were set in the past, even for Homer, together they set the precedent for setting epic and/or fantasy both long ago and far away that has continued through the ages right up to the Star Wars films. Indeed, both the straight, realistic, nature of the Iliad and the traveling, fantastic, nature of the Odyssey created a line of influence that contributed to the development of both the epic and the fantasy traditions, and the Homeric basis is also one reason of the reasons that these two traditions have been eternally intertwined together throughout their history.

Well, I seem to have eaten up all my spare time today with Homer, but if anyone is interested in this subject, I'd be happy to continue this as a series in parts on my blog, tracing fantasy and epic up through Milton. Just let me know in the comments if that's something that would be of interest to you. ]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?5231-Petrarch-s-Love-Renaissance-Woman <![CDATA[Petrarch's Love: Renaissance Woman]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?5004-Petrarch-s-Love-Renaissance-Woman Sun, 30 Mar 2008 16:58:26 GMT Following Antiquarian and Virg. with the ten questions vogue: *1. One book that changed your life: *Wendy Mouse and the Windy Day. First book I... Following Antiquarian and Virg. with the ten questions vogue:

1. One book that changed your life: Wendy Mouse and the Windy Day. First book I ever read all by myself. It was the beginning of a beautiful addiction.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once: Lots, but a few favorite re-reads are Spenser's Faerie Queene, Milton's Paradise Lost, any of Shakespeare's plays, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings

3. One book you’d want on a desert island: If I could only take one I think it would be a volume of the Complete Works of Shakespeare, probably the Norton edition because Greenblatt puts in all the alternate texts for plays like Lear. I think I could be content with being stranded with Shakespeare for years.

4. One book that made you laugh: I've got to go with Antiquarian for almost anything by PG Wodehouse, but especially the Jeeves and Wooster books. I'll put The Hobbit down too. It's one of my delightful escape books.

5. One book that made you cry: I think Dickens is the author most likely to get me to tears. Several of his have made me grab for the hanky.

6. One book that you wish you had written: Again, so many! As long as I can pick anything, I think I'll pretend I was the one who wrote Hamlet. Now theatre companies all over the world owe me huge royalties.

7. One book that you wish had never been written: Huge amounts of literary theory. How do you choose just one, and which one to choose? A deconstructionist? One of the wackier Marxist critics, or perhaps one of those super ferocious feminists who tend to hurt more than help their sisters' cause? So much dross; so little time.

8. One book you’re currently reading: Among other things, I've been reading an anthology of epyllia (short epic style poems) from the Elizabethan era. Some of the lesser works are actually much better than you would imagine, while others are decidedly dull. I'm sifting through them as a part of coming up with my dissertation topic.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: I've got an overwhelming list of unread books. I think the next classic book I'd like to read when I get a break from my scholarly reading is Dickens' Bleak House, since it's one of the three by him that I haven't read. There are also a whole bunch of recent things I'd like to read when I get the chance.

10. One book you recommend to almost everyone: It being my profession, I tend to recommend that everyone brush up their Shakespeare and read one of the plays. ]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?5004-Petrarch-s-Love-Renaissance-Woman Music of the Spheres and the Almighty Harmonica https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?4861-Music-of-the-Spheres-and-the-Almighty-Harmonica Sun, 16 Mar 2008 18:14:00 GMT

I've been generally steeping myself in music in the last week or so, and been thinking a lot about the power of music to restore us, mind body and soul. Last Saturday was my Grandmother's memorial service, and I wasn't able to make it because I'm out in Chicago, though I did type up the Eulogy which my mom read out by proxy for me. Though I wasn't there, I still used it as a day to remember her life and mark her passing. I ended up playing the piano for hours, something I hadn't done since she had her stroke. My grandmother was a wonderful musician, who played the piano for over 80 years and she told me often that she felt if there was any kind of heaven, then it must exist in music. Last weekend, as I played, I liked to think that perhaps part of that intangible thing that stirs us in music is the spirits of those who only live now within our memories. Perhaps it is the spirits of others moving somewhere in those chords that give them such life.

One of my favorite philosophical ideas is that of the Musica Universalis or the Music of the Spheres, which originated with the thinking of Pythagoras, who is often quoted as having said, "there is geometry in the humming of the strings; there is music in the spacing of the spheres." The notion of the Music of the Spheres continued to be popular all through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The idea is that there is an unheard music that reverberates throughout the spheres that were then thought to make up the universe. The ptolemaic model of the universe, which was the dominant model through the Renaissance, conceives of a system with the earth at the center surrounded by nesting spheres that contain the planets, including the sun, moon, and various stars. The basic concept of the musica universalis is that each of the nesting spheres are set at distances from each other perfectly aligned to musical intervals, and all things in the universe, from the stars to the workings of the human body are structured according to the mathematics of musical theory and play out their existence to the rhythms of a great spritual music. (The image at the top of this entry shows some Renaissance notation for what one person imagined the music for each sphere, and the image below shows a diagram of the intervals of the spheres according to Stanley's History of Philosophy from the 17th century).



We feel this universal music sometimes when we are awed by great works of nature, or in some moment when all is still within us and we sense something far beyond ourselves that connects us to everything in existence. Earthly music can also bring us close to this Musica Universalis, but in this life the actual Music of the Spheres will always be something stemming from God, and just beyond the reach of our hearing. I think this idea is a beautiful way of describing both the presence of a universal spirit in the universe and of explaining the effect that music can have on our spirits. The music we hear is just a fragment of the greater music we do not hear, and which connects us body and soul.



Last weekend I had ample chance to connect to the universal music of the universe through two amazing snatches of mortal music. I went to a solo piano concert last Sunday performed by the pianist Alfred Brendal, who is easily one of my favorite pianists to hear live, with the most incredible clear and moving touch. Tuesday I heard YoYo Ma for the first time live (and only the third row in from the stage! Bless student ticket prices!) which was also breathtaking. He played three of the Bach cello suites, and he played them beautifully. He tunes that cello just the way the hand of God tunes the universe in the image above. What a gift each of these performances was to my spirit. The music has refreshed me deeply, giving me new mental strength to continue tackling the job of coming up with that dissertation proposal.

Last Sunday I also found a harmonica my grandfather gave me years ago. I had it hidden away in a drawer next to my corsage from the prom, and I decided I would try my hand at learning to play the thing. Let me say to everyone right now, that if you want an instrument that gives practically instant gratification, then the harmonica is the thing for you. I could pick out a simple tune within an hour of trying to play it and, though I definitely sound like a beginner still, a week later I'm moving along by leaps and bounds. It's a total blast. Not to mention, I can think of no better way for connecting with the Musica Universalis than by playing Polly Wally Doodle on the harmonica. :D (Those who have seen the conclusion of Frank Capra's classic film, You Can't Take it With You will, of course, realize the profound truth of that last statement. :) )
]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?4861-Music-of-the-Spheres-and-the-Almighty-Harmonica <![CDATA[Petrarch's Love: Renaissance Woman]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?4773-Petrarch-s-Love-Renaissance-Woman Thu, 06 Mar 2008 07:34:48 GMT

Recently on the share your photos thread Bluevictim identified one of the pictures of a cliff I had taken in Yosemite as the one roughly below Glacier point in a friendly and helpful way just in case I might not remember where I took the picture. The feeling I had was exactly like the one you experience when someone you're talking with at a party politely introduces you to someone without realizing that the person they're introducing is one of your old and dear friends. There's something so charming and delightful about being re-introduced to someone you know already. It often makes you reflect on that friendship and reminds you of old memories. In this case Blue fortuitously re-introduced me to a spot on this earth I think of as an old friend, and I realized that I had a whole cluster of memories around this cliff, some of which might be worth sharing in this entry.

Every year since I was four years old my family has spent a week in Yosemite valley. We rent one of the little one room cabins near the back of Camp Curry directly under the shadow of the cliff in question. I have memories stretching back to childhood of lying on a large flat boulder next to the cabin and gazing up at this cliff. From that perspective it looks something like this:



After hours of gazing up at the granite, I've come to understand that there is something profoundly appropriate in calling it the face of a cliff. The shape of every cleft and crevice and variation in color has become as familiar to me as the planes and wrinkles of a human face. In the spring there is a small waterfall that comes down about where the snow melt is falling in the picture above to feed the creek that runs near the cabins we stay in. You wake to the sound of the water pouring down the cliff face and open your door to the morning sun clothing that enormous granite face in light. At night the sky is filled with an impossible number of stars (quite a remarkable thing in itself for a girl coming from the LA area) and the cliff is an inky black outline crowned at the top with the best lights heaven affords. If you take about a fifteen minute scramble uphill through the woods you can come to a broad ledge at the base of it and sit with your back against the granite warmed by the sun, looking out just over the tree line at the valley below, and looking straight up at the imposing vertical wall that seems to stretch forever. It is impossible to describe how huge this cliff is, or how beautifully it makes you aware of your own smallness.

Of course, this cliff did think about killing me once. One summer morning (I think about ten years ago...maybe '99?) my family was up by the cabins near the base of the cliff enjoying a peaceful and idyllic morning, when we suddenly heard a tremendous crack like a thunderclap, or a sonic boom. We looked up to see that a large swath of the cliff face was covered by what looked like an enormous low lying cloud, and there was a thundering sound that shook your insides like a choppy earthquake. Then we realized that there were boulders, some that looked at least the size of a large SUV, sliding at great speed down one of the large shelfs on the cliff face. The rocks probably stopped falling in less than a minute, though it seemed much, much longer as such dramatic moments tend to do. The dust cloud lingered for some time before it slowly dispersed in the gentle breeze. The rock slide was among the most amazing things I've ever witnessed, and humblingly terrifying at the same time. I also lucked out because my dad and I had been thinking of going up to the base of the cliff that morning to a spot where, we later discovered, we almost certainly would have met a dramatic end.

A few years later the same cliff was the setting for a happier tale of romance. While walking about the forest area behind the cabins, I heard the unmistakable sound of a drum coming from somewhere deep in the trees and beating out a steady tattoo. Despite having watched enough B films from the '50's to realize that no good often comes to those who follow the sound of drums in a forest, my curiosity got the better of me and I followed the sound of the drum beats up to the base of the cliff. There, on the aforementioned flat ledge at the cliff base, was an attractive young man enjoying the mid afternoon sun as he beat (as I was soon to discover) a small drum from Kenya. The fellow in question was not from Kenya, but was a gentleman from Georgia who subsequently took me out for a couple of great dates to a hidden waterfall and on a night time picnic in the middle of a meadow where we kissed beneath the stars.

My most recent memory in connection with this cliff is from a night this last summer when the moon was unbelievably full and illuminated the entire valley with the unreal luminance of moonlight. The view was a part of the cliff a little to the east (at least I think it's east unless I'm remembering the direction wrong) where glacier point is:



Picture that whole cliff in a silvery light with the biggest full moon you've ever seen in your life in the space to the left. I was out walking and enjoying the moonlight when I came across a group of Japanese music students who had formed a circle around a stump in a clear area. One of them stood on a the tree stump playing his violin in the moonlight for all he was worth. Among them was the exquisite Massenet meditation from Thaise (youtube link for those who don't know the piece or just want to hear it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXuzLRVi6qk ). The whole experience was one of life's interludes of pure magic. Now whenever I hear that piece I can see in my mind's eye the silhouette of a young violinist against the bright orb of the moon and the outline of that part of the cliff in poignant relief.

So it is that this one imposing monument of nature has alternately played backdrop to scenes of quiet contemplation, of terrifying drama, of summer romance, and of inspired artistic expression. Just as all of us invest places in our lives with the emotions we experienced in their shadows, I've stored away a range of emotions in the cracks and clefts of this enormous cliff. Its face has played witness to a handful of significant experiences. These experiences have in turn given me memories which I can use, not only to relive particular moments, but as points from which to access and recapture some of the expansive grandeur and beauty of that granite in whose shadow the memories were formed: a beauty of far more permanence than any of us can ever hope to attain to. ]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?4773-Petrarch-s-Love-Renaissance-Woman <![CDATA[Petrarch's Love: Renaissance Woman]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?4647-Petrarch-s-Love-Renaissance-Woman Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:25:59 GMT Thought I'd show some pictures from my recent trip to Yosemite National Park. I went there for a weekend shortly before I left California last week. It is, in my opinion, the most beautiful place on earth. My family stays there for a week every summer, but I've never been there in the winter. It was indescribably beautiful, and one of the most vivid experiences of my life walking around the snow filled valley with the immense cliffs rising up on every side. Being in that place is like a deep and refreshing drink for a parched soul.

At inspiration point right after going through the Wawona tunnel:


Half Dome and North Dome:


Half Dome Reflected in the Merced:


Yosemite Falls:


Reflection:


Open field with cross country skier to give a small idea of the scale:


Interesting looking igloo structure:


Sentinal Rock:


Cliff face:


Me Ice Skating for the first time in my life (I not only didn't fall down once, I learned how to do a little spin!) at what is almost certainly the ice rink with the best view anywhere:
]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?4647-Petrarch-s-Love-Renaissance-Woman <![CDATA[Petrarch's Love: Renaissance Woman]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?4574-Petrarch-s-Love-Renaissance-Woman Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:57:18 GMT One thing I've always been floored by when reading novels by Charles Dickens is his ability to have you laughing out loud at a passage one minute, and then you turn to the next page and you're crying whole heartedly. Well, that's the way my week has gone. I went up to Yosemite last Saturday and left Tuesday, and the days in between rank as among the most beautiful I've ever experienced. Yosemite in the snow is breathtaking and it recharged my spirit to be there in a way nothing else could. I couldn't stop smiling. I'll post some of my pictures and an account of the trip on another blog.

On the drive home Tuesday I turned to the next page. I called my mom to check in and say I wouldn't be home until after dark, and she told me that Gram had died. I cried from Selma to Bakersfield. The last few days have been a bit of a blur, with the family in mourning and me packing up to get back to Chicago, where I arrived yesterday. Now I'm sitting in the silence of snowy Chicago with the time to miss her properly. It doesn't matter how old someone is when they die, or how much you accept that that is the way of things: you still miss that person. My Gram was a huge influence on me. She was the English Professor in the family, specializing in Victorian lit. She was also a mildly successful author who published ten mystery novels and a non-fiction study of mystery fiction. She used the royalties from her books to travel the world more than once a year right up until the end. Before her stroke three weeks ago she was planning a trip to New York that she would have gone on last week, and a trip to London in March. She loved opera and classical music passionately her whole life, starting as a little girl of six riding the street car alone from Azuza to downtown L.A. in the '20s for her piano lessons. She grew up in the Great Depression and married during World War II. In the '30's, when most of her classmates--and girls especially-- in small town Azuza weren't contemplating college, she graduated at 16 and went off to UCLA. After having three children, she went back to get her masters and PhD in the late 1950s when she was near to 40 years old, and was then one of the very few female professors hired on to work in her department in the start of the 1960s, though she was never one to preach about "feminism;" she simply went out and did things, rather than talking about it. All her life she had copious numbers of friends, hosted charming cocktail parties, and regularly attended symphonies, operas, and theater. She always stayed meticulously within her budget and could squeeze the most possible out of a dollar (possibly part of that depression upbringing), but when it came to travel, dinner out with friends and family, music, or chocolate desserts her favorite thing to say was IOM (It's only money!). She has always been a vibrant role model for me, and someone whom I could go to to discuss our shared love of literature, music and art. She will be deeply missed. ]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?4574-Petrarch-s-Love-Renaissance-Woman <![CDATA[Petrarch's Love: Renaissance Woman]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?4492-Petrarch-s-Love-Renaissance-Woman Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:36:04 GMT I just finished the back to the sweater I'm working on, which I've now dubbed the "garden" sweater, and thought I'd share the progress. Here's the back fresh off the needles:



As you can see, the fabric tends to roll up, and the stitches of the pattern look a little uneven. To make the wool hang right for a garment, you have to block it, which means first pinning it carefully to match the desired shape and then steaming it with the iron and letting it sit to dry out for a day or two still pinned. Here it is pinned out to dry:



And here's the finished back:



I leave the loose threads where they are until everything is all seamed, since it makes emergency alteration easier if things are less finished. :p I'll make another update as the project comes farther along. ]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?4492-Petrarch-s-Love-Renaissance-Woman <![CDATA[Petrarch's Love: Renaissance Woman]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?4488-Petrarch-s-Love-Renaissance-Woman Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:37:16 GMT Well, yesterday was a significant date because Sir Thomas More turned 530, Charles Dickens turned 196, Laura Ingalls Wilder turned 141, Ronald... Well, yesterday was a significant date because Sir Thomas More turned 530, Charles Dickens turned 196, Laura Ingalls Wilder turned 141, Ronald Reagan would have been 97...and I became 26 years of age. Yes, I'm now over a quarter century old and still haven't had a quarter life crisis or even a third life crisis, which, according to all my friends, is the in thing to do these days (does anyone else have twenty-something friends as silly as mine, who go about having quarter life crises and fussing about their age? I thought the point of being twenty-something was not having to comfort my friends about aging). I've decided that the next time my pals start moaning about how old we're getting I'll ask them how they think it feels to be Charles Dickens, who has now been dead longer than he was alive. That should at least get them off on another topic.

Luckily, unlike my friends, I do not feel ancient and decrepit at 26, and I'm even almost over my recent bronchitis, so I'm feeling pretty fit-as-a-fiddle. Had a beautiful birthday lunch at my favorite restaurant overlooking the ocean, which included a surprise complimentary macademia nut ice-cream pie drenched in plenteous fudge and whipped cream (delicious!). Other than that it was a fairly laid back birthday, apart from taking Spenser to the vet for his health certificate for the plane flight back to Chicago next week, which always is a bit like going on a mini safari. You have to go to a specialized vet with a bird: one who has expertise in avians and exotics. Because his vet in California almost exclusively does small and exotic animals, the waiting room is always like a discovery channel episode. Yesterday, for example, Spense and I were waiting with a bearded dragon, a python, a chameleon, an African Grey parrot, and one of the biggest white rats I've ever clapped eyes on (he was wrapped in a towel and until I saw the tail I thought it was a chihuahua). I didn't much like the way the python was eying my bird, but luckily the owner kept him in check and Spenser seemed merrily oblivious as he chirped away to a couple of budgies in the office, and squawked to the Amazon and the African Grey.

Tomorrow I head out for my birthday trip to Yosemite, which I'm incredibly excited about because I've never been there in winter before. It looks like they have a beautiful snow pack, but no snow falling and clear roads for driving. It'll be nice to have a get away for awhile after being sick and dealing with the stress about Gram's condition (which is steadily worse and hard on the family :(). So, one happy newly twenty-six year old off for adventure in the mountains! I'll be sure to post some pictures (though can't guarantee the quality of the Ansel Adams below) when I return.

]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?4488-Petrarch-s-Love-Renaissance-Woman <![CDATA[Petrarch's Love: Renaissance Woman]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?4387-Petrarch-s-Love-Renaissance-Woman Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:38:55 GMT We've had about a week of rain here in Southern California, by which I mean, not that there's been a solid deluge for a week, but that rain has occured on seven consecutive days. The former would be possibly something of interest for most other parts of the country; the latter is something to talk about in California. I think we've gotten more rain in the last week than we did in all of last year, which is a sad commentary on the drought of last year (remember those fires on the news? There was a reason for that). As a result of the recent perceptitation the air is remarkably fresh and clear, and there is snow covering the local mountains. The ocean has also grown calm but complex in the wake of the rains. The mix of blues and greens in the water is especially vivid in the after storm air. The most magical thing about Southern California in the rain, though, is that the normally parched earth spontaneously turns a vivid spring green. This means, that on a January afternoon I can walk along a verdant bluff lined with palms enjoying a dazzling view of the great Pacific and Catalina Island to my left and a view of snow covered mountains in the distance to my right. Truly paradise.

I was able to enjoy the new green of the California landscape even more yesterday when I went up to see my brother at his college: Cal Poly Pomona. Most of Orange and L.A. counties is solid concrete stretching for miles to the sand and sea, but as you drive east toward those suburbs with exotic sounding names and plebian streets, such as Azuza and Cucamunga, you'll start to drive through more open hills leading up to the California mountains. Normally these hills are dead and brown, though I love them dearly because they speak of home to me. After the rains, however, they are an unimaginably beautiful green that springs up like magic practically overnight. So yesterday I drove up, with Strauss Waltzes and Tchaicovsky's 4th symphony on the radio, to my brother's college in Pomona, which is nestled in among these newly green hills in a very un-Los Angelian spot in L.A. county. The college has a good agriculture program, meaning that they have a farm store with wonderful fresh foods available at all times, and a large space in the front of the campus where magnificent Arabian horses run nearby a 1920's era Spanish style home on a hill. Both the horses and the house are protected as a permanent fixture of the campus by the bequest of Henry Kellog (of cereal fame) who donated the land for the school.

Set in the center of these peaceful pastoral surroundings, not far from the gracefully running horses, the laden fruit orchards, and the buzz of bees in the happy business of producing delectable fresh honey, is the abode of my young brother and his three room-mates. Anyone with any experience of what happens to a place when four guys share an apartment will know that I am not being melodramatic in the least when I say, abondon hope all ye who enter there! Mum and I went up because the kid's been really sick for the last week and we felt it our duty to offer maternal/sisterly succor, get him some food, take him to the health center etc. What began as a mission of mercy quickly was transformed into a mission of exploration and discovery as we made brave attempts to put the apartment into some kind of working order. There was the adventure of the exploding vacuum cleaner bag (apparently it never occured to young men that you have to change the bag as it gets full...though perhaps we're just grateful that there's evidence that it has been in use). There was also the fascinating discovery of the science lab in progress around the kitchen sink and counters (surely a competition among these budding engineers and scientists to see who could grow the fuzziest and hardiest mold speciman). There were more interesting discoveries such as the desiccated dozen red roses under the living room couch, apparently destined for one roomy's girlfriend, but lamentably forgotten until I discovered them. The most remarkable find of the afternoon, however, was the box of 100 baby diapers and the collapsing playpen in the hall closet, which apparently were both there when the guys moved in, and were simply left ignored. So now we have these four single guys storing their six-packs of Budweiser next to a huge box of baby diapers and a Winnie the Pooh Play Pen. And what was the reaction when we pointed out that there were diapers in the coat closet and mold under the dishrack? Did they shriek and recoil and utter exclamations of astonishment like the blind who had miraculously been afforded the power of sight? Did they say, wow thanks for scrubbing that stuff and saving us from certain death by toxic mold poisoning? No, they shrugged and said, "whatever" and wanted to make sure I hadn't thrown out a moldy plastic water bottle sitting on the counter which was supposedly perfectly good. I now have a hypothesis that young men are sensory deficient in some fascinating and selective way that enables them to take in every detail of virtual video game surroundings, while being largely legally blind with regard to their actual surroundings. Of course, my brother has a hypothesis that sisters and mothers are both gifted and cursed with unnaturally detailed perceptive senses when it comes to the home environment, which in turn leads to an unusual attention to apparently random detail. All depends on point of view. :lol: ]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?4387-Petrarch-s-Love-Renaissance-Woman