Good luck with the cold, and with finishing up the Masters (wow! that's quite a salary upgrade...I'm looking at my MA in a whole new light). Hope the artistic production goes well too. As you can see, the minute I vow I won't be participating here, I find myself posting. Couldn't actually ignore such an objectionably titled thread, however, or resist entirely spending a moment to put my two cents in and inquire what this Latin JC surpassing Shakespeare is. Now it's back to dissertating, sending e-mails to the class, office hours...
Laura- We'll miss you... but it will give me some time to catch up on my reading of Chaucer and related materials prior to our discussion. I'm burning the candle at both ends equally here as well as I try to churn out a large enough body of art work in order to begin to approach the galleries this summer... while at the same time I'm in the starting stages of finally getting around to completing that Masters Degree in Art History. I came to the realization that now is the time when I discovered the salary difference between what I make now and what I'd make with the Masters was somewhere near $15,000!!! Yes... I am just as frozen here in Cleveland as you are in Chicago. After nearly two weeks of single-digit weather (or lower) we have been undergoing a "heat wave" of just below freezing... only to swing back for another week or so of predicted single digit weather. Global warming? See you soon. -David
Hi St. Luke's--Well, almost an academic popsicle (have you also been having these ridiculous, frequently sub zero temps?)...and slipping on ice into a large snowbank while running to avoid armed muggers and things like that (managed to evade the aforesaid, and am just fine). Mostly I've been unbelievably and unpredictably busy with both work and personal life this quarter. I keep imagining things are going to slow down soon and they simply don't seem to be, so I think I'd better be practical, postpone our little Chaucer discussion here and declare an official leave from Lit. Net for awhile. Maybe in a month or so I'll have less on my plate and more time online. Meantime, I hope you're doing well and keeping warm in this winter weather!
Petrarch... where are you? Disappeared again? Hopefully you are not buried under one of those snow drifts that we have here as well... or frozen stiff... like an academic Popsicle.
Hi St. Luke's--Sorry about that. All sorts of unexpected things have cropped up since I got back to Chicago (all good things, but time absorbing), so I've had zero time for anything online. I think things are settling into a manageable pace again now, and I should have some time tonight to get back to the much neglected Chaucer discussion. For now, however, I've got to slog through the negative temperatures to campus again for yet another meeting... Hope things are well with you.
Of course I've had plenty of time this weekend. Couldn't get into the studio as we were snowed in by a good foot or so.
Petrarch... the 6th has come and gone and where are you?
Petrarch... Good to see you already getting the Chaucer discussion rolling... although like Virgil... I somewhat expected that "after the new year" meant that we had a few days to longer. I've picked up again on Who Murdered Chaucer (I was reading The Book, a history of the Bible). I found myself thinking a bit about the position of the courtier-poet in which the poet was not directly remunerated for his writing... but was kept on in some honorary post (as it were) in recognition of his worth. Thinking upon this I can recognize what led to such a great shift in the later Renaissance when visual artists... (who would have had the statue of nothing more than skilled laborers... a bit above blacksmiths but certainly beneath goldsmiths... to say nothing of poets) began to assert themselves and demand equal recognition as "fine artists". I've always been intrigued by this shift in status because in many ways I find that it is at the heart of much of what is wrong with the visual arts today. The medieval scribe(s) who illuminated the Book of Kells or the Lindesfarne Gospels would have seen themselves as mere craftsmen employed in glorifying God. Today, we have no doubt that they were ARTISTS. Today we have art-school graduates who smear themselves in fecal matter and act out some crude rituals in a gallery space and they are certain that they are ARTISTS... whereas the painter who beautifully and lovingly renders a still-life or a nude in a manner that is not immediately shocking or innovative is dismissed as a mere "craftsman". The entire situation has led me to the point that I almost completely accept Renoir's dictum (and he is not someone I am greatly enamored with) when he declared: "First be a good craftsman, it never stopped anyone from becoming a genius." I now have come to the point that I almost accept the notion that I am a painter... and a craftsman... whether what I do is or is not Art with a capitol "A" is something left up to others. Perhaps I am questioning the artistic concepts of originality vs novelty... and innovation vs quality... something which must surely apply to literature as well as visual art. Surely Georges Perec is far more "original" than Cormac McCarthy... but is he seriously the better ARTIST? By the way... if you have the time I have posted my latest artistic effort on my blog. Give it a look if you have the time.
Hi St. Luke's--Hope that you are enjoying a happy entry into 2009! Had a bit of spare time and started up a thread for the purpose of Chaucerian discussion here: http://www.online-literature.com/for...411#post652411. The first post is just an invitation to see who's out there and what their interests in Chaucer might be. I thought I'd wait a couple days and see if it attracts any merry pilgrims. In any case, you and I can use it to chat over Chaucer (and his possibly suspicious demise). I'll have to check out the Who Murdered Chaucer volume when I get back to Chicago unless someone's returned it to my local Public Library here. With happy New Year wishes!
Typing Middle English. Now that may surely cause some real challenges for my spell-check program.
