Ovid in England, Ovid in Iowa

I'm currently teaching a class on "Ovid in England" at the University of Iowa, and after the students got a bit of Ovid under their belts I asked them to do their own, creative, metamorphosis. I got the idea from my esteemed colleague David Hamilton, who has recently retired from the department and from his role editing the Iowa Review, but who still gets far more mail than me (his box is just above mine, and he still ambles in, from time to time, to empty it and pass along his words of wisdom).

by Leonie Sparling, 2012

In recent years, I've been incorporating creative projects into nearly every course I teach, asking students to produce a creative work in any media and to give me a brief analysis that relates it to the subject matter in the course. The approach has major trade offs: the students, especially the better ones, get passionate about it, and I often get some of their most thoughtful and provocative work. On the other hand, I also have to wade through a lot of pretty bad poetry...but I've written a bit of that myself, and I am a firm believer that even bad poetry, when written with a good heart, can serve a useful purpose.

This year, I gave a prize to the best project: my copy of Dave Tomar's The Shadow Scholar, which I recently reviewed in The New Republic. (If you read the review, you'll know this was kind of a booby prize: but I thought perhaps the winner could trade it for something better). Anyway, my winning entry shows why I love these sorts of assignments.

This is a pencil drawing by Leonie Sparling, and it is about 5 feet tall and quite impressive in person. Better yet, she has a wonderful narrative that describes its genesis: it is the aition of a tropical flower that blossoms only when it enters a symbiotic relationship with the taller trees around it, climbing them, from the forest floor, to bloom at the top of the canopy. For Leonie, this is a story of jealosy and pride -- a realization that one must rely on others. What I like about it is that it is difficult to tell if that realization is painful or ecstatic, which is exactly the sort of ambiguity we've been exploring in Ovid and those who adapt him. And (this will make sense in light of The Shadow Scholar): I'm pretty sure you can't order such a work from a custom cheating service....

Tweet

At the International Milton Symposium in Tokyo

I'm just back from the 10th International Milton Symposium in Japan, which was an amazing chance to think through and witness Milton's global reach and continuing influence in 2012. Beside all the regular conference stuff -- papers, discussions, various and sundry hobby horses -- we were treated to a fantastic Noh Theatre adaptation of Milton's closet Drama, Samson Agonistes. The picture above is an actor holding the mask used for Samson. Noh actors often belong to families with a long lineage in the art, and this particular masque has been in family of Manjiro Tatsumi, who played Samson, since the 17th century. Perhaps the weight of that tradition helps explain why the mask, after the performance, seemed weirdly sentient to this observer. Or perhaps it was just the effect of a profoundly interesting and powerful play, adapted by one of Japan's leading poets, Mutsuo Takahashi and performed by the National Noh Theatre of Japan. Or maybe it was the jet lag.

A wonderful night and an amazing conference that has already been a major topic of my Fall teaching -- thanks so much, once again, to the Milton Society of Japan and all the good people at Aoyama Gakuin University for making it possible!

Tweet

Rough Guide to Early Modern England

I've just arrived in Chapel Hill to begin a seminar on Marvell at the National Humanities Center, but before the seminar begins I've squeezed in a trip to the UNC Chapel Hill Library's Special Collections.  Appropriately enough, the first thing I called up was a 17th century commonplace book that raids various authors, including Bacon and Anglo Welsh Historian, James Howell (c. 1594-1666), to compose a sort of Rough Guide for early modern tourists.  The book opens with a paean to the virtues of travel:

“The world is a Book full of profitable Instructions, and the best study of it, is by Travail: wherein by the observation of New, and unknown objects, a mans head is opened, and his life may receive an Excellent frame & model, by proposing unto himself the diversity of so many other mens Lives, Constitutions, Humours, and Fancies, as he meets withall; whose vertues (by good Election) may proove as so many Commonplaces of Instruction: and their Vices as Rocks to be avoided.

The chief advantages of Travail are: Health, Education, Experience, and Language: which being the benefits, that under a mans life servicable to his Country and Himself comfortable, they are to be persued with the highest resolution, & industry, which the purchase of such felicities justly deserves.”
 After my jog around UNC this morning, and my high hopes for the Marvell seminar, I can only say that Howell seems prescient and it is amazing to me that a rough guide to travel written in the 1600s can still basically describe what we hope to get out of it today.  I'm also very excited to find out what perilous vices I will need to avoid during the rest of my stay...

Other Tips:

Read: "All kind of Books are profitable, except printed Bawdry; and for Pamphlets, & Lying stories they may be read, but presently make use of them" (fol 3)

Be inquisitive: "Because a wise question procures a Satisfactory answer, it will be very pertinent to know how, and what Questions to Ask. For to profit by Company must come from our selves; our Questions being the Fire, which draws out either ye Quintessence, or Dreggs, of things" (fol 4)

Keep moving: "Stay not long in one City or Town; yet more or less as the place deserveth, but not long: and then change your Lodging from one end & part of ye Town to another, which is a great adamant of acquaintance" (this is taken from Bacon).

Tweet

Early Modern Craigslist

While I was doing some work on early newsbooks at the Folger Shakespeare Library recently, one of my friends asked when papers first began to run classified and personal ads. As it happened, I had just taken some pictures of the London Gazette, from August 23, 1694, which is one of the first ones I've seen to include such ads.  As you can see in the picture below, the advertisements include a law dictionary, oil to ease the gout and other aches and pains, gunpowder for sale, several offers of rewards for the return of stolen horses, and a lady who lost a "long scarf, lace Tippet, a thin hood, a girdle," and some other items when she left them in a coach driven by a "little man with Pockholes in his face."

As you may be able to see, behind this page of the printed newsletter is another, manuscript newsletter. Interestingly, the two forms persisted together -- the printed version carrying news available to all, the manuscript version containing the most recent news (since it was quicker to write than to set print) as well as items that were considered to politically dangerous to print. Manuscript newsletters never contain classified ads -- presumably, you knew exactly who you were sending them to, or at least wanted to create a sense of intimacy, so it didn't make sense to send a message into the great unknown in the way these classifieds do.  Only in print, where the audience is imagined as truly large and unknown, did these ads emerge.

Tweet

Yet once more...the Paradise Lost Movie is Cancelled

I'm VERY late to this -- but hey, I'm on Early Modern Time -- it is with sorrow in my heart that I just saw here that Legendary Pictures pulled the plug on the big-screen adaptation of Paradise Lost, to be directed by Alex Proyas and star that guy from the Hangover as, surely, the worst Satan ever. This is the umpteenth time this has happened: people are always saying they will make PL into a movie, and then at some point I guess a producer says "why, exactly, are we doing this when we could just film another version of Hamlet? Maybe this time set in Columbia?"

As the story says: "Legendary also realized that in order to effectively bring to life Milton’s war between heaven and hell, it was going to need Avatar-like special effects. But Avatar-like effects call for an an Avatar-like budget, and execs realized the technology wasn’t there to make the movie in the budget range in which they were working."

The irony of this, for me, is that I've always thought Milton's war in heaven is something of a farce; as his angels hurl mountains, get punctured, and reinflate like self-repairing tires, I think he's taking the piss out of the epic equivalent of big budget special effects...

Tweet

Deceptively Shakeospherean

Disclaimer: Shakeosphere isn't really about Shakespeare: to the extent that it is about anything, it is about all things early modern, and I'll try to post bits and pieces about my research and teaching here on the rare occasions that I do something interesting or newsworthy. But "Shakeosphere" seemed vaguely sexier than "Miltonista," which was my other top choice for a blog title. And as everyone knows, everyone has to have a blog -- because how else would we fill those empty hours? But I'll also link to interesting articles about Milton, Marlowe, and yes, Shakespeare as and when they arise.

In case I'm just writing for myself, I'll keep these brief -- but this should also be a good place to post abstracts, link to conferences and papers of interest, etc, as well as post book porn: by which I mean pictures of old books that I encounter in my research...the kind of stuff that gets the professoriate all atwitter.

"that's all one, our play is done,
And we'll strive to please you every day."

Tweet