IPOD
RADIO
I added a bunch of pics today. I'll put them in my journal later. I need to go do my astrophysics reading. Lates.
I went shopping today. Bad me.
Kiska called me and asked if I wanted to come hang out with her and Villain and Villain's man. So I agreed. We met at Graeter's. Blueberry sorbet=YUMMY! And had nothing else to do so we went to the mall. I intended to only get some underpantses. Turned into thongs, Gucci rip-off sunglasses, and a totally hot t-shirt. Damn it. I have a dollar left in cash and I don't work again until Thursday. Maybe I can pick up a double. And school ends soon, so I'll work lots of doubles. And I'll find a new job. . . hahaha. . . Look at me justifying my spending.
In other news, I'm still riding high on my professor's remarks.
Anyway, I'm off to meet with a certain young gentleman.
xo
Kiska called me and asked if I wanted to come hang out with her and Villain and Villain's man. So I agreed. We met at Graeter's. Blueberry sorbet=YUMMY! And had nothing else to do so we went to the mall. I intended to only get some underpantses. Turned into thongs, Gucci rip-off sunglasses, and a totally hot t-shirt. Damn it. I have a dollar left in cash and I don't work again until Thursday. Maybe I can pick up a double. And school ends soon, so I'll work lots of doubles. And I'll find a new job. . . hahaha. . . Look at me justifying my spending.
In other news, I'm still riding high on my professor's remarks.
Anyway, I'm off to meet with a certain young gentleman.
xo
I had a meeting with my professor today to talk about the research I've been working on (those of you who've felt completely fucking ignored for the past month, this is why). So. . .
He told me:
1. It's awesome.
2. My writing is awesome (see entry below this one)
3. I need to go to grad school.
4. I should pursue a PhD
5. I should try to get my paper published.
6. The school will hire me as a TA.
Happiness.
He told me:
1. It's awesome.
2. My writing is awesome (see entry below this one)
3. I need to go to grad school.
4. I should pursue a PhD
5. I should try to get my paper published.
6. The school will hire me as a TA.
Happiness.
A few of you have asked, so this is the my paper on Keats (MLA formatting and works cited list removed):
Keats's Raping of Madeline
John Keats's "The Eve of St. Agnes" is often described as a love story, a romantic fairy tale, and/or an analogy for his own experiences in the publishing world. These readings are easily supported by the text of the poem and by brief research into the author's life. However, these reading seem somewhat naïve and shallow upon a more thorough reading and dissection of the poet's life. A twenty-first century, feminist reading finds much to question in these interpretations, pointing to Keats's growing skepticism of the Romantic Dreamer ideal and his blatant objectification and outward disdain toward his female readership. Keats's use of the fairy tale trope and his many distortions of the typical traits of fairy tales evidence a darker intent to his poem, revealing not only his growing skepticism but a barely masked misogyny.
The use of the fairy tale trope is easily recognized by many readers of "The Eve of St. Agnes". Audiences of Romantic poetry would be particularly familiar with this kind of love story. Many readers have examined this aspect of the poem, including Jack Stillinger, who in his "The Hoodwinking of Madeline: Skepticism in 'The Eve of St. Agnes'", rejects the idea that the poem is a delightful bit of romantic fluff, instead pointing to the expressions of doubt in Romanticism illustrated by the sinister actions of Porphyro and the ways that the poem differs from typical fairy tale style.
Porphyro, Madeline's supposed lover, sneaks into the castle of Madeline's family. Many references are made to the danger he faces in doing so. He must "venture in: let no buzzed whisper tell:/ All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords will storm his heart" (83-85). The men in this castle are sworn enemies who would gladly spill Porphyro's blood should they find him. Angela illuminates these facts rather plainly pointing out that these "men will murder on holy days" (119), as they have cursed Porphyro and all of his lineage and land.
The reader is left to guess as to why Madeline's family so despise Porphyro, but is quickly led to understand that perhaps there is good reason for their hatred. Angela, who seems to be a friend of this mysterious man from across the moors, eventually seems somewhat frightened of him and his strange nature: "Thou must hold water in a witch's sieve,/ And be liege lord of all the Elves and Fay,/ To venture so: it fills me with amaze/ To see thee Porphyro" (120-123)! When Porphyro begins plotting to get into Madeline's bed chamber, Angela expresses horror: "A cruel man and impious thou art:/ Sweet lady , let her pray, and sleep, and dream/ Alone with her good angels, far apart/ From wicked men like thee. Go, go!-- I deem/ Thou canst not surely be the same as thou didst seem" (141-144).
Porphyro is sharply contrasted here with the "good angels" (125) that have "hoodwinked" Madeline with "faery fancy" (71). Though Porphyro swears "by all saints" (145) not to harm Madeline, it is difficult to believe now that his intentions, so shocking to the "poor, churchyard thing" (155), are honorable despite his ability to gain Angela's assistance in his plot. At this point, Stillinger points out that "our disbelief must be suspended if we are to read the poem as an affirmation of romantic love" (Stillinger, 55). The strategy Porphyro is proposing-- being smuggled into Madeline's bed chamber while she sleeps under a fairy spell so that he may take his "peerless bride" (167)-- is one that is "frowned on, sometimes punished in the criminal courts" (Stillinger, 55) of today.
While Madeline dreams of romantic conclusions to her chaste prayer, darker forces are at work in her room. Stillinger brings to the discussion an interesting line that was cut from subsequent edits of the poem in which Porphyro's hiding place in Madeline's bedchamber is described as "a purgatory sweet" (56). This raises an interesting metaphor: Madeline's bedchamber is called a "Paradise" that Porphyro seeks to attain; he hides in Purgatory, having risen from Hell. Combined with Angela's words and the reader's knowledge of Porphyro's status in that house, this image leads to a fairly concrete conclusion that Porphyro is not a dashing, daring, romantic figure come to carry off his love to live happily ever after, but rather a criminal come to take his chosen bride.
He takes his bride through deception and scheming. Stillinger uses the metaphor of bird hunting that is alluded to in the passages in Madeline's room (56-57), a demonstration of the force and complete lack of tender romance that has so many times been read in this scene. Indeed, this scene is riddled with evidence of the subtle violence of the rape and kidnapping that takes place. Madeline's fear is quite tangible when she awakens and finds that her dream of consummation was reality, and that Porphyro is actually in the bed with her. She feels a "painful change, that nigh expelled/ The blisses of her dream so pure and deep:/ At which fair Madeline began to weep,/ And moan forth witless words with many a sigh" (300-303). Her dreamed-of lover is now flesh, but unlike the ideal vision of St. Agnes's dream-- aided of course by Porphyry's "drowsy Morphean amulet" (257)-- he is "pallid, chill, and drear" (310)! It is important here to recall the "nigh" of Madeline's awakening. She is still in a semi-sleep state, which Porphyro exploits to convince or hypnotize her into coming with him across the moors and far from her safe home (Stillinger, 59-61).
At this point, the poem hardly reads like a fairy tale to celebrating romantic love and the glories of the Dreamer's mind. Nor does it express much kindness to this sentiment of Romantic literature. Many of the convention of fairy tale have been distorted and uglified to express a growing disdain for the Romantic ideal of the Dreamer (Stillinger, 63-71). The poem expresses an even more violent disdain toward women. A hatred, Homans argues, is characteristic of Keats.
Homans's essay sites multiple example of Keats's misogyny. Throughout his relationship with Fannie Brawne, he objectifies her as only an object of beauty, her only value (Homans, 349-350), often "appropriat[ing] . . . Fannie's voice" (Homans, 351) to deny her any intellectual capacity or power. Homans finds that this attitude is carried into all of Keats's interactions with women. Understanding that "'the offence the ladies take of me'" (Homans, 346) has much to do with his critical and commercial failures, Keats takes an aggressively sexist tone, referring to the educated women who read and dislike his work as "blue Stockings" and "sublime Petticoats" (Homans, 347). Homans quotes a letter written by Keats that illustrates this sentiment: " 'This same inadequacy is discovered. . . in Women with few exceptions-- the Dress Maker, the blue Stocking and the most charming sentimentalist differ but in a Slight degree, and are equally smokeable' "(347).
Keats's descriptions of Madeline as a pale beauty, hypnotized by superstition and waiting to be ravished is to be expected from a man who sees women as passive sex objects (Homans, 344). "By insisting that women remain what he calls 'abstract Beauty'," Homans declares, "he objectifies women and subordinates than to his own poetic projects" (346).
The reading offered by Stillinger and Homans is an interestingly contrasting companion to the many readings offered by other critics of the work. The romantic fairy tale seen by some is questionable. It seems after reading the works of the above mentioned writers, that Keats uses the trope in a sarcastic manner, expressing a kind of skepticism toward the values of that literary philosophy: the Dreamer is raped by reality. In this new reading of the poem there lies no love story, despite the many attempts to argue that quality in the work. The perspective that seems to hold most sturdily is the metaphor idea, that Keats mirrored his own experiences in the publishing world in the poem, though in a slightly different way. Keats takes out his frustration and bitterness against his chosen target, educated women, by casting them continuously as fools and beautiful objects, fooled and raped.
Keats's Raping of Madeline
John Keats's "The Eve of St. Agnes" is often described as a love story, a romantic fairy tale, and/or an analogy for his own experiences in the publishing world. These readings are easily supported by the text of the poem and by brief research into the author's life. However, these reading seem somewhat naïve and shallow upon a more thorough reading and dissection of the poet's life. A twenty-first century, feminist reading finds much to question in these interpretations, pointing to Keats's growing skepticism of the Romantic Dreamer ideal and his blatant objectification and outward disdain toward his female readership. Keats's use of the fairy tale trope and his many distortions of the typical traits of fairy tales evidence a darker intent to his poem, revealing not only his growing skepticism but a barely masked misogyny.
The use of the fairy tale trope is easily recognized by many readers of "The Eve of St. Agnes". Audiences of Romantic poetry would be particularly familiar with this kind of love story. Many readers have examined this aspect of the poem, including Jack Stillinger, who in his "The Hoodwinking of Madeline: Skepticism in 'The Eve of St. Agnes'", rejects the idea that the poem is a delightful bit of romantic fluff, instead pointing to the expressions of doubt in Romanticism illustrated by the sinister actions of Porphyro and the ways that the poem differs from typical fairy tale style.
Porphyro, Madeline's supposed lover, sneaks into the castle of Madeline's family. Many references are made to the danger he faces in doing so. He must "venture in: let no buzzed whisper tell:/ All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords will storm his heart" (83-85). The men in this castle are sworn enemies who would gladly spill Porphyro's blood should they find him. Angela illuminates these facts rather plainly pointing out that these "men will murder on holy days" (119), as they have cursed Porphyro and all of his lineage and land.
The reader is left to guess as to why Madeline's family so despise Porphyro, but is quickly led to understand that perhaps there is good reason for their hatred. Angela, who seems to be a friend of this mysterious man from across the moors, eventually seems somewhat frightened of him and his strange nature: "Thou must hold water in a witch's sieve,/ And be liege lord of all the Elves and Fay,/ To venture so: it fills me with amaze/ To see thee Porphyro" (120-123)! When Porphyro begins plotting to get into Madeline's bed chamber, Angela expresses horror: "A cruel man and impious thou art:/ Sweet lady , let her pray, and sleep, and dream/ Alone with her good angels, far apart/ From wicked men like thee. Go, go!-- I deem/ Thou canst not surely be the same as thou didst seem" (141-144).
Porphyro is sharply contrasted here with the "good angels" (125) that have "hoodwinked" Madeline with "faery fancy" (71). Though Porphyro swears "by all saints" (145) not to harm Madeline, it is difficult to believe now that his intentions, so shocking to the "poor, churchyard thing" (155), are honorable despite his ability to gain Angela's assistance in his plot. At this point, Stillinger points out that "our disbelief must be suspended if we are to read the poem as an affirmation of romantic love" (Stillinger, 55). The strategy Porphyro is proposing-- being smuggled into Madeline's bed chamber while she sleeps under a fairy spell so that he may take his "peerless bride" (167)-- is one that is "frowned on, sometimes punished in the criminal courts" (Stillinger, 55) of today.
While Madeline dreams of romantic conclusions to her chaste prayer, darker forces are at work in her room. Stillinger brings to the discussion an interesting line that was cut from subsequent edits of the poem in which Porphyro's hiding place in Madeline's bedchamber is described as "a purgatory sweet" (56). This raises an interesting metaphor: Madeline's bedchamber is called a "Paradise" that Porphyro seeks to attain; he hides in Purgatory, having risen from Hell. Combined with Angela's words and the reader's knowledge of Porphyro's status in that house, this image leads to a fairly concrete conclusion that Porphyro is not a dashing, daring, romantic figure come to carry off his love to live happily ever after, but rather a criminal come to take his chosen bride.
He takes his bride through deception and scheming. Stillinger uses the metaphor of bird hunting that is alluded to in the passages in Madeline's room (56-57), a demonstration of the force and complete lack of tender romance that has so many times been read in this scene. Indeed, this scene is riddled with evidence of the subtle violence of the rape and kidnapping that takes place. Madeline's fear is quite tangible when she awakens and finds that her dream of consummation was reality, and that Porphyro is actually in the bed with her. She feels a "painful change, that nigh expelled/ The blisses of her dream so pure and deep:/ At which fair Madeline began to weep,/ And moan forth witless words with many a sigh" (300-303). Her dreamed-of lover is now flesh, but unlike the ideal vision of St. Agnes's dream-- aided of course by Porphyry's "drowsy Morphean amulet" (257)-- he is "pallid, chill, and drear" (310)! It is important here to recall the "nigh" of Madeline's awakening. She is still in a semi-sleep state, which Porphyro exploits to convince or hypnotize her into coming with him across the moors and far from her safe home (Stillinger, 59-61).
At this point, the poem hardly reads like a fairy tale to celebrating romantic love and the glories of the Dreamer's mind. Nor does it express much kindness to this sentiment of Romantic literature. Many of the convention of fairy tale have been distorted and uglified to express a growing disdain for the Romantic ideal of the Dreamer (Stillinger, 63-71). The poem expresses an even more violent disdain toward women. A hatred, Homans argues, is characteristic of Keats.
Homans's essay sites multiple example of Keats's misogyny. Throughout his relationship with Fannie Brawne, he objectifies her as only an object of beauty, her only value (Homans, 349-350), often "appropriat[ing] . . . Fannie's voice" (Homans, 351) to deny her any intellectual capacity or power. Homans finds that this attitude is carried into all of Keats's interactions with women. Understanding that "'the offence the ladies take of me'" (Homans, 346) has much to do with his critical and commercial failures, Keats takes an aggressively sexist tone, referring to the educated women who read and dislike his work as "blue Stockings" and "sublime Petticoats" (Homans, 347). Homans quotes a letter written by Keats that illustrates this sentiment: " 'This same inadequacy is discovered. . . in Women with few exceptions-- the Dress Maker, the blue Stocking and the most charming sentimentalist differ but in a Slight degree, and are equally smokeable' "(347).
Keats's descriptions of Madeline as a pale beauty, hypnotized by superstition and waiting to be ravished is to be expected from a man who sees women as passive sex objects (Homans, 344). "By insisting that women remain what he calls 'abstract Beauty'," Homans declares, "he objectifies women and subordinates than to his own poetic projects" (346).
The reading offered by Stillinger and Homans is an interestingly contrasting companion to the many readings offered by other critics of the work. The romantic fairy tale seen by some is questionable. It seems after reading the works of the above mentioned writers, that Keats uses the trope in a sarcastic manner, expressing a kind of skepticism toward the values of that literary philosophy: the Dreamer is raped by reality. In this new reading of the poem there lies no love story, despite the many attempts to argue that quality in the work. The perspective that seems to hold most sturdily is the metaphor idea, that Keats mirrored his own experiences in the publishing world in the poem, though in a slightly different way. Keats takes out his frustration and bitterness against his chosen target, educated women, by casting them continuously as fools and beautiful objects, fooled and raped.
A centa is a poem composed, in whole or in majority part, of lines from other poems. For a class I'm taking, I was to compose a centa using only poetry from the 10th-18th centuries. English language only. Couldn't use a poem more than once. I thought I'd take a humorous aproach.
A Lady's Elegy
Making dead wood more blest than living lips (1)
Is but a loss of labor and of rest. (2)
Pained her to counterfeit cheer (3)
For she was wild and young, and he was old, (4)
Poor in that which makes a lover, (5)
And none of his kinsmen favored him either. (6)
Fate is inflexible: (7)
Time doth dull each lively wit and dries all wantonness with it. (8)
The blood forsook the hinder place. (9)
(All human things are subject to decay.) (10)
"Is there no more?" she cries. (11)
Now Betty from her master's bed has flown. (12)
Not louder shrieks to Heaven are cast (13)
[than] to speak woe that is marriage. (14)
Citation by line order:
1. Sonnet 128, William Shakespeare, line 12
2. "The 21st and Last Book of the Ocean to Cynthia", Sir Walter Raleigh, line 153
3. General Prologue, Geoffrey Chaucer, line 139
4. "The Miller's Tale", Geoffrey Chaucer, line 117
5. "To the Queen", Sir Walter Raleigh, line 6
6. "Lanval", Marie de France, line 20
7. "The Wanderer", line 5
8. "Nature That Washed Her Hands in Milk", Sir Walter Raleigh, lines 29-30
9. "The Disappointment", Aphra Behn, line 116
10. "Mac Flecknoe", John Dryden, line 1
11. "An Imperfect Enjoyment", John Milmot, lines 22-23
12. "A Description of the Morning", Jonathon Swift, line 3
13. "The Rape of the Lock", Alexander Pope, line 157
14. "The Wife of Bath's Prologue", Geoffrey Chaucer, line 3
My cat wants to play and it's really starting to bug me. . .
A Lady's Elegy
Making dead wood more blest than living lips (1)
Is but a loss of labor and of rest. (2)
Pained her to counterfeit cheer (3)
For she was wild and young, and he was old, (4)
Poor in that which makes a lover, (5)
And none of his kinsmen favored him either. (6)
Fate is inflexible: (7)
Time doth dull each lively wit and dries all wantonness with it. (8)
The blood forsook the hinder place. (9)
(All human things are subject to decay.) (10)
"Is there no more?" she cries. (11)
Now Betty from her master's bed has flown. (12)
Not louder shrieks to Heaven are cast (13)
[than] to speak woe that is marriage. (14)
Citation by line order:
1. Sonnet 128, William Shakespeare, line 12
2. "The 21st and Last Book of the Ocean to Cynthia", Sir Walter Raleigh, line 153
3. General Prologue, Geoffrey Chaucer, line 139
4. "The Miller's Tale", Geoffrey Chaucer, line 117
5. "To the Queen", Sir Walter Raleigh, line 6
6. "Lanval", Marie de France, line 20
7. "The Wanderer", line 5
8. "Nature That Washed Her Hands in Milk", Sir Walter Raleigh, lines 29-30
9. "The Disappointment", Aphra Behn, line 116
10. "Mac Flecknoe", John Dryden, line 1
11. "An Imperfect Enjoyment", John Milmot, lines 22-23
12. "A Description of the Morning", Jonathon Swift, line 3
13. "The Rape of the Lock", Alexander Pope, line 157
14. "The Wife of Bath's Prologue", Geoffrey Chaucer, line 3
My cat wants to play and it's really starting to bug me. . .
So I bought a membership for three months. I'm tired of waiting to find out if SG is gonna accept my photo set. I hope so. Ask Kiska, they're way hot. haha. Anyway, if you add me as a friend on here, promise you'll ogle my titties when/if I become a Suicide Girl.
Anyway.
Mad stressed with school. I finished the centa I had to write for 301. My paper for 300 is a little over halfway done. I just can't sit still long enough to finish it. Sigh.
Work sucks. Money is slow. My boy Justin offered me a part-time job at the video store he manages. I'm considering it. I really just want to find a decent serving job that could be 100-200 a night for a short shift so I can concentrate on finishing these two degrees.
Anyway.
I'm lonely, send me a message so I don't cry. (Emotional blackmail. My mom's getting really good at it.)
Anyway.
Mad stressed with school. I finished the centa I had to write for 301. My paper for 300 is a little over halfway done. I just can't sit still long enough to finish it. Sigh.
Work sucks. Money is slow. My boy Justin offered me a part-time job at the video store he manages. I'm considering it. I really just want to find a decent serving job that could be 100-200 a night for a short shift so I can concentrate on finishing these two degrees.
Anyway.
I'm lonely, send me a message so I don't cry. (Emotional blackmail. My mom's getting really good at it.)
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