Updating...

So it's been a while, I know. I've been remiss.

Not much happens academically over the summer... mostly because this magical thing called "eating" needs to be subsidized by "working."

So I've managed to churn out a large chunk of the Edward II chapter, though it's much bigger than either of its brothers. I'm currently working on turning the Maid's chapter into an article, and I have an outstanding proposal to Kalamazoo. My own article is in "Final Production" with Routledge, and comes out in Shakespeare 3.2 in November. In April I'll be heading to Chicago for the RSA national conference to be on a special panel with a paper on Henry VI. Oh, yes, and our play for next year will be Middleton's A Mad World My Masters and will go up the first week in March.

When I put it that way, I've been a busy girl.

Article, Ho!

So today's "mission accomplished" was turning in the corrections for the final page proofs of my article - "Martial Maids and Murdering Mothers" - set to appear in volume 3, issue 2 of Routledge's journal Shakespeare in November of 2007 (going to press in August - next month).

Look, ma! I'm a real acamademic!

Not much else to announce... I don't know whether or not I get a "real" copy of the article (or the journal issue) yet, but I don't really plan on buying more than one (if I buy one at all). I have the page-proof pdf, which is enough for me, since it has all the real things like page numbers, citations, and so on.


The dissertation continues... and continues... and continues...

Well, you get the idea. One of these days I hope to be able to announce that I'm done with this godawful process, but I'm not holding my breath and neither should you. Just know that if I manage by some miracle to get a novel successfully published beforehand, I may decide to alter the course of my life. Then again, maybe not. We'll have to see.

Odd quote of the day...

So in reading this book (some of which is useful, but most of which seems to be tangential to my purposes), I came across the following sentence, which contains one of the oddest parenthetical comment I've seen in non-fiction in a very long time:

"it is impossible therefore to think of the human individual without the family, and in all families authority rests in the male because (says Bodin) the woman is the physical, moral and intellectual inferior (may he rest in pain)" (Simon Shepherd, Marlowe and the Politics of Elizabethan Theatre, 160).

I get what Shepherd is trying to do here, but it still struck me as a terribly odd thing to say. Then again, I may have to appropriate it and use it... though probably not in an academic publication.

Another one under way

Well, the Edward II chapter has been outlined. Not begun, officially, I suppose, but I've decided what I'm going to talk about and roughly in what order. It's a step, even if not the "big" step.

The last two weeks (and it has been [only?] two weeks, which is a little alarming to me) have reminded me yet again why it sucks to have to work to eat during the summers. While I know that *most* people in the real world have to work all the time in order to pay bills, eat, and have fun, as a grad student I find that I have ever so much more time when I'm doing my *real* work than when I'm doing my fake summer work. I always think I'm going to have all this extra time in the summer to work on school-things, work on fun-things, read, etc., but I inevitably barely manage to get the school-things done and nothing more.

Admittedly, it has only been two weeks of summer season (the funny few weeks in the middle of May don't count in my head), so I might get more done than I think, but I'm having a pessimist day. So sue me.

To say nothing of the fact that I do things like post on my blog when I should be reading about Christopher Marlowe... but I feel, at this point, that I've read everything I possibly could need to know about the Elizabethan reception to theater and I'm getting rather sick of it. I want this guy to stop his more general rambling and start talking about Marlowe in particular or - even better - about Edward II.

Bah. Back to tea and tedium with me.

Introduction... check

Well, the introductory chapter is finished. And it was a bitch and a half, let me tell you. Like pulling teeth from a very irritable and unusually voluble sphinx.

Have you ever attempted dentistry on such a beastie? Not an easy thing, believe me. They drool, they talk when you've got your hands in their mouthes, and then there's the tail...

But the draft is done. I fully expect to have to return to it again and again and it will most likely look very little like the creature it currently resembles, but that's why dissertation writing is much like genetic engineering. You never know what it will look like in a couple million years. Which is about how long dissertations take to write.

I do feel like I have much more of a solid grasp of what my theoretical ideas are at this point, though. A definite improvement over when I started the chapter. And I can actually explain what I mean to another human being in under an hour - also an improvement.

I have noticed - with great joy and excitement - that the more questions I find myself asking and the more plays I consider with relation to my thesis (and the more extra-period books K. comes up with), the more solid I find my argument. In other words, there seems to be a kind of universal application to my ideas - both within and beyond early modern drama, which I personally find rather exciting. I've also noticed that my thesis gets more easily proven in the later plays - which points to the idea that this is an evolving idea that becomes increasingly prevalent as the period goes on... all leading to a logical conclusion that (coincidentally or not) actually happened. (Forgive the vagueness, but when your ideas will eventually combine to be a book in a highly competitive academic atmosphere, you have to safeguard them with not only your life, but a highly trained attack dog named "Bruno.")

Next, I turn my attention to my first actual chapter - Chapter One - which will be the third one to get written. This one's on Edward II and the idea that having a red-hot poker inserted through one's rectum and into one's intestines somehow renders the body less sacred... A shocking thought, I know, but there you go.

And for inspiration I have a lovely fire-poker with a very nice wicked hook on the end mounted on my wall, just beside my desk (between the engraving of Elizabeth I and the puzzle of Shakespeare characters).

I should probably make some attempt to eat something... but I just was so excited about the prospect of finishing this stupid chapter tonight that I decided to put off cooking. But now the veggies and beans and cheese are calling to me...

Conference paper, check

Well, there's another project well under way. And by "well under way," I mean "only needs to knock off a few pages and make sure it makes sense." So, Richard II conference paper draft, done.

I'm kind of sad that I'm not writing on Richard II for the dissertation now, though I wouldn't want to replace anything already in there (except The Maid's Tragedy, but I've already written that part). I think it would be really interesting to write a chapter on Richard through Richard II and Woodstock, if only because there's very little out there on Woodstock and it dovetails so nicely with Richard II (since they're about the same King... shocking). It might also be interesting to drag in Edward III, but I've only read that once and not very carefully.

It was suggested that perhaps I keep this for the *next* book (good god), and I think I might have to do an Edward-Richard thing if that were to be the case. Edward II, Edward III, Woodstock, Richard II... Might be an interesting way to look at histories, since everybody else writes on the Henriad (yak). Sure, Richard II leads into the Henriad, but the Edwards and Woodstock (yes, yes, I *know* they aren't Shakespeare, but, believe it or not, Shakespeare wasn't the only guy with a pen in the 1590s) lead right into Richard II in such yummy ways...

*sigh*

I really am a dork, now, aren't I?

Introduction, begun

So in a concerted effort to avoid writing my most recent conference paper, I started the introductory chapter to my dissertation today. (This is the second chapter I've worked on thus far, the other one being the last actual chapter.) I think I've finally figured out how to present these ideas in something resembling a clear manner, but there's just SO MUCH to cover. For instance, my quotation notes for this bugger are 32 pages long. And that's just the quotations. There will be a lot that gets left out, methinks.

I have also started that conference paper (on Richard II, which, unfortunately, isn't going into the dissertation), and I've still got time to finish it before May 10, when I leave for the Medieval Congress. Hopefully I'll make some sense by then.

Either way, I'm going to be doing a lot of talking about performance, tyranny, and monarchical violation over the next month or so.

And maybe I'll stop procrastinating by posting about writing in my blog and actually get to the writing.
Ha.

Cooper's Physics, courtesy Mark Twain

Specifically, an amusing read for anybody who wants to do some hating on James Fenimore Cooper. I'm always up for some good Cooper-bashing. In this case, it's Mark Twain doing the bashing.

K sent this to me a while ago while he was reading all the Leatherstocking tales (that's two more than I ever managed to force myself to read) and I've been a bad girlfriend and not read it until now. But it's pretty bloody hilarious.

Here's a taste for those who want a short version.

The ark is arriving at the stream's exit now, whose width has been reduced to less than twenty feet to accommodate the Indians--say to eighteen. There is a foot to spare on each side of the boat. Did the Indians notice that there was going to be a tight squeeze there? Did they notice that they could make money by climbing down out of that arched sapling and just stepping aboard when the ark scraped by? No, other Indians would have noticed these things, but Cooper's Indians never notice anything. Cooper thinks they are marvelous creatures for noticing, but he was almost always in error about his Indians. There was seldom a sane one among them.

The ark is one hundred and forty feet long; the dwelling is ninety feet long. The idea of the Indians is to drop softly and secretly from the arched sapling to the dwelling as the ark creeps along under it at the rate of a mile an hour, and butcher the family. It will take the ark a
minute and a half to pass under. It will take the ninety foot dwelling a minute to pass under. Now, then, what did the six Indians do? It would take you thirty years to guess, and even then you would have to give it up, I believe. Therefore, I will tell you what the Indians did. Their chief, a person of quite extraordinary intellect for a Cooper Indian, warily watched the canal-boat as it squeezed along under him, and when he had got his calculations fined down to exactly the right shade, as he judged, he let go and dropped. And missed the house! That is actually what he did. He missed the house, and landed in the stern of the scow. It was not much of a fall, yet it knocked him silly. He lay there unconscious. If the house had been ninety-seven feet long he would have made the trip. The fault was Cooper's, not his. The error lay in the construction of the house. Cooper was no architect.

There still remained in the roost five Indians.

The boat has passed under and is now out of their reach. Let me explain what the five did--you would not be able to reason it out for yourself. No. 1 jumped for the boat, but fell in the water astern of it. Then No. 2 jumped for the boat, but fell in the water still farther astern of it. Then No. 3 jumped for the boat, and fell a good way astern of it. Then No, 4. jumped for the boat, and fell in the water away astern. Then even No. 5 made a jump for the boat--for he was a Cooper Indian. In the matter of intellect, the difference between a Cooper Indian and the Indian that stands in front of the cigarshop is not spacious.

I really wish I'd known about this when Scott made us read it.

There's a reason nobody listened to these guys...

Stephen Gosson and Phillip Stubbes are not only incredibly boring, they're also wrong.
Funny, at times, but wrong.

Then again, I'm a horrible heretic and participator in that great evil, the theater, so what do I know?
According to Stubbes, at least, that must mean I'm a sodomite, or worse:

marke the flocking and rūning to Theaters & curtens, daylie and hourely, night and daye, tyme and tyde to see Playes and Enterludes, where such wanton gestures, such bawdie speaches: such laughing and sleering: such kissing and bussing: such clipping and culling: Suche winckinge and glancinge of wanton eyes, / and the like is vsed, as is wonderfull to behold. Than these goodly pageants being done, euery mate sorts to his mate, euery one bringes another homeward of their way verye freendly, and in their secret conclaues (couertly) they play y^e Sodomits, or worse. (Anatomie of Abuses)

Lucky me.

Chapter 4 draft, check

Though I have to say, that was more time than I ever want to spend with Beaumont and Fletcher ever again. Unfortunately, I have the feeling I'm not going to get my wish.

On the other hand, I very clearly hit several very important and interesting things today. For instance, I have a rather fascinating argument about the title of The Maid's Tragedy and a reading of the play as a whole that I've never seen before (which you'll have to forgive me if I don't share - academia being rather competitive as it is, I'm not feeling very open about this stuff just yet). I also got into something of a groove this week regarding this chapter, and it's just been pouring out (with a few little fits and starts, of course, but I've written about 20 pages worth of stuff in three days, as well as a good deal of revising).

I'm still feeling up in the air about including Julius Caesar in the dissertation. On the one hand, it would go very well with The Maid's Tragedy... on the other hand, this chapter alone is 57 pages and I've got three more, an introductory chapter, and an epilogue to go, and I know the chapter on Macbeth and Richard III is going to be a long bugger.

Next up: Hope the prospectus gets approved. Then I can give them this monstrosity. That's going to be fun. If we dick around for a while yet... Start chapter 1, which is on Edward II. I'm actually looking forward to that play, which tells me something about the comparative quality of Marlowe versus Beaumont and Fletcher. And it's not good for Francis and John. It really makes me kind of sad that Kit had to go and get himself knifed before he could write anything else. I often wonder if Marlowe had lived, would we have Marlowe festivals instead of Shakespeare...

At any rate, I'm SO happy this is done. Especially since I can tell my brain is so over-saturated by iambic pentameter that it keeps trying to force my normal speech into Jacobean dramatic patterns. Not good.

Fair reader, fare thee well, for I am done.

Today's Thought-Provoking Quote of the Day

From Elaine Scarry's The Body in Pain (New York: Oxford, 1985), which is a fascinating book for those of you who might be interested.

The invented god and its human inventor (or, in the inverted language of the scriptures, the creature and his creature) are differentiated by the immunity of the one and the woundability of the other; and if the creature is not merely woundable but already deeply and permanently wounded, handicapped or physically marred in some way (Leviticus 21:16; 22:21; Deuteronomy 17:1), then that individual is asserted to exist at an ever greater moral distance from God than does the “normal” person. (183)

Not only does this make me think about Richard III in terms of Richard's "distance" from divinity and about Edward II in terms of the final murder as an act of removing Edward's divinity through pain (because what is pain if not fundamentally human), but about Milton and Paradise Lost.

Several years ago I wrote a paper on Satan's wounds as indicative not only of his Hobbesean understanding of the universe, but as the physical manifestation of his sundering from god and divinity. In Paradise Lost - as, amusingly enough, in the movie Constantine (2005) when Gabriel becomes "mortal" - pain is the marker of the Fall. This has all sorts of implications in my own creative work in terms of scarring, marking, and pain, but that's another (very long) story.

Curtain

Well, let's see.

Performing (In)Visibility Conference, check.
Abstract and chapter breakdown passed on to second advisor, check.
Show, check.

To do during spring break:
Write state of the criticism.
Finish chapter one.
Maybe start thinking about the Medieval/Renaissance Congress. Maybe.
Shake this nasty-ass cough.

Life goes on. Sometimes ploddingly, sometimes quickly, sometimes with these funny little fits and starts that make you wonder of god has the damn hiccups. But it goes on.
So doth it with me.

Progress?

Well, yesterday and today a couple of rather profound (I hope) things occurred to me regarding The Dissertation. (Yes, it has taken on capital-letter status in my head.)

One of them provides, thankfully, the link between the two main ideas I've been throwing around for months, and the other allows me to connect those ideas to the plays I'm intending to use. Both also allow me to fight with various established critics (one in terms of extending existing ideas the other in direct opposition), which I guess is a good way to make your entrance into the field. It also seems to be something I tend to do a lot.

I also sent back the article revisions this week - hopefully I've managed not to mess up my English grammar (as opposed to American) too badly and they won't need to send it back to me again. I have to say, if the publication process for fiction is as tedious as it is for criticism, I'm not looking forward to trying to get the novel published. Particularly because it's MUCH longer. Of course, I do have to finish the blasted thing first. Again.

Ah, the story of my life. Write thing. Give thing to reader. Rewrite thing. Give thing back to reader. Edit thing. Give thing back to reader. Rewrite thing. Give thing back to reader...
You get the idea.
Perhaps the universe is trying to tell me that writing is not where my life is intended to go.
Then again, when have I ever listened to anyone who tells me I shouldn't/can't do something?

All the time.
No, really.
I listen. I just proceed to do the opposite.

It begins

Well, it's official. I have written something for my dissertation. Not much, mind you, and it probably won't stay in the final version, but I've actually started it.

My current dilemma - which isn't admittedly much of a dilemma - is that there isn't much out there written on The Maid's Tragedy. I think I've gotten most of the articles, etc., but if anyone happens to know of a chapter, book, or article that deals with The Maid's Tragedy, I'd appreciate them dropping a comment to give me a hand.

I've also decided that it's rather irritating that I still hear the actors in my head when I read this play. Not that they were bad, mind you - as they did a very good job with it - but it's very hard to try and parse some of this when you've got somebody else's voice in your head.

Or maybe I'm just going crazy.

I seem to have overcommitted...

To do list:

1. Write conference paper on Richard III and Henry V for Performing (In)Visibility in February.

2. Put on show (Edward II).

3. Write conference paper on Richard II for Medieval Congress Medieval/Renaissance conference in May.

4. Write chapter of dissertation on The Maid's Tragedy. Maybe convince self and advisors I should write the chapter on Edward II instead. Maybe not.

5. Turn aforementioned chapter on The Maid's Tragedy into an article using the Ohio Shakespeare Conference paper on the above. This is the real reason for starting with this play.

6. Teach Shakespeare class.

7. Maybe possibly finish prospectus before I die. Maybe.