Ode on a Grecian URL

The first hebdomadal assignment is still below.

So sitting in the lecture hall this afternoon, I was a little distressed to see the students around me (none of you, thank heavens) casually reading Middlemarch - the student next to me was at page 21. Now, it's possible that these students were conscientiously reviewing the text before class, but something tells me that such optimism is a little unfounded.

I realize that in your crazy lives it might be difficult to find the time to enjoy the delicious prose of Middlemarch properly, but I hope that you are at least able to get through the reading assignments in a timely way. This book is as important as it is massive, and it will appear on both essay topics and on both exams, and it's not the kind of book you want to cram in the weekend before finals. (To say nothing of the fact that it will be almost impossible to get a sense of the beauty that lies just under the surface of Eliot's prose and her characters if you are skimming the book frantically.)

Strategically, it's important to think about Middlemarch as a semester-long experience: because you might not remember every detail from Book I in December you might begin, now, to think about techniques for remembering its details three months hence.

Here are a couple quick recommendations of things you can do now to make reviewing for the tests and note-preparation for your essays a good bit easier:

1. KEEP A DETAILED CHARACTER LIST. Because Middlemarch sports a cast of several dozen important recurring characters, and because four weeks might intercede between a single character's disappearance and return, it's really really helpful keep a list of at least the major actors. Many readers use the blank pages at the beginning and end of these books; I'd actually recommend sitting down with the book after you've read a section and writing / typing out something like ~
   
   Fred Vincy: Father wanted him to enter the church - Fred dropped out - in love with Mary Garth? - gambling debts? - expects to inherit from Featherstone - pampered by his mother... (And be sure to leave plenty of room to document more information as it arrives.)

Here's a quick list of important characters: all three Brookes, Sir James Chettam, Edward Casaubon, Will Ladislaw, Dr. Tertius Lydgate, Fred and Rosamond Vincy, and Mary Garth. After Book II, be sure to add Nicholas Bulstrode and Rev. Farebrother. There are probably at least another 30 characters who come and go, but those twelve are the really important ones.


2. RECORD CRUCIAL EVENTS AND MOMENTS OF EPIPHANY. There are only a few really important events in the novel - the proposal letter from Casaubon is one of them - but you should probably note them as they pass. Prof. Ortiz-Robles will doubtlessly mention these events in class too; if you find him dwelling on a particular passage (as the one today about Mrs. Cadwallader and the metaphor of the microscope) you might mark the page with one of those 3M marker flags.
   
   You might also want to mark moments where you think characters might begin to change. This usually happens in fits and starts - Fred seems chastened by Featherstone's lecture about gambling and debt, but you might find that he ends up back at the gambling table soon. Still, major character developments are generally worth noting, as much of the soul of the novel is revealed in those spaces.