Ode on a Grecian URL

Update, 12/2: I'm as confused as you are about the disappearance of topics 2 and 3 - they were posted just fine Wednesday afternoon, but seem to have been un-published? Anyway, for all it's worth they're below now as they were supposed to be all week.

This, dear students, is your last hebdomadal of the semester. I'm not being a sarcastic ass when I say that I will miss hearing from you weekly, although I suppose it will make my schedule somewhat more manageable.

Topic 1: Why makes the narrator snark Rosamond?

You might recall the narrator's defense of Rosamond from chapter 27:

Think no unfair evil of her, pray: she had no wicked plots, nothing sordid or mercenary; in fact, she never thought of money except as something necessary which other people would always provide. She was not in the habit of devising falsehoods, and if her statements were no direct clew to fact, why, they were not intended in that light - they were among her elegant accomplishments, intended to please. Nature had inspired many arts in finishing Mrs. Lemon's favorite pupil, who by general consent (Fred's excepted) was a rare compound of beauty, cleverness, and amiability. (Page 169.)

But the narrator's impulse to defend Rosamond, with apparent sincerity and kindness, fades by chapter 65:

In spite of Rosamond's self-control a tear fell silently and rolled over her lips. She still said nothing; but under that quietude was hidden an intense effect: she was in such entire disgust with her husband that she wished she had never seen him. Sir Godwin's rudeness towards her and utter want of feeling ranged him with Dover and all other creditors - disagreeable people who only thought of themselves, and did not mind how annoying they were to her. Even her father was unkind, and might have done more for them. In fact there was but one person in Rosamond's world whom she did not regard as blameworthy, and that was the graceful creature with blond plaits and with little hands crossed before her, who had never expressed herself unbecomingly, and had always acted for the best - the best naturally being what she best liked. (Page 411.)

Why does the narrator's position change in regard to Rosamond? Or does it?

Topic 2: Catalogs and the marketplace – a last bit of close reading

Pick one of the catalog or anaphora passages in “Goblin Market” (a partial list of these passages is below) and read those lines closely. Pointing to specific, detailed formal or rhetorical features of the passage, answer one or two of the following questions: How is the list organized – what is its logic? How do rhythmic and metric features distinguish the list from surrounding text? What is the effect (emotionally, intellectually, readerly) of having so much repetition in such a tight space? How would you distinguish the tone of the poem in this passage from the tone of “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”? How does this list fit into Prof. Ortiz-Robles’s description of “Goblin Market” as an allegory of the search for allegories?

Some of the lists in “GM”:

• Lines 5-29: The goblins’ wares
• 56-58 and 71-76: The goblins Laura sees
• 81-86: Similes that describe Laura’s peering
• 329-351: Goblins reacting to Lizzie’s peering
• 408-421: Similes that describe Lizzie’s standing

Topic 3: Goblins, monsters, and Others

Prof. Ortiz-Robles briefly mentioned yesterday that one of the allegorical readings of “GM” was colonial: that the goblins were figured as Other and that their market thereby illustrates the troubled relationship between Britain and its colonial holdings (particularly India). You can approach this topic in a couple of ways:

Subtopic A – Draw out this allegorical reading: if the goblins represent, say, the Indians, how is their relationship with the sisters analogous to Britain’s relationship with India in the mid nineteenth century?

Subtopic B – The last time we had a chance to talk about the Other was when we were reading Frankenstein. How do these two texts approach the idea of the Other differently? (Remember that there are at least a couple different possibilities for Otherness in Frankenstein: the monster himself and Safie, to name just two possibilities. Choose just one of these Others to compare with the goblins.)

The free hebdomadals you wrote a few weeks back were a delight to read, and I wanted to post a couple particularly exciting examples of the answers I got to my questions about drinking - if nothing else they should furnish you with some wonderful excuses if you're ever caught drinking. First, Melanie from 301:

Alcohol. To many college students, this is their nearest and dearest friend. Alcohol is readily available for all your needs: it will warm you up on a chilly night, it will make you forget your problems (if even for just a little bit) and it’s not afraid to do stupid, outrageous and potentially life-threatening things with you. Like all good friendships though, alcohol and college students have their ups and downs, like down to the toilet, or down to the ground as they pass out, or watching their grades go down. . . but yet college students keep coming back to their trusty friend alcohol. Why is that?

For college students, alcohol is the ultimate mask, their salvation from social awkwardness. Alcohol makes you forget that you’re in a new surrounding, far from home, far from your close friends, far from any comfort that has surrounded one for the past 18 years or so. With alcohol, you can open up, do stupid and crazy things and the best part is, you think its fun because you can’t quite remember what happened most of the night. Alcohol is also freedom, its taboo. It’s our little way of saying “Stick it to the man (Mom and Dad)! I’m a big kid now!” Even for students that are of legal drinking age, being “the drunk guy” isn’t socially acceptable a lot of the time (Who would bring home their significant other to meet the parents after a night of partying in Madison?). I also believe college students drink because that’s what they think college is all about. Look at Animal House, the epitome of a college movie, or any other cheap college comedy out today, TV shows and commercials. . . they always show college students drinking. When you talk to your friends about college too, what do they tell you about? Usually not that thrilling paper they worked on Saturday night but their funny drunk stories. People are scared coming to college of not fitting in, not making friends, so they do what most people do, drink. Drinking promotes cookie-cutter people who mask their true identities in a bottle but hey, everyone likes cookies.

How much can one learn from a depressant, that clouds reasons and could poison/kill you? As much as Calculus seems to cloud my reason and depress me and even though I manage to convince myself that my teachers are secretly in a plot to kill me with all the homework that is given, I generally come out with a fun (excruciatingly boring) fact. When I drink, I usually come out with a nasty hangover, a garbage can full of puke, and one of my friends passed out on the futon. Is drinking in itself useful? Will it look good on your resume (or legal record)? No, that’s a ridiculous statement for anyone to make. Is it an experience though? A natural part of growing up and learning who you are and where you fit in? Yeah and I think that’s really what a lot of college is about.

And here is Lindsay from 302, who totally gets bonus points for sticking in a quick reference to J. S. Mill:

To me drinking is something that at least in my family was something that was acceptable, but only once you were in college. In high school to drink we had to sneak around our parents, but oddly now that I have graduated high school and have moved on to college, drinking seems oddly acceptable to my parents and there older friends. When my dad tells stories about his best times in college they always end up being with his frat brothers, and I always find myself wondering how he really remembered them because they always seem to start with, well we threw a keg in the back of the truck…and move on from there. Even the adults at my high school graduation party would write in the cards, here is X amount of money use it to buy a cup at a party. I’m not saying that I feel pressure to drink solely from my parents and other adults, but to me it seems like somewhat of a tradition. You grow up, graduate high school, and you go to college to “find yourself” which somehow seems to include taking as many vodka shots as possible in one night.

However, I think there is something to be said for the drinking culture here at Madison. A lot about being in college is about being on your own for the first time, making your own decisions and messing up. As stupid as it sounds, the first thing you want to do when you’re in college is do what you have never been allowed to do, and for many people that includes alcohol. Its not that people haven’t drank before they got to college, but a lot of them have never been able to drink in such an open environment. I think in the time between high school, and being a grown up people want to mess up and alcohol has a funny way of accelerating how quickly people tend to make mistakes. I’ll admit a lot of it is ego and peer pressure driven. There has to be some driving force behind waking up at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning hung over from the night before, and forcing yourself to drink before a Badger game. For some reason I have yet to figure out, there is a certain pride that goes along with having consumed so much alcohol and survived the night. It is sort of like J.S. Mill’s arguments in “The Subjection of Women”. As different as the subjects are they carry same ideas, the “custom” image of a college student is one that is always drinking, so to be a college student and not drink makes you…a genius. Well maybe all of Mill’s arguments aren’t completely accurate, I’m not sure that putting down the pitcher will help turn you in to a genius but maybe if you put down the pitcher and picked up a book you would get a lot closer.

Today is George Eliot's birthday! She'd have been 186 today. This weekend, be sure to raise a glass to one of the finest novelists our language has ever had!

If you have not yet seen the new Pride & Prejudice movie, you might think about doing so: it is amazing. (And it is amazing even in the context of the BBC/A&E version with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth; Keira Knightley and Matthew MacFayden are every bit as good.)


And, utterly unrelatedly, my sister just got new kittens. What could better reduce your stress then looking at the picture of one? This is Alton, either enraptured by or frightened of a piece of string:

Past identifying the author and title of the passages on the exam, there are no correct or incorrect answers: there are only correct or incorrect ways of reading. I am posting the nine answers below not because they are inherently correct, but because they all read the texts correctly. All of these answers received full credit.

1. This passage can be found in the very conclusion of Percy Shelley’s “Defence of Poetry.” In it, Shelley expresses his belief that poetry is capable of bringing about great change in the world – political change. He does this specifically by calling forth “gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon present.” While orthodox legislators are most concerned w/ the present, Shelley uses this phrase to illustrate that the poets’ immortal feelings, expressed through words, are relevant for both present and future, and should thus be heeded. The images of trumpets, battle express the poets’ stance – ready to bring about change.



2. a) Keats – Ode on a Grecian Urn
   b) In these final lines of the Ode, Keats describes the figures’ destiny to forever be engraved in the side of urn, unable to progress, change & grow
   c) Because the figures will always be stuck within the urn’s confinements, time will pass them by keeping them younger & aesthetic: “When old age shall this generation waste / Thou shalt remain in midst of other woe.” Because they cannot be used for any purpose besides their pure & innocent beauty, Keats tells the reader that beauty, in fact, “is all / ye know on Earth, & all ye need to know.” When Keats tells us that “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” he tells the reader that the aesthetic aspects of life are sometimes more enriching & important than the intellectual factors of life.



3. 1.) “Michael” by W. Wordsworth
   
   2.) Michael is speaking to his son about his planned departure to London. This occurs towards the end of the poem, or the end of the middle, actually. Michael refers to the stone enclosure he must now build alone without his son.
   
   3.) The stone enclosure referred to is a symbol of the pact between father + son. Ironically, it is never constructed, and the son breaks his pact as well and never returns home, having been changed by the industrial city. Themes of the purity of nature vs. dehumanizing cities, unkept promises.
   - Blank verse, outward vs. inward imagination.



4. Middlemarch by George Eliot.
   - This is a description of Rosamond Vincy. The narrator is the speaker. This is one of the introductory descriptions given of Rosamond.
   - This passage is significant in that it shows / tells of Rosamond as she actually is. It does NOT dwell greatly on how others see her on think of her. The passage merely states what the general consensus is of her true self, one of a “rare compound of beauty, cleverness + amiability”
   However, before that closing line by using words like falsehood, light + intended to please Eliot creates the impression that Rosamond’s nature is something she (Rosamond) has crafted to appeal to others (the community) but not actually herself (the individual.)



5. “Tintern Abbey” – William Wordsworth
   - In this passage W. W. is reflecting on how the beautiful landscape of the country along the Wye river has often soothed his mind when he has meditated on it while in the hustle of the City. This passage occurs near the beginning of the poem, after the initial descriptions of the countryside.
   - W. W. compares the winding Wye river to the flowing veins in his body, and how just as a river refreshes the land around it, the remembrance of that beauty refreshes his body and is “felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.” This ties into W. W.’s greater purpose of showing the reciprocity between nature and imagination.



6. Mary Shelley – Frankenstein
   This passage is from the dream Victor has after bringing his creation to life. He awakes to it entering his room, and flees.
   One suggestion Professor O-R made was that this passage could relate to VY usurping woman’s reproductive role. I see it as tying into the ‘invention of man’ quote from earlier in the semester and ‘man’ as male. Also, it is the invention of Victor’s tormentor and (in a sense) nemesis. The transformation of Elizabeth from health to death can also be seen as a foreshadowing of the real destruction by that which her lover has just created.



7. This passage is from George Eliot’s Middlemarch. This metaphor for Mrs. Cadwallader’s match-making comes after she finds out that Dorothea is engaged to Casaubon and not Sir James. The image of the microscope echoes a larger theme of the book – Eliot’s own experiment of looking through a lens at a sample of English society from a specific time period.



8. “Mont Blanc” – written by Percy Sheley
   This passage occurs at the end of the poem. It is a wrap up of all the events of the poem and shows the power and vacancy of the mountain.
   
   The significance of this passage is showing the true sublime powers of the mountain. The mountain is awe inspiring and completely “vacant.” The last line ties the poet’s mind to the features of the vacant mountain. The mind is a vast and open space, just like the mountain, but the mind does not have to remain silent and void. While looking upon the mountain, the mind of the poet becomes vast and wide as if struck by the power and sublime features of the mountain.



9. “The Rime of the Ancient Marinerr” Coleridge
   This passage is from the middle of the poem. It occurs after the Albatross is shot, and after a curse is cast onto all of the men aboard the ship. The passage is describing how all of the men pass by the mariner as they are “ascending” to heaven. However, the mariner is left behind to deal with his consequences of shooting the Albatross. A religious theme can be exposed here with the words, souls, soul, or cross. Also, if we think of the bodies flying up, and their souls passing on to heaven, there’s a sense of religion.

Neal Pollack's favorite book he read in college? Middlemarch.

To judge from your hebdomadals and (especially) your exams, at least 60% of Middlemarch was written by an author named Elliott; about a further 15% was written by an Eliott, and the final 25% by an Eliot.

I'm sure the Elliott-ists among you are mistaking the surname of the author finest novel written in our language for that of the actress who stunningly portrays the wealthy American heiress Millie Theale in the finest cinematic adaptation of any book, 1997's The Wings of the Dove - Alison Elliott. Forgivable though this error is - Elliott is so remarkable acting in this genre that she might just have gone back in time, changed her first name, and written Middlemarch - it's probably best to write in more thorough orthographic accord with the pseudonym she took.

Two other remarks on this score: Mill, not Mills. This is an error I make constantly, so it's possible that your Mills-ing comes from having paid attention to me in class, something you should assiduously avoid doing.

Finally, and in an air of great futility: hebdomadal. Seriously: hebdomadal. Not hebdomal, or hebdamal, or any other trisyllabic variant.

Just as a for-your-information, I am trying to make it through the Heb 7's before I finish up the Heb 6's so I can be sure to comment on prospective theses before they come due and the suchlike. Your sibth hebs have (most likely) not gotten lost in the mail - I'm just getting to them in a roundabout way.

My time is slowly beginning to open up; after this Wednesday I should have even more time to devote to you guys and your work. I really appreciate how flexible you have all been with me in my time crunch: it's so nice to know that I can be just a human around you.

I would like to thank you for your patience in waiting to get your exams back--and, for some of you, in waiting to get your sixth hebdomadals commented upon. It has been a truly difficult week for me, and I appreciate that you are willing to be flexible with me.

There are two hebdomadal topics this week. I would prefer that you answer the first.

Topic 1: Thesis

Choose the essay topic you would like to respond to for your second essay. What argument do you want to make, connecting a close reading to a larger analytical issue? What is the significance of this particular argument? That is, once I have read your essay how will I read the text differently? What implications does your analysis have for the way we read other texts in this course? What passage or passages will you be reading closely?

If you are writing this essay collaboratively - which I hope you are - you should write this hebdomadal collaboratively as well.

Topic 2: The Stones of Excellence

Pick one sizeable paragraph or a couple shorter consecutive paragraphs from "The Stones of Venice." Reading this paragraph closely for language and structure - voice and style - explain why this essay is often considered the greatest in our language. How does the way Ruskin writes contribute to our appreciation of his argument?

Do you agree or disagree with the assessment of "The Stones of Venice" as a truly great essay? Why?

If you are interested in collaborating but haven't tracked down the perfect collaborator, feel free to shoot me an email letting me know what sort of person you would like to work with and I'll see what I can do to set you up. It's possible that I'm a little too eager to play scholarly matchmaker, but put my energy to work for you!

Woolf wrote two pieces on Eliot; the more famous of the two is her chapter in The Common Reader, Series One. (Dozens of copies are available at Memorial Library - call number PN511 W7.) If you want to give it a read, let me assure you that The Common Reader makes for wonderful bedtime reading, Woolf's voice richly seductive and soothing.

In addition, freely available online is Woolf's 1919 appraisal of Eliot's career, written for the (London) Times Literary Supplement, in which she cryptically calls Middlemarch one of the few English novels written for grown-up people. If you have a spare fifteen minutes, you might casually peruse Woolf's evaluation of Eliot's life and work. (If you're skimming, note that the second half of the essay is more interesting than the first, so you might want to concentrate your efforts there.)

Tuesday 8 November
2:10 pm - Danielle
2:30 -
2:50 -
3:10 -
3:30 -
3:50 -

Wednesday 9 November
9:00 am - Mallory
9:20 -
9:40 -
10:00 - Caitlin
10:20 -
10:40 -
11:00 - Kevin

Thursday 10 November
10:30 am - Erin
10:50 - Kevin
11:10 - Melanie
11:30 - Lindsay
11:50 - Emily S.
12:10 pm - Jessica

Tuesday 15 November
2:10 pm - Cassandra
2:30 - Allyson
2:50 - Emily C. (301)
3:10 - Samantha
3:30 - Jenny

Wednesday 16 November
9:00 am - Joe
9:20 - Mark
9:40 -
10:00 - Caitlin
10:20 -
10:40 - Mallory

It's often a lot easier to see an example of a strong essay than to figure out exactly what I am trying to say in my comments about your writing. Conveniently, this class yielded one of the better student papers I've seen in the past couple years; the author has consented to its publication here.

If you can, read it all through to observe how each paragraph connects to the main claim, and how each subsequent passage adds substantially to the larger analytical arc of the essay. Some particularly landmark moments:

• The thesis at the end of P1 is exactly what theses should sound like in 100- and 200-level English courses: it engages with the specific language of the scene but immediately broadens out to consider the significance of that particular mode of analysis
• The close reading in P4 is the kind of stuff that makes intro lit teachers swoon: language! structure! theme! trope! This paragraph is a thing of beauty.
• The conclusion avoids summary and instead focuses on the significance of the analysis as it points forward to how this analysis changes our reading of Eliot. The last clause is a bit trite, but that's forgiveable.

Note, also, that this essay is far from flawless: the author oversimplifies readings of surface and superficiality, the argument elides Rosamond's role as an agent in constructing (making up) her own appearance, textual evidence is occasionally occluded - to say nothing of the absent citation. An essay doesn't need to be watertight and publishable to get a high grade; it just needs to demonstrate that you have taken to heart the reading processes Prof. Ortiz-Robles and our discussions have modeled this semester, that you can repeat these processes, and that you do so with enthusiasm and insight.

Creating Identity: Rosamond and the Looking Glass

In George Eliot’s Middlemarch, understanding who the characters are is vital in understanding the author’s experiment with English society. In the scene where Rosamond and Mary are talking in front of the looking glass on pages 72 and 73, the author uses the mirror as a symbol to investigate who one of her characters, the fair Rosamond, really is. Eliot’s metaphor of the glass exposes not only what role physical beauty plays for the characters of Middlemarch; more importantly it reinforces the power comparison plays as a constant dependence people have on each other to define themselves. The glass is yet another lens which Eliot holds up to the reader’s eye in order to view the process of forming an identity – the complex inter-workings of outward influences and inward perceptions that create how an individual sees him or herself and the world.

The first meaning the mirror suggests is Rosamond’s vanity. Upon stepping into a room away from men, Rosamond automatically gravitates toward the one place, the looking glass, where she can make sure that what other people are seeing is what she wants them to see, “adjust[ing] her veil” and “appl[ying] little touches of her finger-tips to her hair.” She must know that the men of Middlemarch find her “infantine fairness” and “delicate undulations” angelic. Miss Vincy’s vanity motivates her to affirm Middlemarch’s belief that she is beautiful by any means necessary. She is committed to preserving the illusion of pureness that is associated with her beauty.

The mirror images of Rosamond underline the existence of this façade. As she gazes at herself, the narrator points out that Rosamond and her twin inside the glass have lovely blue eyes “deep enough to hold the most exquisite meanings … and deep enough to hide the meaning of the owner if these should happen to be less exquisite.” Even the syntax of this description exhibits mirror-like behavior, and the two Rosamonds that it exposes are proof that Rosamond is not quite the girl she seems to her acquaintances. When we consider what a mirror does, this concept is clear. When we look into a looking glass, our eyes see two indistinguishable likenesses, yet one has life while the other doesn’t. With Rosamond, it is like she is living as the image in the mirror all the time, devoid of true personality and life. The image she projects is the most important thing, so she focuses on making the outside perfect while neglecting her depth. She has become so concerned with the significance of her beauty that everything else is secondary. Throughout the book, it is clear that the Rosamond rarely gives her real self an opportunity to express itself; she never gives away what she is really thinking. After all, she has convinced herself that the training she received at school outlines the only way to act. If she were to let her true opinions be heard, she might destroy her perfect performance.

Rosamond’s two-sided character is further defined by the comparison between Rosamond and Mary. The language of the passage calls attention to the contrasts between Mary and Rosamond with phrases that force comparison like “on the contrary,” “antithesis,” and “by the side.” In addition, the structure of the narrator’s portrayals consistently mirrors itself. For instance, Mary Garth has the looks of an “ordinary sinner” where Rosamond is an “angel.” Rosamond’s hair is gossamer-blonde; Mary’s is “curly and dark.” Rosamond’s fairness is thoroughly explored in the part of the passage devoted to describing her; Mary’s ‘fairness’ of the “honesty, truth-telling” sort is given due course in her own section. It’s clear that they could not be more different.

The conclusion we are to draw from these comparisons seems clear: if we are informed of something about one lady, we can guess that the opposite is reflected on the other. This provides us with a more reliable tool to understand who the real Rosamond is. Mary is always honest and truthful; Rosamond lies. Mary doesn’t aim to please anyone, but Rosamond molds and shapes every word and look without giving it a second thought. Mary “neither trie[s] to create illusions, nor indulge[s] in them for her own behoof,” where nearly all Rosamond’s accomplishments and affectations are an elaborate structure concealing her middling background. They do have some things in common: cleverness, intelligence, awareness of how they are seen by others, and similar family backgrounds, among other things, but in the most interesting aspects of their characters, they couldn’t be more different.

When Rosamond and Mary catch each other in the mirror, the theme of comparison is continued to reinforce the value Middlemarch places on beauty. Side by side, the two figures reflected in the mirror make it all too plain to each exactly what flat images Middlemarch sees when they weigh the qualities of Mary against those of Rosamond. It’s clear that Rosamond’s “kind” reassurance that “No one ever thinks of your appearance, you are so sensible and useful, Mary. Beauty is of very little consequence in reality,” is not congruent with the way these young ladies have formed their identities. On the contrary, beauty seems to have enormous consequence in the reality of Middlemarch.

First of all, Miss Vincy obviously does not believe her statement because immediately after it comes out of her mouth, she maneuvers to get a better look at her lovely neck. Secondly, beauty is at the root of a chain of implications that good looks carry in Middlemarch society. It all starts where Middlemarch compares Rosamond to the other young ladies in the area and agree that she is the prettiest. In order to satisfy their expectations, Rosamond depends on the ideals of femininity that were ingrained into her as she grew up to both define herself and to provide a frame of reference against which she compares herself to the other girls in the neighborhood. Of course, the standards she uses ensure that she stays on top. These girls, in turn, depend on their perceptions of Rosamond as well as the opinion of the community to identify and rank themselves.

Even Mary, probably one of the least susceptible to this cycle by virtue of her “satiric bitterness” and obvious intelligence, sees herself as a “brown patch” next to Miss Vincy in that all-important mirror. After all, this is what everyone in Middlemarch thinks; Mary accepts it as fact and lets it enter her identity. If Rosamond is the definition of pretty, then the others are plain. If she is accomplished, they are not. Rosamond’s beauty, a mere genetic fluke, takes on massive importance because of the way the people of Middlemarch perceive everyone as relative to his or her neighbors.

Eliot’s symbolic use of the mirror in this passage uncovers Rosamond’s true nature through the comparison of the real Miss Vincy and the image Middlemarch sees, the same image that’s reflected in the mirror – an image which the viewer has the power to connect with any virtues they assume are right, regardless of the truth. By putting Rosamond and Mary in front of the looking glass together, Eliot enables the reader to trace the way beauty has influenced the formation of a sense of self in Rosamond, Mary, and the unnamed others who are undoubtedly caught in the cycle of dependent identification. In the end, Middlemarch traps its inhabitants in roles that may or may not reflect who they are by forcing them into a reliance on each other to characterize themselves. Eliot’s mirror ensures that this study of provincial life leaves the reader with an understanding of the process of creating a sense of self which is not reserved to the fictional characters of Middlemarch; if we pay attention, we can see that every one of us does it as well.

1. can u plz stop writing like ths?

I suspect that it's rather a compliment that you write to me in the casual style of contemporary electronic correspondence--"Can U send me my grade," etc., neglecting conventional spelling and grammar and choosing not to proofread for typos. By so doing, perhaps you mean to say "I trust you as a friend, and convey my respect for you by writing in a language I feel to be particularly authentic."

The problem is that the message I'm receiving is something more like "I'm an idiot who scarcely understands how periods work, much less commas. If my essays are grammatical it is only because I follow Word's grammar correction advice."

A little-known fact: when you get your BA in English, they inject a bit of Stodgitude into your blood, and suddenly you start caring about how people use semicolons. By the time you get your MA, you know the history of the semicolon and care passionately about comma splices. Just think of orthographical rectitude as a disease I have and humor me. plz.

2. Lecture is for passing notes

I hope to heaven that none of you are the type to sit and whisper to one another throughout class. I'm delighted that you have friends in lecture, but for the last couple weeks I have somehow chosen seats immediately behind incessant whisperers. If it is insuperably difficult to pay attention in class, or if your witty observation is too great not to share at that exact moment, could you write it on a note and pass it to your friend? Not only do you allow those near you to listen to the lecture more easily, but you get to practice your writing skills!

(My favorite whispered comment this afternoon, after the two whisperers had been ignoring lecture for the preceding twenty minutes: "I have no idea what he's talking about. This class is so confusing!")

3. Monstrous Middlemarch

Samantha (301) sent in this beautiful Shelleyfication of Middlemarch (Book I, Chapter 4) that I just had to share:

The moment Dorothea left the room, I meditated on the severity with which I communicated my feelings about her most definitely misguided attraction to the old, decrepit figure of Casaubon. But someone needed to have warned her! I suppose it is in the nature of a woman, however, to miss such shockingly apparent signs that the man she desires is not her suitable match. It is not right for a woman of such fine upbringing and with such potential to devote herself to a stale wafer of a man, wasting his life away inside one dry book after another! It shall be a ghastly sight to see the glowing form of Dorothea contrasted by the bleakness Casaubon leaves everywhere in his wake.

Two fun topics for you to consider this week!

Topic 1: Style transplant

Now that we are moving into a study of the Victorians, we need to begin thinking about the different decisions prose writers make as regards style. Middlemarch and Frankenstein are so different not just because of their plots (or because Frankenstein at least has a plot, as some of you have suggested) but because George Eliot and Mary Shelley just write in entirely different ways.

But what are these different ways of writing? In this hebdomadal, I would like you to explore ways of defining a single author's style, and of writing in that style yourself.

Choose Mary Shelley or George Eliot or John Stuart Mill. Write a paragraph describing the style of the author you've chosen. Think about the sense the writing style gives you: is it clear and open or think and chaotic or tight and claustrophobic? How long are the sentences s/he writes? how long the paragraphs? How present is the author or speaker in the text--does the word "I" appear a lot or are the sentences mostly passive? ("I disagree with John" or "Commonly, John was disagreed with"?) What words, or types of words, come up the most frequently?

In a second paragraph, pick a paragraph from another author's work and rewrite that paragraph in the style of the author you've chosen. Thus, if you've chosen to study Mary Shelley's prose, write a paragraph from Middlemarch the way Mary Shelley would have written it. Or you can write a paragraph from the newspaper or, really, anywhere else in the style of the author you've chosen: it might be particularly fun to ape how Mill would write a Letter to the Editor if he were alive today and complaining about the police presence on State Street this weekend.

Topic 2: Free hebdomadal

Write, with maturity and eloquence, 300 to 500 words on any topic at all, literary or otherwise. I am particularly excited to read anything you can write about yourself and your perception of the world. If you can bring Middlemarch in at all then you are absolutely welcome to, but there really is no literary obligation here. If you’re not sure exactly what topics to write about, consider these:

• If this is your first semester at college, how has it so far met and differed from what you expected? How are things going for you? (If you non-first-years want to step back and evaluate your college years, you are most welcome to do so as well.)
• Explain Halloween to me--actually, explain the whole drinking culture here to me. What motivates college students to party as they do? In what ways does this atmosphere disrupt or facilitate the nominally academic-pedagogical purpose of the University? (In other words, is it possible to learn just as much by drinking as by studying?)

Essays are coming back this afternoon and evening. If you would like to know your grade—and there is no crime in not wanting to—I ask you to email me back your answers to these two questions:

• What did you do best on this essay?
• What specific feature of your writing do you hope to improve in next essay? How, specifically, do you hope to improve it?

You are welcome to respond to—even disagree with—my comments: writing is very much about dialogue with your reader, and I invite you to participate actively in that dialogue.

And you are always welcome to talk with me--during office hours, or before lecture, or via email--about my comments. I'm happy to clarify anything I've written.

I have one essay left to grade--just one. I can't keep my eyes open any longer tonight, though, and even if I could there's no way my sleep-deprived state could judge this essay fairly.

Incidentally, if you have any advice about how the essay commenting/grading process could be easier (or at least quicker) next time around, I am all ears. I'm already thinking about staggering due dates, if I can find away to do so fairly, but I would love more suggestions.