As I'm sure I've said somewhere before, the worst thing about studying for the GRE subject exam in Literature was having to see spoilers for stories I'd like to read properly someday. I tried to stick to general ideas and character lists as much as possible, and I don't think that's what hurt me in the exam (assuming I was hurt -- and this feels like a reasonable assumption).
But, given the choice between proving myself now so I might have a grand future joyously buried in literature or skimping now so I may or may not have a grand future reading a small percentage of the books I'll be studying... let us live in the moment and boo hoo no more.
Usually I log completed books/stories here (hence a number of missing entries from uni where I never quite made it to the last chapter). Now I'll be logging "F/10/L/P," a completely unintuitive code, subject to change, for "First Page, Ten Pages, Last Page, Plot." Someday, if I reread things properly, I can come back and laugh at my meager understandings and misconceptions brought on by the F/10/L/P method. "HA HA HA," I'll say. Ha.
That out of the way, my first stop in the Western canon (as dictated by Harold Bloom, a fellow I am coming to grudgingly dislike despite agreeing with him a fair bit of the time) was the Scottish poet William Dunbar. Therefore F/10/L/P doesn't really apply. Anyway, I went with what was in my BritLit books (Longman compact editions).
"Lament for the Makars"
Well, what can I say, I really like this poet. I think I'm developing crushes on everyone who writes in half-fairy half-frisky dialect, which so far includes Chaucer, Burns, and now Dunbar. I am beginning to wish I might focus my graduate work on Scottish poets (because, damnit, I'm doing graduate work even if no one except The Big HUX will have me), but I could never say these poems in front of peers. (I do a wicked creepin crawlin blastit wonner in front of hamsters, though.)
Enough about me. What I especially liked about this poem is that it names all of these poets that we don't know anything about. It's exciting to think there may yet be great discoveries about the past...
Until then, "timor mortis conturbat me" would make a fine answer to a GRE Lit question, what with me knowing it and all.
"In Secreit Place This Hyndir Nycht"
This one I enjoyed even more: it sounds pretty and it's smutty. How smutty? "Garris ryis on loft my quhillelillie." Need I say more? (Yes -- how do you pronounce quihillelillie?)
I especially liked all of the terms of affection the man uses -- "my sheep's head broth" conveys a deeper shade of love than "hunnie bunnie" will ever manage, I tell you whut.
Also read: "To the City of London" (Was London really once called "New Troy"? Cool.)
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