Now that I am out from under the grind of this last semester, I can start looking forward to the next...or not. I'm very excited about the ekphrastic poetry craft seminar I'm taking just for fun, especially as we'll be working on getting the Cornell project together round about then. I am not, however, as excited about my Chaucer lit class. It came down to that or the Objectivists and (covering my head to avoid the arrows of Charles Olson fans)I've just never gotten into them. Chaucer had the benefit of meeting during the day, so Chaucer it was . Really, I'd rather take something else than either. But that's my last requirement, so I'm stuck with it. I'll be doing my one on one thesis advising and then I'm outta here come May (well, metaphorically anyway..)
Taking something like the Chaucer feels weird when the bulk of my classes here have been rather new poetry-- radical poetics, hybrid forms, new media poetry, contemporary american, and just this semester, emerging american. It was a good way to round out a pretty traditional background from my MA, where my courses were devoted to Medieval romance, Milton, the Romantics, Victorian Novels, 19th Century American Lit, the Modernists, with electives in womens writing across various periods. Basically what I know about the Canturbury tales was gleaned from h.s senior year english class and a bad English Lit I survey as an undergrad. Neither of which I was paying all that much attention to.
