It's so kind of Xangans to peer out into cyberspace, on the lookout for
signs that other Xangans enjoy continued good health and prosperity.
This is one of the reasons I enjoy Xanga so much.
Right now, if I spend much time here, I will have that many fewer
seconds for working on my various essays and assignments. I want my
degree! That's going to feel so good. But this workload is just torture
right now, especially to one whose writing does not come so quickly as
in days of yore.
Many of you will have read Byron's famous words in his poem, "All for Love":
O talk not to me of a name great in story;
The days of our youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.
There is a sentiment that I can agree with right now, since, if memory
serves (and sometimes it doesn't, I realize), fine essays came along so
easily back then. *sigh*
I've renegotiated all my deadlines, though, so there's a better chance that I'll turn in work that I can be proud of. We'll see.
Right now I'm writing a very interesting essay on the character of Fanny Price in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park,
comparing her depiction there to that in Patricia Rozema's 1999 film
adaptation of the same name. Fanny is the only heroine to whom Austen
provides a visible childhood period, which Rozema excises from her film
in order to foreground the romantic plot. Rozema also puts into Fanny's
mouth quotations from various of Austen's letters and her juvenilia
(childhood writings), which gives her a much more mature, satirical
air. The Fanny of the novel is a sensitive, repressed person with a
strong moral sense (though she doesn't always quite live up to her own
ideals). Recognizing that she is hard for readers to truly like, Rozema
makes her heroine much bolder and at the same time less certain of
herself -- more interesting, at least on a superficial level.
However, Rozema's Fanny often speaks directly to the camera. She takes
on somewhat of the air of a narrator, which serves to remove her, to
some extent, from the story of which she is part. Famous critic Harold
Bloom describes Hamlet as Shakespeare's most self-aware character --
Hamlet regards himself and his role -- on some level, he knows that he is in a play.
(Does that give you a shiver? I love that idea.) Fanny, I argue, is the
same in Rozema's film. She is somewhat of a meta-character. She has
less at stake, is less invested in the events around her, than the
novel's Fanny. She can be bolder, in effect, out of her awareness that
she is relating a story. In putting Austen into Fanny, Rozema lifts
Fanny from Mansfield Park. This elevation or removal has varioius
consequences and implications which I am exploring in my essay.
If the last two paragraphs made any sense to you, I welcome your
comments. Rozema's movie is fun to watch, I think, even if you haven't
read the novel. Indeed, it is a radical re-interpretation of the novel,
so it must be judged for itself just as much as for its connection with
Austen's work.
Well, there's some notion of what I'm working on now. The way my
schedule works at the moment, I have essays due April 9 and 23, a
take-home exam from April 9-16, and my thesis, which I'll probably be
working on until May 10. The Kalamazoo Medieval Studies Conference
happens that weekend, and after that.......... I think I'm DONE.
Off I go, to write other things than Xanga entries for a while. Have a great spring y'all! Smell some flowers for me.
CG
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