Flats update and what bedsits are

It seems strange to think that yesterday I spent most of the day complacently writing and reading, thinking that by the end of the day, I would either have a bedsit room or have made an offer on a flat. Neither happened, but I think it's for the best.

Last night and this morning were frantic, between deciding not to take a two-bed flat we had been close to wanting, adding a third flatmate, and suddenly finding that the hostel I planned to stay in this week didn't have any rooms available. I have a place to stay now until the 22nd--I had to book a room in the YMCA for three days until I can move into a little hotel in Bloomsbury, but it isn't as bad as I expected. As for the flats, we are, so to speak, back to square one, but I have a feeling the looking and deciding will go faster this time.

I did like both the bedsits I saw over the past few days, but I would much rather live have flatmates, so there are people around to talk to! The first I saw was an elderly lady renting out a spare bedroom in her house. She lived there with her daughter, son-in-law and grandson. The room was spacious and nice, but no washing machine, no dishwasher, no oven, and no going out at night. She gave me tea and cookies and we had a nice chat, but it didn't take too long to decide I would pass. The second was a middle-aged woman renting out a room in her house. She lives there by herself as her son is getting his MA somewhere up north. It was much smaller, but had a very large desk and full use of the house. She knew quite a bit about literature and so we had a chat about my thesis topic over tea. The area she lives in is called the Shakespeare Collective, apparently--the street names are after characters from the plays: Cressida, Miranda, Prospero, and I think I saw Lysander. I love how London is so full of literary history than even streets get named after famous literature. I walked out of the YMCA tonight and saw, just across the street, a pub called The Shakespeare. I love it.

Coming soon: Lego Shakespeare Tours London

Are english departments politicizing literature?

I’ve been reading Harold Bloom recently, partially because I’ve never read much of his work before and partially because I’m interested in his view of literature. He subscribes to an aesthetic theory of reading literature (if you can call it a theory), which means, I believe, that he reads literature looking for beauty and pleasure. He juxtaposes this to the other camps that exist within English departments in universities: the Marxists, the feminists, the New Historicists, the cultural materialists, etc.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have trouble grasping the differences between these groups. Richard Dutton, who I took a graduate course in Renaissance literature from at OSU, called my handle on these ill-formed, if I remember correctly. I asked him for some literature to help me correct this, which I dutifully read, but I don’t think it helped. Perhaps a reason for this is that I have always been flummoxed by why anyone would choose to read every piece of literature with a prescribed viewpoint.

I almost wrote “with a certain handicap.” Dare I compare reading say, Shakespeare, through a Freudian lens as playing tennis with one hand tied behind your back? Or maybe with a patch over one eye.

The next question, obviously, is whether Bloom’s aestheticism is another camp or, as he wants us to think, the natural position from which these other literary theories are aberrations. To use an image from Lewis: is Bloom’s theory the wood between the worlds, or is it just another pool within the wood?

My instinct is to agree with Bloom that reading aesthetically is the norm from which other readings wander. As a child, I didn’t choose books because I thought they advanced the cause of women, I read them because I liked them.

I had the curious feeling when I graduated from OSU that I was rediscovering how reading can be fun. For three years, I barely read anything because I wanted to; I was too inundated with class readings to have time for anything else. But once I graduated, that changed. I could enjoy reading again!

Bloom thinks that universities teach students not to enjoy reading. I’m somewhat inclined to agree. It’s no fun reading anything if you’re trying to politicize it, as Bloom charges that these camps of literary theory do. But then where would a person who wants to read for beauty and pleasure fit in? In a university? I don’t know.

This question, among others, has been troubling me recently as I try to decide whether I ought, in a couple years, to pursue a Ph.D. I doubt there is a simple answer.

Shakespeare in the news

This morning, there was an article in the Houston Chronicle about the recovery of a 1623 First Folio (the first ever printed edition of Shakespeare's complete works) that was stolen a decade ago from Durham University in England.

I couldn't help laughing as I read the article; the whole story seems like it should be the synopsis of a novel, not a real news event. Ten years ago someone broke into a glass case with a crowbar, took the First Folio and seven other old and rare books, and to disguise the fact of the robbery, laid a painter's cloth over the case (which apparently worked, at least for a time).

Then, for ten years, no one heard anything about the missing books, of which the First Folio alone is now estimated to be worth $30 million. That was, until two weeks ago, when a mysterious man with a British accent showed up unannounced at the Folger LIbrary in Washington, D. C. He claimed to be an international businessman working for a family in Cuba who had a copy of what seemed to be the First Folio in their library. He wanted to know if it was authentic.

He left the volume with the Folger experts, who requested time to study it. Before long they discovered not only that it was authentic, but that it was the stolen Folio from Durham. The British police were alerted, and the man was arrested back at his home in England.

I won't comment on how ridiculous it is that the man thought he could get away with selling a stolen copy of the First Folio to a bunch of Shakespeare experts. It might be compared with stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre and then trying to sell it back to them a decade later. (I found this in a garage sale in NYC, really I did...)

Thinking about how entertaining this story is led me to reflect on the many other stories (and myths) surrounding Shakespeare. One of my favorites is that after the Third Folio was printed, Oxford got rid of its First Folio, considering it an extra. It took them a while to realize their enormous mistake, and after a couple hundred years had to purchase it back. I wondered, then, reading the story this morning, whether there existed any Shakespeare news blogs on the internet (and whether they were enough news to make such an idea viable).

I was glad to find that there is at least one that a short Google search led me to: Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet. A short look told me that yes, there is enough news out there to make a blog out of (though it occurs to me that there might be more than even this blogger is finding); however, I was almost put off from reading the blog by the second post, dated July 8.

Apparently the British government is introducing a new program to start sharing Shakespeare with students as young as five. This blogger's reaction was: "Is it appropriate to introduce so complex an author to such young children?"

In a word: yes!

This seems to betray a disgustingly snobbish and high-minded view of literature. Perhaps this blogger was envisioning a kindergarten teacher trying to explain the complexities of Hamlet's character or the structure of Pericles. If this were the case, I'd have to agree, that isn't appropriate. But the study of Shakespeare doesn't always have to be scholarly. As fun as it is for scholars and critics to pick apart the finer points of the plays and poems, these works were meant to be enjoyed, not studied.

If a teacher can get five year olds to read Shakespeare and enjoy it, then surely we should encourage it. The lives of those children will be enriched, I'm sure. Learning to enjoy literature is never a bad thing.