tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post8452587734251484521..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Happy birthday dear blog, happy birthday to youCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-43776332704842209442007-02-05T10:20:00.000-05:002007-02-05T10:20:00.000-05:00"And, yes, my typing is a crying shame. In too muc..."<i>And, yes, my typing is a crying shame. In too much of a hurry. That's my problem.</i>"<br /><br />And <i>there</i> you go. It's almost as if I'm doing it on purpose. So. <i>For</i><br /><br />"It'll probably anticipates every thought I've had..."<br /><br /><i>read</i><br /><br />"It'll probably anticipate every thought I've had..."The Spirit of Creative Writinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08814590995293463174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-9815581796898391692007-02-05T10:17:00.000-05:002007-02-05T10:17:00.000-05:00JJC: Dinshaw-schminshaw, whatever her name is; tha...JJC: Dinshaw-schminshaw, whatever her name is; that sounds absolutely spot on; tho' it wasn't the suturing so much as the cloaking, clothing, the whole dress/address thing that struck me on reading the poem. But I'll certainly take a look at her stuff. It'll probably anticipates every thought I've had, and expressed them better than I could.<br /><br />Karl Steel: as soon as I stop typing here I'm hurrying over to our college library to dig out the <i>Medieval Fabrications</i> book; it looks really interesting.<br /><br />Guys, both, thank you. And feel free to coalrake to your heart's content, of course. That's, you know, the essence of properly dialectical academic interchange.<br /><br />And, yes, my typing is a crying shame. In too much of a hurry. That's my problem.The Spirit of Creative Writinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08814590995293463174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-87223469089712522782007-02-05T06:48:00.000-05:002007-02-05T06:48:00.000-05:00Adam, Dinshaw (or, in your quick typing that I now...Adam, Dinshaw (or, in your quick typing that I now love, Grimshaw ... boy, I want to change my last name to Grimshaw. And I want to have a Moby Dick loving brother named Scrimshaw Grimshaw) ... anyway, Dinshaw does look at dressing and undressing, dismemberment, and the way in which the poem shows everything to be sutured together (even the Green Knight's axe, his clothing ...) -- and relates all this to the incipient failings of heterosexuality in the poem. The essay is definitely worth reading, probably even worth revisiting here as a larger post ... I'd love to hear your thoughts on the essay, esp. as a non-specialist, and if your thoughts take you anywhere big we can open up the space for a guest post. No coal raking, I promise.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-15388932171093732882007-02-05T03:29:00.000-05:002007-02-05T03:29:00.000-05:00adam roberts please DON'T leave SGGK to the pre-17...adam roberts please DON'T leave SGGK to the pre-1789 crowd. Dinshaw is brilliant - but let's hear what you have to say too.<br /><br />This kind of cross-period criticism is very mcuh what we need.<br /><br />n50 <br /><br />(why oh why won't wrtecnehd google sign me in? - or could there be a clue in those typos ... hastily..Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-3772629850225904952007-02-04T18:13:00.000-05:002007-02-04T18:13:00.000-05:00Adam: wow. You know, I don't know. I promise not t...Adam: wow. You know, I <i>don't</i> know. I promise not to do any coal-raking, especially if I get to see your thoughts on this. If you want to do a bit of research before you hurl your ideas at the public, you could do worse (I think: I haven't read it yet) than starting <a href="http://www.palgrave-usa.com/catalog/product.aspx?isbn=1403961875">here</a>, Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Clothwork, and Other Cultural Imaginings, E. Jane Burns, ed., particularly the Sarah Kay essay, which I've been meaning to read for years: "Flayed Skin as objet a: Representation and Materiality in Guillaume de Deguileville's Pelerinage de la vie humaine."<br /><br />Anything I say about Carolyn Dinshaw won't do her justice, but the short version is that she's written some very good queer/gender theory stuff on late medieval English lit (<i>Chaucer's Sexual Poetics</i> and <i>Getting Medieval</i>). <a href="http://spider.georgetowncollege.edu/english/barbaccia/sggk_reading_questions2.htm">Here's</a> a nice summary of her famous argument on SGGK in "A Kiss is Just a Kiss: Heterosexuality and Its Consolation in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," Diacritics 24 (1994): 205-26:<br /><br />"An influential medievalist named Carolyn Dinshaw has famously asked (and I paraphrase here): What would Gawain have had to give the Host if the Lady had prevailed in her attempts to seduce him? Does thinking about this question make you think about Gawain's contract with the Host in a slightly different way?"<br /><br />So, yeah, you have <i>my</i> blessing, but this is from someone who's been rather perversely avoiding SGGK in writing his diss., really putting off knowing more about it until he teaches it.Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-58858734425684915952007-02-04T17:12:00.000-05:002007-02-04T17:12:00.000-05:00I'm also up a dead end vis-a-vis SGGK criticism. M...<i>I'm also up a dead end vis-a-vis SGGK criticism. My interest is naturally drawn to the hunting scenes, but I think Dinshaw's reading (the threat of men exchanging kisses) doesn't need to be dislodged or revised. Now, if you want something on the Avowyng of Arthur, Adam, just you wait.</i><br /><br />I'm agog.<br /><br />Actually, I am. (That might come over as me being sarcastic; but I don't mean to be).<br /><br />re: Gawain-poet: my problem is that I don't know the field; esp. criticism. (For instance, I don't know whom Grimshaw even is). I've written a short piece on dressing and undressing in <i>Sir Gawain and the Green Knight</i>: clothes, flaying off animal skins, beheading-as-undressing, dressing texts up (ie translations as re-dressing) and so on. But for all I know the field of Medieval criticsm has been all over this subject in SGGK. I was thinking, vaguely, of posting what I've written to the Valve, but after getting dragged over the coals for the enormous failings of my Grendel's Glove piece my better judgment tells me I should leave the whole subject of pre-1789 literature alone.<br /><br />Is there some stuff on dressing/undressing in <i>Gawain</i> I really must read? I feel sure there must be; and it'd be v. helpful to me to know it.The Spirit of Creative Writinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08814590995293463174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-76065728522312803272007-02-04T15:12:00.000-05:002007-02-04T15:12:00.000-05:00hi....just wanted to congratulate you on your inte...hi....just wanted to congratulate you on your interesting blog....doing some research on frederick rolfe (aka baron corvo) i was delighted to come across an interesting post on your blog and was wondering whether you'd like to take up that subject again. thanks and keep doing such great work.lilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02207665007317341922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-50051477844937402592007-02-04T14:18:00.000-05:002007-02-04T14:18:00.000-05:00you know Karl the fact that they were perserved in...you know Karl the fact that they were perserved in similar manners... I don't know if my stomach can take going there. And yet my mind is strangely fascinated by the idea.RaeRaehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17359152226454336573noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-69744207627809384952007-02-04T11:37:00.000-05:002007-02-04T11:37:00.000-05:00I'm also up a dead end vis-a-vis SGGK criticism. M...I'm also up a dead end vis-a-vis SGGK criticism. My interest is naturally drawn to the hunting scenes, but I think Dinshaw's reading (the threat of men exchanging kisses) doesn't need to be dislodged or revised. Now, if you want something on the <i>Avowyng of Arthur,</i> Adam, just you wait.<br /><br />As for burial rituals, there's a bit on medieval zombies from Geoffrey of Auxerre's work on the apocalypse that I'm interested in. There's also, from a recent conversation, a post I'd like to do on the differences between preserving food and preserving a corpse.<br /><br />Oh happy birthday!Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-26647163700093478192007-02-04T10:56:00.000-05:002007-02-04T10:56:00.000-05:00Eileen, you're not a sexist. Let's just say that y...Eileen, you're not a sexist. Let's just say that you have yet to discover the feminine allure of large vehicles.<br /><br />Thanks for the good wishes everyone, and for the feedback, N50.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-21063085337229194192007-02-04T10:01:00.000-05:002007-02-04T10:01:00.000-05:00Happy Bloggiversary!Happy Bloggiversary!Another Damned Medievalisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05231085915472400163noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-89554462095854492802007-02-04T09:32:00.000-05:002007-02-04T09:32:00.000-05:00Entries like these - where you ask your readers ab...Entries like these - where you ask your readers about themselves - why they became medievalists, what books they recommend etc. <br /><br />The answers can be illuminating and spark new conversations. Keep the long extracts from your own works, of course. I respond to these less often only because it can be difficult to find the time to read *all* of them with the care they deserve (and then formulate an answer with the care it deserves). I suspect that must be true for many of your readers.<br /><br />Oh and - happy birthday plus a bit.<br />N50Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-9818404800216183822007-02-03T22:39:00.000-05:002007-02-03T22:39:00.000-05:00personally I would have gone for a dragon but then...personally I would have gone for a dragon but then again I've always been a bit obsessed with them. And not those fluffy things either (you know like the ones from DragonTales) the scarier looking the better... but I digress.<br /><br />How about something regarding regarding the fae folk? Or vampires and medieval burial rituals?RaeRaehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17359152226454336573noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-38621906902856480642007-02-03T17:13:00.000-05:002007-02-03T17:13:00.000-05:00Happy Birthday, or Bloggiversary.
Didn't mind the...Happy Birthday, or Bloggiversary.<br /><br />Didn't mind the firetruck. I played with boys toys, too. Dolls were boring. Nowadays I research French epics and Roman military history, and fire rifles in my free time. Looks like I stuck with the boys toys. :)Gabriele Campbellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17205770868139083575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-43610953192124126062007-02-03T16:11:00.000-05:002007-02-03T16:11:00.000-05:00Oh great, now I'm a sexist. Sheesh. Mea culpa.Oh great, now I'm a sexist. Sheesh. Mea culpa.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-36862544346922016652007-02-03T15:33:00.000-05:002007-02-03T15:33:00.000-05:00Adam, I'm out of new ideas about SGGK ... anyone w...Adam, I'm out of new ideas about SGGK ... anyone want to suggest a point of departure? Is there enough interest to have a New Directions in SGGK Studies thread?<br /><br />Eileen: for shame! I never realized what a sexist you are. That firetruck balloon was chosen by my almost-three-years old daughter, who adores large machinery of all kinds (construction cranes, garbage trucks, airplanes, boats, Thomas the Tank engine). She also loves fairy princesses and the color pink (or pinkish-purple, to be precise), but monster trucks are definitely up there with kittens and unicorns.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-61954001128606254762007-02-03T14:42:00.001-05:002007-02-03T14:42:00.001-05:00A conversation about "Gawain and the Green Knight"...A conversation about "Gawain and the Green Knight" would be great, I think, but where might we begin? JJC has a chapter in his book, "Of Giants," that deals with the Green Knight, and the students in my seminar on monsters will be reading the chapter, "Three Heroes" [from David Williams's "Deformed Discourse"], which covers Oedipus, Alexander, and Gawain [but we don't get to that for a few more weeks].<br /><br />And don't think some of us didn't notice, JJC, the distinctly masculine bent of our birthday balloon. I would have preferred a "Hello Kitty" theme, but I can't have everything.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-34193943566852599992007-02-03T13:00:00.000-05:002007-02-03T13:00:00.000-05:00erm ... no disrespect to Mr Armitige, whoever he b...erm ... no disrespect to Mr Armitige, whoever he be, but I meant: Simon <i>Armitage</i>, of course.The Spirit of Creative Writinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08814590995293463174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-67014812785382836412007-02-03T12:59:00.000-05:002007-02-03T12:59:00.000-05:00Something on Gawain and the Green Knight. That's ...Something on <i>Gawain and the Green Knight</i>. That's what I'd like. I just yesterday read Simon Armitige's new translation ... very good, I thought, <i>qua</i> poem, although avowedly loose, in the sense that Armitige riffs freely: which means that it's sometimes kind-of a disappointment to turn from some lovely imagery, like his lines 2000-01:<br /><br />"But wild looking weather was about in the world/<br />clouds decanted their cold rain earthwards"<br /><br />And then to check the original and see what the Gawain-poet actually wrote.<br /><br />But: I'm a touch surprised that a blog like "In the Middle" has never posted on <i>Gawain and the Green Knight</i>. Or did I miss something?The Spirit of Creative Writinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08814590995293463174noreply@blogger.com