Sunday, March 11, 2007
Is it worth the waiting for
if we live till eighty-four?
All we ever get is gruel.
Every day we say a prayer:
Will they change the bill of fare?
Still we get the same old gruel.
Dr. Lavigne caught me reading an article about the scripta puella in Propertian elegy, something about which he is apparently writing currently, so he chatted with me for a few minutes on the subject. I had begun reading the article in conjunction with my studies of Goethe's Römische Elegien, for the conclusion of one of his elegies resounds very closely with the third poem from Propertius' first book.
The article also helped me narrow down the broad fifth topic (the role of deities) I had originally set about to write into my paper to the more specific question of how Goethe characterizes Amor: as a cute little Cupid or a primordial force? Over the break, though, I must first write about Goethe's attitudes toward north vs. south/ German vs. Italian, in about five pages due the twenty-second. Every two weeks afterward I am to have written on the next three topics (vaguely, social reprobation, the female figure, and renewal) in addition to the aforementioned fifth theme. It seems like a workable plan.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 1:28 PM]