Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Der Grair Bär gave my term paper (finally entitled, "Gelegenheit in Goethe's Römische Elegien") an "A+". Now I may sleep. On the first two pages he made a few editing marks, which had me apprehensive about the next nineteen pages to follow, but for the most part, I did fine.
He had my previous drafts in front of him, to which he apparently conferred to be certain I had revised problematic sections. A few days before, Adrian had spent several hours reading through the paper to make comments and suggestions, many of which helped immensely, for Der Grair Bär specifically noted, 'much improved', 'better', etc. at those places where I provided additional elaboration after Adrian's editing.
I had a solid conclusion that apparently hit directly upon the point Dr. Grair wanted me to make- namely, that the Römische Elegien are a romantic, rather than a classical, work. Despite being inspired by the "classical" genre of elegy, I felt that Goethe merely used elegy as the medium for the expression of romantic themes. His main character (or interlocutor) strives for different goals than those of the three main Augustan poets (Ovid, Catullus, and Propertius) Goethe admired. The political and cultural climate in which he wrote, it hardly has to be stated, affected his writing in a different manner.
More importantly, Dr. Grair took the time to type three pages of commentary on my writing. Two paragraphs are praise, two and-a-half pages are suggestions for improvement, if I were to publish this as a scholarly paper. I am not precise, clear, or consistent, which is exactly what scholarly papers are supposed to be. I prefer to allude, to make nebulous statements, to provide minimal explanation, and above all, to avoid road-mapping. But a scholar wants to know, before he's read something, whether or not he can cite it in his own term paper/dissertation/article. Screw that. If I put in so much effort to write something, I consider my reader an unhappy captive of my will. He must read every word (perhaps whole pages two or three times over) in order to understand any part of my argument, and then the entire composition.
Enough. Time to sleep.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 3:04 PM]