Yes I have been neglecting this place. Not entirely sure that matters as I'm pretty sure that no one actually reads this but still I waffle far too much and so writing to no one is just as good! I have been far to busy with work and too lazy to update this plus it would all be on pirates anyway and frankly even Mr Nobody would get bored!
This post is mostly going to concern Wuthering Heights and Turn of the Screw and is mostly for me to collect my thoughts and decide what essay to write. Either one on gender in Wuthering Heights or one looking at if Turn of the Screw is a ghost story or a story of madness.
Heights is full of gendery stuff - with both Cathy's transgressing gender roles as fulfilling gender stereotypes. There is even a theory that Heathcliffe is a woman (not literally of course!). But then again I would also have a lot to say about Screw and if the ghosts are real or not. I personally don't think they are and the governess is just a bit crazy! (Inflicted by sexual hysteria through repressed sexual lust according to some theorists :p).
I think I will probably end up writing about Heights simply because I love the book (mostly because I'm weird and like to hate all the characters!) but then I have quite a bit of love for Mr James and Screw. Coincidentally there is an adaptation of Turn of the Screw over xmas - I must watch it although I see differences already. First off they have given the governess a name when she has none in the book. I also wonder if they will show that the story is being narrated by someone who is narrating what it is being narrated to him by another man who is narrating what the governess told him. (Yes makes your brain hurt! Even more confusing that the Heights which is narrated by a man who is narrating what the housekeeper tells him!).
Showing posts with label Emily Bronte. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Emily Bronte. Show all posts
Friday, 4 December 2009
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Randomness
I realise that I have been neglecting this place a bit recently due to a mixture of being back at uni and my grandpa dying :(
Helpfully, to make my mind off things I have started lectures today :) Five hours worth in a row!! But I love learning and so I was perfectly happy although a little frazzled by the end (but a cheeky Starbucks soon revived me!).
First off was a meeting with my History Special Subject Group - my speical subject being the subject which I have to base my dissertation around. Mine is Trade in Early Modern Europe which to most people sounds like a very boring subject but to me it looks amazingly interesting!! We discussed our proposed dissertation ideas - 2 other people are looking into doing piracy as well - grrr stealing my idea :p But they don't seem to be focusing on the same thing as me - in other words I think that they researched their subject by watching Pirates of the Carribean!! But now I have a more definate idea of what I'd like to do - not much of a change from my last update! I'm going to look at the relationships between the piracy, the state and trade. And possibly expand out from the Carribean so I can compare types of merchant and cargo in different areas and different methods and ways of selling the booty. Like the pirate havens in the Carribean that housed illegal markets. I will also look at how the state encouraged piracy with privateers and their letters of Marque and whether they were always followed. Then how piracy was dealt with when they were acting illegally. Now onto hard core research - library day tomorrow!
Next was theorizing texts - theories surrounding Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte), The Turn of the Screw (Henry James) and Hamlet (Shakespeare). It was just and intro so hopefully I will find out more than this next week!
Finally there was Shakespeare and Co. Studying Shakespeare, what his inspirations were and how his texts have been transformed over time.
We discussed how Shakespeare was shaped by the fashions, audience, contemporaries and the players in his company. We also discussed whether a play is the actual text written down or the performance. If it is the latter then a play will always be in a state of constant transformation - each performance will be different with every new performance due to actors, fashions and the social background to the time of performance. Plays will take on different meanings to different audiences.
In other news my c button is being annoying and also I love Ewan McGregor - he is scottish and can sing and has a moterbike :D
He may be added to the list of numerous people I have said I would marry recently. The list already includes Poirot, Chaucer, Anton Du Beke and Brian Fortuna!
Helpfully, to make my mind off things I have started lectures today :) Five hours worth in a row!! But I love learning and so I was perfectly happy although a little frazzled by the end (but a cheeky Starbucks soon revived me!).
First off was a meeting with my History Special Subject Group - my speical subject being the subject which I have to base my dissertation around. Mine is Trade in Early Modern Europe which to most people sounds like a very boring subject but to me it looks amazingly interesting!! We discussed our proposed dissertation ideas - 2 other people are looking into doing piracy as well - grrr stealing my idea :p But they don't seem to be focusing on the same thing as me - in other words I think that they researched their subject by watching Pirates of the Carribean!! But now I have a more definate idea of what I'd like to do - not much of a change from my last update! I'm going to look at the relationships between the piracy, the state and trade. And possibly expand out from the Carribean so I can compare types of merchant and cargo in different areas and different methods and ways of selling the booty. Like the pirate havens in the Carribean that housed illegal markets. I will also look at how the state encouraged piracy with privateers and their letters of Marque and whether they were always followed. Then how piracy was dealt with when they were acting illegally. Now onto hard core research - library day tomorrow!
Next was theorizing texts - theories surrounding Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte), The Turn of the Screw (Henry James) and Hamlet (Shakespeare). It was just and intro so hopefully I will find out more than this next week!
Finally there was Shakespeare and Co. Studying Shakespeare, what his inspirations were and how his texts have been transformed over time.
We discussed how Shakespeare was shaped by the fashions, audience, contemporaries and the players in his company. We also discussed whether a play is the actual text written down or the performance. If it is the latter then a play will always be in a state of constant transformation - each performance will be different with every new performance due to actors, fashions and the social background to the time of performance. Plays will take on different meanings to different audiences.
In other news my c button is being annoying and also I love Ewan McGregor - he is scottish and can sing and has a moterbike :D
He may be added to the list of numerous people I have said I would marry recently. The list already includes Poirot, Chaucer, Anton Du Beke and Brian Fortuna!
Monday, 27 July 2009
Wuthering Heights
So I was just browsing the teenage fiction section of the Book shop, as you do, when I spotted 'Wuthering Heights'. Yay, I thought, finally getting teenagers reading something a little more cultured than the normal drivel contained within the pages of Twilight and other such books. It had been re-covered - fair enough teenagers aren't going to read something that looks like it's just dropped out of the 19th century (unfortunatly).
It all went down hill from there. I spotted a little red sticker proclaiming it to be 'Bella and Edward's favourite love story'. Ugh. First off, why would you want to love the romance in the book? And second poor old Emily Bronte must be turning in her grave to have her masterpiece reduced to the favourite book of two fictional charctaers (and not very good ones at that).
Then on the back the blurb stated, in large letters, that it was 'The Greatest Love Story Ever Told'. Yeah right. That suggests its a story of romance whihc is something that there isn't really much of in Wuthering Heights. I would have described it more as a story of passion - love and hate and how similar the two emotions are.
Describing it as a love story almost makes it sound like they are justifying the evil mind games, violence and death that fills the books as being what love is. But mind you it is liked by the Bella and Edward who come from a book that seem to think that a relationship that would appear to be borderline abusive is good. What sort of ideas is this giving teenagers about life?
On another less ranty note I finished my plushie :D and have a bag of watercress as the packet said it was a superfood and I imagined it would be wearing capes and it's underwear outside of it's tights but I am sadly disappointed!
It all went down hill from there. I spotted a little red sticker proclaiming it to be 'Bella and Edward's favourite love story'. Ugh. First off, why would you want to love the romance in the book? And second poor old Emily Bronte must be turning in her grave to have her masterpiece reduced to the favourite book of two fictional charctaers (and not very good ones at that).
Then on the back the blurb stated, in large letters, that it was 'The Greatest Love Story Ever Told'. Yeah right. That suggests its a story of romance whihc is something that there isn't really much of in Wuthering Heights. I would have described it more as a story of passion - love and hate and how similar the two emotions are.
Describing it as a love story almost makes it sound like they are justifying the evil mind games, violence and death that fills the books as being what love is. But mind you it is liked by the Bella and Edward who come from a book that seem to think that a relationship that would appear to be borderline abusive is good. What sort of ideas is this giving teenagers about life?
On another less ranty note I finished my plushie :D and have a bag of watercress as the packet said it was a superfood and I imagined it would be wearing capes and it's underwear outside of it's tights but I am sadly disappointed!
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