#eng lit

[dastur-e-ishq]

“Abhi utha hoon neend se tumhara khwab dekh ke // abhi tum ek khwab ho, abhi pas-e-hijaab ho.”

as a dream you came to me and woke me from my sleep—even now, you’re still a dream, even now, you’re behind the veil.

ساحر لدھیانوی

[ladymacbethisagirlboss]

My english teacher cannot escape my queer readings of Othello. No matter how much she goes "...yeeeeeah" or changes the subject, the homoerotic nature of male obsession and toxic masculinity will prevail

[lackadaisycal-art]

Some Nika Goltz inspired Midsummer Night's Dream

[ashs-reverie]

Forming a routine is the best thing that's happened since i'v started uni, i'v always had the element of uncertainty in my life, i didn't have a clear purpose but now i do. I don't feel entirely useless, and the best part is, it's fun (sometimes). I don't like everything about uni, for example, being forced to participate in alot of extra curriculars, my introvert self cannot fit in so trying to fake it, holding on to the good stuff so that i can actually pretend uni is fun ..

I figured out what's stopping me from posting regular updates-- it's the pictures, ik the studyblr community doesn't focus that stuff, its the "no pressure" equivalent of studygram i think, where aesthetically pleasing pictures are kind of a must, but now i wl post even w/o them bcs at the end of the day its about how much it made me productive and not the notes

Have a lovely day people 💖🫶

[bookmuseum]

[REVIEW] Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe

5/5 stars (★★★★★)

"Come, I think hell's a fable." (II.i.128)

Aside from surface-level knowledge of Faustian contracts and an admittedly fervid appreciation for Yana Toboso's Black Butler manga (:3), I didn't know a lot about the myth of Faust and the history behind its many retellings, -- nor have I read the Thomas Mann version(s) or the Goethe plays -- so I did a lot of preliminary research before I actually dove right into it. The 1604 play ended up being one of the funniest things I've ever read in a long time. For that reason, this review is extremely short, unserious, and mostly just me reviewing the Broadview second edition edited by Michael Keefer that I used as a copy.

Basically, I regret reading Doctor Faustus for the first time with Broadview because, while it was informative and incredibly detailed (I'm a little concerned for Keefer's scholastic sanity), I wish I just read the play on its own with few to little annotations and context. I liked reading about Christopher Marlowe in the introduction. I had zero idea that homeboy was a spy and got murdered for it at only 29 years of age. I wish we knew more about him, I would've loved to read more about what crazy shit he got into as a political dissident in Elizabethan England. That sounds so kickass.

The story of DF itself is really short (shorter than most Shakespeare plays). Keefer's annotations and footnotes took up 70% of the space on the pages, so I'd read about 20ish lines then spend the next 5-10 minutes reading over what he had to say about them in painstaking detail. I read every annotation! Broadview prides itself on being exhaustive for the sake of maximized education, which I commend, but I think I underestimated myself when I thought I needed this much context to "understand" this classic play. If you know the basics of Greek/Roman mythology, post-Lutheran Christian doctrine, and Elizabethan English society + playwrights in general, (so essentially what they teach you about Shakespeare in high school) I'd say you're solid and don't really need the Broadview text (unless you want to really get into it).

For me, I just wanted to read the play casually so I didn't pay too much attention to the footnotes and forced myself not to go too deep down the research rabbit hole. I unfortunately forgot an important rule with literature in that a text's reputation is never as solemnly serious as it ever is in popular culture, so don't let it "scare" you into thinking you don't know anything going into it. I'm not an Elizabethan scholar nor do I really like Early Modern English literature all that much, so I thought I needed to know more than what I already did. I was wrong! I could've read DF when I was just starting to get into classic lit in Grade 9 and I still would've enjoyed it as is. It's not this impregnable, impossible to fathom text. It's so silly!

I get that this play is a tragedy and everything, but it genuinely did make me laugh out loud a handful of times. I was a graduate student too and, while I don't have my PhD in divinity, I kinda get how Faustus ended up summoning the devil in his college dorm/study one day for the fuck of it. Like yeah, what the hell, sure. When the iconic Mephistopheles shows up, Faust basically tells him he looks too ugly for his eyes so he has to change into a more palatable form -- and Mephi does it! That was so funny. I ship Faustus and Mephi, I don't care. I don't wanna go into it too much, but just know I'm not alone in my delusion and have spent a significant amount of time going back and forth between reading what people had to say about #Faustupheles on the internet and actually reading the play. I had a grand old time, I'll have you know.

Anyway, I opted out of reading Appendix C and D because they seemed boring to me so I can't judge them or their merit here. Appendix A and B, I did read though. I really enjoyed Keefer's inclusion of excerpts from The Historie of the damnable life, and deserved death of Doctor John Faustus (1592) (or The English Faust Book AKA TEFB) edited by John Henry Jones in 1994. I read it immediately after finishing the main play and was delighted the second time around looking back on the plot (although there were some changes in the TEFB that didn't hit as well).

[idontevenlistentomitski]

I think about William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar approximately 100 times a day I would say

[vvvunhinged]

what is the favourite breakfast of an english lit. major?

p. b. shelley sandwich

[isorottatime]

Blanche DuBois is not at all a Good Person but i'll be damned before i let her be percieved entirely through a male perspective

[thepostburningash]

what have i done today? went to the doctors, went on a walk, and then gave into adhd rot and just felt under stimulated for 6 hrs

[techiekittie]

English Literature speedrun notes

Tissue

“Tissue” - thin paper and human skin (fragility of humans)

“Paper that lets the light shine through, this is what could alter things” - reference to religious texts paper, light as Jesus and Allah (power of religion) - or coexistence with nature

Enjambment- freedom, lack of control of humans

Free verse- same thing

“Let the daylight break through capitals and monoliths” - power of nature, criticism of authority, weakness of humans (any idea what techniques are here??) (personification I guess)

“The sun shines through their borderlines” - nature overcomes human segregation (identity, criticism of war, power of nature) sibilance shows power

“fly our lives like paper kites” - childish metaphor, mocking control of money over life (criticism of authority)

“the back of the Koran” - non English spelling shows her holding onto her own identity,

“Transparent” - repetition, criticism of dishonesty of authority

Exposure

“Merciless iced east winds that knive us” - personification of wind shanking people (first line not about war but nature- more significant) (power of nature)

ABBAC rhyme, structure is built only to be taken down (tension of soldiers expecting fight but let down)

Pararhyme- unsatisfying for reader, reflects how the soldiers are always nervous but never get to chill

“For love of God seems dying” fukcking Lord ok

The soldier’s love of God is dying

God’s love for the soldiers is dying

To show love of God, you should die

Epistrophe “but nothing happens” cyclical structure, stuck in suffering

“a dull rumour of some other war” reference to the Bible and Armageddon, metaphorical end of the world for the soldiers bc suffering

“sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence” - sibilance represents sound of bullets, jolting reader out of relative lack of noises, feel like soldiers

“forgotten dreams” - juxtaposition, loss of hope, forgotten dreams on purpose to be less sad? war made them forget?

History Boysssss (homosexuals)

“Enemy of education” war metaphor and alliteration, opposition between true understanding of literature and grades only used shallowly

“a fact of life” indisputable and unchangable, in opposition with Irwin’s views on history (truth does not matter to him until now?)

Drummer Hodge: Intertextuality, Tom Hardy (the poet) represents Hector, sympathising with the ordeal of the youth, Drummer Hodge represents the Boys, thrown into the chaos of life

“She’s my western front” war metaphor objectifies Fiona, [my] personal pronoun further expresses how women were seen as objects to be owned

“… all the other shrunken violets you people line up” [you people] segregates gay people, [shrunken violets] derogatory language

“Some of the literature says it will pass” looking to literature for solace and comfort during a sexuality crisis, sad gay energy

“All literature is consolation” Dakin changes his mind on literature symbolising him changing to Irwin’s side. No need to look for solace in literature when he is a successful bisexual

Parallels with “all knowledge is precious” from Hector

[elladorathegreat]

Her

When she kisses me the world disappears

My eyes close, my chest tightens

I forget about my all surrounding peers

And my smile brightens

When she pulls away I follow in a mindless state of bliss

My arms wrap around her pulling her closer

Her lips on mine are always something I miss

All her perfections I wish I could show her

But she needs time and I’m willing to give

And although it hurts that were now not together

And it feels as tho without her I will struggle to live

She says we’ll still be friends forever

When i see her my chest tightens

Her eyes a bright ocean blue

But now im only frightened

That I love her and she will no longer love me too.

-@elledorathegreat

[idrinkcoffeeallthetime]

Just what I want to get done today

Start reading Maurice

Read that monograph on Forster's short narratives

Start reading Spenser

[lackadaisycal-art]

Artful Dodger my character ever

[bookmuseum]

“The world was different — whether for worse or for better — from her rudimentary readings, and it gave her the feeling of a wasted past. If she had only known sooner she might have arranged herself more to meet it.”

—Henry James, The Wings of the Dove (1902)

[cringecultured]

"Comics arent literature because they were originally for kids"

Ok but so was the entire genre of fiction? You think humanity came out the womb with Orwell's 1984? Nah hun it was centuries of fables and folk tales for kids first, alongside history and mathematics which definitively are not within the subject of literature.

...not to mention, weren't the first comics actually aimed at adults in newspapers regarding topics like racism, classism, sexism, ableism etc?

[1ntrvrt-shdw]

the train stopped way too many times, and I was almost late. But I bought my breakfast with less than an euro. and i answer the professor's question right. and not bad weather either, not hot nor cold.