Back to lit crit
Once upon a time, this website contained a section of academic literary criticism papers. They were all written while I was in graduate school getting my MFA; mostly on Modernism, but also on a few other topics.
Well, at some point — probably when we launched this bloggy version of the site — the section fell away, and resided only in old backups. Which is somewhat of a shame, because believe it or not, something like my essay on Bharati Mukherjee’s short stories was one of the few available online, and therefore was cited from time to time.
It’s all back now, even though I imagine most of you who read the site could really care less. Probably the only ones who will care will be college students who have found a small trove of fresh papers to plagiarize. The whole thing is linked off of the Writing section of the site.
The papers presented include a comparison of “Gawain and the Green Knight” and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a rather writerly examination of the technicalities of point-of-view in a D. H. Lawrence story, and a look at the late British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes through the lens of horror fiction.
What’s more, I found some other papers I had never posted. These were more experimental in nature — stuff that i did when I was sick of writing essays. One is in the format of a talk-poem in the style of David Antin (who, ironically, teaches here at UCSD); the other is an essay I wrote and then annotated myself with my own reactions to the first draft, leading to a rather dizzying reading experience. I have spared you all the various academic essays written as collages, or the one essay that was designed to be read with all of its pages in randomized order.
Again, you probably don’t care, and quit reading a few paragraphs ago. 🙂 But hey, it was some years of my life, and traces of it may as well remain here.
9 Responses to “Back to lit crit”
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the one essay that was designed to be read with all of its pages in randomized order.
Whoa, whoa… wait a second… I want that. You should have access to my email addy.
I’m not much of a literature buff or anything, but Michael does have a point. That randomized-order essay sounds interesting from a technical standpoint, I would love to see it too.
Interesting essay on Arthurian Unrealism. Funnily enough, some of the earliest Arthurian works (Le Conte du Graal, Chrétien de Troyes, La Mort le Roi Artu, author uncertain) do not use the knights as role models at all. In fact they are used to illustrate the failings of the old justice system (trial by combat) as an argument for the new (at the time) justice system of trial by law. La Mort the Roi Artu is a great read for anyone who has time, it’s also one of the earliest psychological dramas ever written.
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I would love to see this also. It sounds very interesting.
As a former English major and lit crit nerd, I’m glad to see this stuff go up. Now I don’t feel as bad about writing papers about the Hegelian master-slave paradigm as applied to Paradise Lost and describing 1970s U.K. punk as social protest literature — while comparing and contrasting to pieces like “To A Louse” by Burns.
Dammit, now I want to go back for my MFA again. Damn you, Raph! I thought that this LL.M. and follow-up J.S.D would have been enough, but no, now I’m looking at getting my MFA when I turn 40. 😀
I’m glad you took on Modernism. Revolution is a powerfully conservative force in our time lol. Yes, the Four Quartets appears to be hypertexted, before the Internet. I once had a professor who put in all the links for us, wish I still had all those notes. Yes, the Internet couldn’t have come into being without the Four Quartets, that’s for sure. In fact, if we ponder a bit more, we might come to conclude that World War I was fought in order for the Internet to come into being.
OK, so I was wrong about how many of you would be interested in this stuff. 😛
As I recall, the randomized order essay wasn’t all that good. I am unsure that I have the actual file any more, I will have to hunt for it.
CmdrSlack, you’d more likely be going back for an MA, not an MFA…? The reason I had all these papers to write was because most MFA programs consist in part of lit crit… but a very large chunk of it was workshopping.
Well, the English portion of my convoluted double major/degree was largely focused on writing. I had essentially maxed out the school’s writing curriculum by my Junior year and was forced to take grad level workshops too. While a MA in crit would be fun, I’d rather write a ton and also get some more depth to my crit background — which is exactly what the MFA would be. 😀
I like workshopping. It’s either a flame war or it’s produtive — if you do it right, it’s a bit of both.