In memoriam

Today marks the deaths of two authors intimately connected to Ireland: Joyce and Spenser. What links them, I suppose, is their hatred of the place, though Joyce's relationship to Ireland was of course much more complex. Spenser went there as a murdering imperialist, then propagandised his and others' activities as the beginning of the British Empire. Joyce's best work is a love song to urban, shiftless, modern Ireland, even though the dominant anti-intellectual, illiberal, backwoods strand of Irish culture ensured that he soon went into exile to create an Ireland of the mind. 

The excessively soft hands of the provincial novelists

I'm on the third Anne of Green Gables book, Anne of the Island. It suffers in comparison with the first two slightly because the plot's moved away from the enclosure of Prince Edward Island, but there are compensations - Anne's emotional maturity is convincingly tested. On the down side, an authorially-approved character speaks disparagingly of the Byrnes - tribal fury stirs in my blood. 

Actually, I'm really enjoying this vision of a simpler but fulfilling lifestyle. Maybe it's because I live in Wolverhampton, but I'm regularly checking the vacancies list at the U of Prince Edward Island. 

By way of contrast, I'm teaching Petrarch, Spenser, Wyatt and Shakespeare this afternoon for the second time this week. Wonderful.

Teaching teaching teaching

Last night I taught Twelfth Night, using lots of Sinfield, Greenblatt, Butler and Blackadder (to which they took rather well). This morning was a lecture on semiotics, followed by my poetry class - 'The Seafarer', Petrarch, Spenser and Shakespeare. It's quite exciting covering such big themes - but I'm quite tired, and have lots of marking to do!