Speak, or forever hold your peace

Did you (do you) speak in seminars? I didn't, out of nerves and feeling stupid. I now realise that when my students are silent as statues it's a mark of respect. Shakespeare leads the way, as so often.

Paulina:

I like your silence; it the more shows off

your wonder. But yet speak…

(The Winter's Tale, 5.3.31-32).

Zoot Horn offers this, from Romeo and Juliet:

Peace, you mumbling fool!
Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl,
For here we need it not.

(There's no pun in this post title, hopefully, as it's from the wedding service of the Book of Common Prayer).

So, farewell - until Monday

No Map Twatting for me this weekend either. Nothing but PGCE essays and marking. I have just had a good seminar just now though. At least, I enjoyed it, and just under half the class stayed after the compulsory test, as though they actually believed that reading and talking about what you've read with other people might be interesting and educational!

Setting about the toffs

A young friend of mine, whom the Daily Telegraph described as a 'teenage guitar wunderkind', attended his first seminar at university recently. Confronted by some arrogant toff who announced that proles debased literature, said chum stood up, pointed and uttered, as his first words in a university setting, 'You… are a fucking c**t'. I've only asterisked the word because it's so revolting, but I can't help admiring his forthrightness and essential accuracy. If only my students got that wound up and passionate. 

Needless to say, he hasn't attended many more seminars.