Papers Overdue
This weekend I will write a paper for sure - the Victorian paper for Margaret Stetz regardless of the order with which I should finish these courses - because I am currently full of words and ideas - I just don’t have a single thesis to pursue, but I want to have one and more than that I want to write, more than that and most importantly.
Selecting a topic is as always the first major obstacle to writing a paper. Prose writing seminars and booklets, writer’s workshops - all these guides and helps, but where is the program for Ode on a Nightingale, who followed instructions for it. Spontaneous as thought is and free we while away the hours we are given. It doesn’t matter. The question is to rework Pater material or start anew with another. Well I’m sick of Pater but that may not matter. I’m fond of Symonds but does that make him the best to work with. TRAVEL WRITING - that is the topic I finally want to write my masters thesis on, so wouldn’t it be wise to start now and kill two birds with one stone?
I am certainly not pleased with myself as a writer - I could do a lot more, if I could and I think I should gain a balance, a steady sense of peace sitting in my own room writing. More writing - and writing the papers which are due and overdue, expected. What would I be with them all done, I sometimes wonder. Maybe I can push an exam ahead to leave early, but most likely I’ll be trying to push a paper extension at that time though I don’t want to.
If I
I will write paragraphs for any of the four papers - outlines - anything I can - and build up growing files on them, alternating as I get tired with one and utilizing cross-fertilization.
Marvell’s Garden - what are the disputes? do I have another reading for it / what do I want to do besides admire it - should I make lists of what I think is especially effective in it? Can I, I want to, sit for a long time doing what I’m doing now. If I keep my fingers [livmer] I can write forever. Lit Crit, Crit theory - that paper will be - Wilde or Pater ——-Pater’s critical approach criticized or affirmed, my own approach in his terms. Wilde’s essay on lying - contradicts what I believe. No. Just use his general principles to develop my own coherent critical approach. How can we salvage or justify Wilde, in the context of Kant? no. In the context of Marxist criticism perhaps, or just how useful is Wilde - what [worklsd] approach does his stance imply, require? And Pater too. Or just Wilde.