Blackwater Writing Project

November 11, 2008

Coleridge and Spenser

I had my own version of Write Night at home with my books and papers, so this is what I came up with. Hope you enjoy it. This is only the beginning. And yes, "Shepheardes Calender" is the correct spelling; it's the Middle English genitive.

Scholarly sources on both Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Edmund Spencer abound. From biography to critical explications and readings of their works, library shelves and journals are filled with copious materials. On investigation of this panoply, the idea of an inspiration for the gloss that appears in later editions of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner as originating from Spenser’s use of the same in The Shepheardes Calender bears further investigation. Various sources allude to the Spenserian-Coleridgean connection, but none directly attack this possible and tenable link. Then to look at information explaining marginal glosses and their background, works about the glosses of The Shepheardes Calender and The Calender, discourses on the glosses of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, data on Coleridge, and interpretations of the poem itself all help to weld the parts together into a contiguous discourse, leading to a new synthesis and understanding of the works in question and how the glosses in both works function.

In the article, “The Edifying Margins of Renaissance English Books,” William Slights writes that Renaissance authors had various reasons for adding marginalia to their texts: the impetus behind adding textual “clues” ranged from making a text more accessible, by referring to other works better known by the readership of the time, to leading the reader to a certain conclusion that coalesced with the author’s intentions. The downside to adding in glosses and other sorts of marginalia to any given text is that the additional information can add more complexity and “radically destabilize it” (682). Slights maintains that marginalia also steer a reader toward locating a work in a certain context, be it literary, social, or political (683). Slights also begins by saying that his study of marginalia in the English Renaissance is not comprehensive of all the available texts from the era but does consist of a key sample from 1558-1603. Such authors such as Erasmus, Ben Jonson, and Edmund Spenser Slights regards as “justly privileged…with particularly revealing marginalia” and serve his purpose of illustrating how marginalia accomplish certain, earlier-mentioned, ulterior tasks (684).

As well, Slights outlines a list of goals that marginal glosses might accomplish; they run a long gamut: amplification, annotation, appropriation, correction, emphasis, evaluation, exhortation, explication, justification, organization, parody, pre-emption, rhetorical gloss, simplification, and translation (685-686). Importantly, Slights urges readers to be mindful that glosses have the power to alter a reader’s sense of the passages glossed; the will of the author, through careful glossing, can open and close certain doorways of perception in the readership, by authorial design (687). Spenser’s glosses in The Shepheardes Calender serve as a prime example of a gloss used to discretely relegate the sensitive issues raised in the allegory to a secondary position, thus somewhat obfuscating the true brunt of the poem’s message (690).

The Shepheardes Calender contains several marginal devices to achieve this darkening and confusing illumination. The additions to the poem include a dedicatory letter, an address to the poem in verse, an epistle to Gabriel Harvey, an argument, “emblems” at the end of each month’s verses, and finally the glosses themselves. Critics have argued whether or not E.K., the glossist, was Spenser or not as the additions to the poem make up half the length of the work (704). Slights believes that the use of a word such as “religiously” that would connote the same idea as “tenaciously” to a modern reader might have insinuated a pejorative stab at Roman Catholicism to a reader in the 1580s (706). The glosses in the May eclogue evens serve to “inflame[e] the reader with an allusion to the most sensational public atrocity of the Catholic authorities” in its direct address of the concerns E.K. felt surrounding the possible marriage of Elizabeth I to Duc d’Alençon of France (707). Slights makes a very astute observation on Spenser’s E.K.: “he claims considerable authority…and incites speculation about political pressures” (715). Along similar lines, the author notes how the glosses of the 1817 edition of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by an “anti-supernaturalist…whip [it] into comprehensible shape nineteen years after its unannotated first appearance…” (715). Slights overall presents a well-conceived and thoughtful discourse on the topic of marginal glosses in the English Renaissance with some relation to the Coleridgean use of the same.

To follow up Slights, looking at Theodore Steinberg’s “E.K.’s Shepheardes Calender and Spenser’s” helps to shed light on the implications of this poem’s gloss. The critical argument over who E.K. is in Spenser’s glosses and notations within The Shepheardes Calender is long-running, as Slights touches upon; that aside, Steinberg adds that the glosses assist “Spenser to develop his themes through a kind of irony” (46). That is, they contribute more to the structure of Spenser’s poem than is initially apparent, giving it a unity and extra-textual meaning. According to Steinberg, the E.K.’s gloss can be read as “comic genius” and demonstrates a large measure of poetic prowess (46). Steinberg delves into some of the history of glossing, as Lipking also does later, but he cleverly explains how the gloss serves as a sort of “patristic exegesis” in the tradition of the Church fathers. Considering the tradition of taking the word of authority as meaning in varying historical text, the addition of glosses corroborated the poetic principle of allegory in which the reader needed clarification and required guidance to reach a canonical meaning (47).

As Frank Kermode explains in The Genesis of Secrecy, literature, poetry specifically, often is shrouded in a mystic secrecy; however, Steinberg maintains that Spenser rejected the idea that readers had to be specially initiated to get to the heart of the author’s message (48). To illustrate this concept, one might look to Spenser’s letter to Raleigh at preceding The Faerie Queene; it outline exactly where the reader is about to be taken. E.K.’s exhibits “amazingly deficient perception” throughout the glosses and additions to Spenser’s poem, but this tactic illustrates just how glossing can change meaning intentionally or unintentionally (48). Further, continuing on Steinberg’s path of logic, he notes how E.K.’s “commentaries on ‘hidden’ meanings are inaccurate or irrelevant, while at the same time, he misses the obvious points that the poet is trying to make” (49). E.K. strives to find the key to the poem constantly through his divisions of the work into thematic sections and through his additions. He ironically demonstrates “an inability to see things as a whole” while giving the poem unity through his emblems and notations (50). (Each of the eclogues, one per month, is seemingly related by nothing more than the sequence of months.) Also, the gloss justifies archaism in places by trying to show how usages are a part of the linguistic heritage of English (52). Strikingly, E.K. in some places “illuminates nothing by pointing out what anyone would recognize” (54). Steinberg yet moreover seeks to prove how, by opposing Spenser’s positions within the poem, E.K. highlights them, giving them more gravitas (54). Summing up, Steinberg decides E.K.’s commentary gives the reader “the proper way to approach the poem” (56).

November 10, 2008

whiff and en

whiff and en--it means if and when but only to those in the know

another new word

shenooligan (n)> persons who commit a shebackle.

MY NEW WORD

Shabackle-(n.) a messed up situation, a combination of a shenanigan and a debacle.
EX. A shenanigan can lead to a shabackal as it is usually conducted by hooligans.

Courtesy of - Shane "Blazin Locks" Wilson (TWATCH OUT!)

The Long Road Home

I left Valdosta at 12:04 pm. It was hard to get a chicken sandwich. Cars were lined up and carrying their food away like giant, metallic ants without a Queen. The new Taco Bell was pretty busy. It looks too nice to serve pseudo-Mexican food. Track two begins to play on my new mixed-CD: a Coldplay song I've heard only once before, but a song I think I will like. It's one of her favorites. That's why it's on this CD, this road trip. That's why it's in this text.

The trees vary their colors more from crown to crown in a more persistent succession the farther north I drive. Browns, oranges, and yellows begin to replace the greens and light greens of South Georgia as the music plays on. I'm driving back against the direction of the ray, back toward my past. I'm driving away from my present, my future. I'm driving-- my metallic ant, my machine of modernity--, travelling down this wooded hallway; this hallway shaded with the colors of Nature's last, fleeting breaths: the penultimate sigh of Her life before the cold choke-hold strangles the last bit of Her color out.

Three dogs stand beside the highway, at the edge of a cotton patch already picked over, watching traffic and catching their collective breath. I wonder where they've come from and where they're going. I wonder if they are trotting back against their history, or moving toward something new. I wonder if their next meal will come from a dish or as the result of some hunt. There seems to be a freedom in not knowing.

The CD is starting over and I'm nearing the end-point of my drive. In a few days I'll turn around and make the same trip in reverse, back toward the future, toward uncertainty: not knowing if I'll eat from a dish or if it will require more effort than just sitting down at the table.
Coming into Dublin on 441, I see the old McDonald’s and a new steakhouse. Then it’s a short trek down I-16, past my high school. I drive by the old brick building fast enough only to catch a glimpse. It will only hold classes until this May and then it will be vacated, all of the students and teachers and janitors and principals moved across the county to a bigger cow pasture and a bigger barn; a newer barn. I catch glimpses of memories from my high school years: blue face paint and a kilt on homecoming, speeding around the building, screaming at the tops of our lungs at five in the morning before a field trip, wondering what freedom felt like, thinking we already knew.

But freedom isn’t speeding around your high school at five in the morning or painting your face blue. Freedom is driving home through the country with rain falling fast through open windows, soaking your shirt. Freedom isn’t doing something you can’t normally do when it’s alright. Freedom is doing something you normally wouldn’t, even when you still shouldn’t. And sometimes, it’s a drive back, along the old roads that help us discover what freedom is. Sometimes it’s a return home, a return to our roots, that really opens the gate and lets the floods out.

Sitting on the porch with my parents in three identical rocking chairs, getting run out of Applebee’s because their closing or maybe we’re being too loud, looking at the bargain rack at Wal-Mart, and watching the people who got trapped here fifty years ago drink with the kids who are trapping themselves here today: that’s Dublin, GA. There isn't much left for me in this town: some friends, some memories, some comfort. I love the time I spend here with the ones who nurtured me in my youth. It is truly refreshing. And tonight I’ll have a beer with a man named Scooter and he’ll tell me all about his limp and how I should talk to ladies. And I’ll see several people who I always thought would probably hang out in a bar and night but only to escape from reality who never thought they would see me in a bar, but always thought that I would teach college.

Soon, though, I will be in South Georgia again, where the trees don't die quite as quickly, and there I will live in the uncertainty...not knowing where I will end up...or what cotton field I will be standing at the edge of catching my breath.

-Shane "Blazin' Locks" Wilson

a new word

I claim ownership to the term: tragabilia. Where some people have memories...memorabilia; I have tragedies...tragabilia. That's with a soft "g" pronunciation.

Homecoming "Twatch Out!"

One of my new Facebook friends, who is actually a very old acquaintance, invited my husband and I to our college homecoming fraternity gathering. I believe this person has made Sigma Alpha Epsilon his life. Sad it's true, but somehow fraternity seemed to fill what must have been a massive hole in his life. We haven't even thought of returning for anything more than a visit with family. To be honest, visits back to old Middle Tennessee don't always have fond memories for me. Sometimes the memories are fuzzy, and at other times they simply cause me to shutter.

I actually met my husband for the first time in the fraternity house. He was drunk and didn't remember me until the third time we met. I remember his sweater. One of those v-necked thick cotton sweaters outlined in red and blue. I think all frat boys have one. Of course he word a pair of kackis, Docksiders and no socks. He was cute enough, but no big shakes. I didn't drink back then so the amounts of alcohol being consumed around me was something I'd never seen. He didn't make a good first impression.

I guess I shutter to think of some of the studpid things I did back in "The Day". I still shutter, so much so that I'd rather write about something else, but who knows, they say confession is good for the soul.

Homecoming....go Blue Raiders! Honestly we were too drunk by the time we got to the ballgame to know who we were playing. The parade warm-up started at 8:00 with Bloody Marys and breakfast finger foods. Parents were actually invited to these gatherings. My parents never knew of the invitation, and for good reason. They would have yanked me out of that den of iniquity, and pulled me with my 1.9 grade point average back to Chattanooga. Instead they stayed safely at home watching real teams play football.

After the game...I can't remember after the game. So there you have it. Homecomings, too painful to remember. There are a few good memories though,red maple leaves, crisp cool air, wool blazers, bonfires, new outfits (back in the days when we dressed for the game,and hanging our under the bleachers. Twatch Out!

Going to the Mountains

Homecoming does remind me of high school, but not so much of college. It's weird sometimes to teach at the university I attended. It takes away homecoming at the college level. Facebook has actually been more of a homecoming than any homecoming event. I am now in touch with a friend from my freshman year of high school and with a college friend I haven't seen since 1990.

But this topic isn't thrilling me--that's the problem with posting a topic early in the morning and then not writing about it until much later. So I'm ditching homecoming and writing about a different sort of homecoming, more of a visiting, a visit to the mountains Wes and I have planned for sometime during the Christmas holidays.

Wes and I are taking our first vacation alone in years. We do a family trip to the beach with his family every summer, and we used to do a family trip to the mountains with my family every summer until my parents started going up north in the summer. Wes and I miss the mountains, so we decided to return to the mountains this year, but we're going to a part of the mountains we haven't visited, the North Georgia mountains instead of North Carolina or Colorado. I'd love to ski again, but my knee isn't up to it, and we don't want to spend that much money.

Anyway, last week we decided to go to the mountains. I browsed the Internet for cabins and found some awesome choices: a two-bedroom cabin with an outside hot tub next to a waterfall. One of my friends thinks we're nuts for wanting an outside hot tub, but I love to be outside in a hot tub when it's cold. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. I hope it snows.

Of course it has a fireplace, and we've already ordered wood and fire starters. Wes asked if he should take an ax, but I doubt we're supposed to chop up the surrounding woods. We're on a five-acre tract, so we have no close neighbors, thank goodness. Also, almost one whole wall of the cabin is glass--what a view. We're on top of a mountain with great views.

I want to be there now. I don't want to finish this semester, these committee assignments, these classes, the grant that I have yet to start (Rebecca, when do you want to work on that?), this freewrite--no, no, no, I want to pack my suitcase, pack the car, and head to the mountains. Oooh, I'd pack lots of books. In fact, there are some books I plan to request for Christmas (I don't know which ones yet, but I'll make a list).

Every now and then either Wes or I will say, "I'm so excited," and we both grin, thinking about our trip to the mountains. We're paying too much, but we're just doing our part for the economy. I've already mapquested the route and thought about groceries--ironic since I rarely think about what to cook when I'm in Valdosta.

***
Okay, here's another Homecoming topic--let's have a Homecoming for Blackwater Writing Project. I'm suggesting that we plan a party at someone's house, a potluck, for all BWP people. I know everyone won't be able to attend, but I'd love to at least offer a chance for people to meet across ISI years. Lindsi suggested we do it on a weeknight once school is out because most people are just too busy on weekends. First question, then, is when do schools get out for the holidays? What do you think about the idea? Let me hear from you, and we'll try to plan a get-together for December and announce it in the newsletter.

***
Okay, I think I'm through writing for tonight. It's not really long enough, but it was just enough. I'll check to see if anyone else has posted.

Homecomings

I'm supposed to be writing about homecomings and I really don't know what I want to say. For me, the experience has never lived up to my expectations—often soundly falling critically short of satisfaction and closer to a blazing disaster. Perhaps I set my hopes to high, thereby trigger into action the elements that lead to my eventual crash and burn disappointment. What I desperately need in my life is a place the likes of the neighborhood pub in the television show, "Cheers." Instead of the welcoming, cheer "Norm!" it would be replaced with "Vicki!" Or some clever nickname monikered by the intimacy shared between close friends. I almost earned my own moniker once. The group happened to be the squad of fellow policemen I worked with in Jacksonville. Our sergeant was recently promoted so our squad, too, was newly formed. We were a funny looking bunch of misfits thrown together to make a squad of our own. I say that we were misfits because we didn't fit the picture of the then stereotypical white, male policeman in the Bold New City of the South, Jacksonville. At that time, the brotherhood of the badge still had a ways to go before I would ever consider them either bold or new. So there we were, this motley crew of cops. Our leader was Sgt. Mike Rutledge (who would later become a chief); he was an attractive, well-educated, well-spokened, well-demeanored, young Black man. His nickname was "Suave." He was a misfit because he was the last person to be promoted to sergeant on this particular promotion cycle. The white sergeants called his position a "social promotion" behind his back. Sgt. Suave just took it all in stride. The rest comprised of another large Black officer who was every bit the size of a linebacker for the Fla. A&M Rattlers (I can't remember his nickname) A middle-aged white officer who had a reputation for being lazy (which was not actually the case); a rookie, fresh out of the police academy Puerto Rican young man. He was so young that I told him once that I had shoes older than him. Me, of course, small, white female, "who didn't belong in policework because I was a small, white, female." Funny, I can't remember anyone else's nickname except for Sgt. Suave. But I still remember him saying to me one evening as we grouped up to turn in our reports for the night at the usual location...the jail parking lot overlooking the St. John's River. The guys were talking, laughing, and exchanging observations. Sarge was speculating on each one's nickname and was assigned his for his talent for charming women. He looked at me and said, "English, I'm not sure what we'll call you." (I had just joined the squad that month.) "We'll have to get to know you better, then we'll have it." Unfortunately, I never finished the month with the squad; I was injured during a domestic call on the 19th and my career ended. I never got my nickname.

Write Night

Okay, folks, it's that time again--time to meet, eat, write, and share. Tonight's topic is Homecoming. Take it wherever you want. Perhaps you want to write about Homecoming for school, a recent event or one from when you were a student--the dance, the football game, the crazy outfits with every day being dress up. Or maybe you want to write about coming home, visiting a place you once lived and the differences and similarities. Or maybe you want to focus on a family member's house that you visit occasionally, Grandmother's house or the family vacation spot. Whatever works--or of course, you can ignore all these prompts and write whatever you want. We (the royal we, I guess, even though I don't really consider myself a queen) just want you to write and share. See you in person or on the blog.