Sappho, Poet-Great-Grandmother of My Soul

I am reading about Sappho, the ancient Greek poetess. We don’t know much of women’s ideas in ancient Greece, but we know Sappho who has taken up her stylus and spoken out.

“Come now, luxuriant Graces, and beautiful-haired Muses”

Does this remind anyone else of "Come, Muse, tell me of the man of many wiles"? Sappho knows about Greek conventions and invoking the Muses. It is a pity that all we have our fragments of her writing...

“Now, I shall sing these songs

Beautifully

For my companions”

“I desire

And I crave”

She, too, had ideas and feelings, and even though she may have been forced to hide in her home, she still produced work and literature and had something to say. I see in her traces of Sylvia Plath; I see in her traces of Angela Davis.

“Sweet mother, I can’t do my weaving –

Aphrodite has crushed me with desire

For a tender youth.”

(Translations by Julia Dubnoff)

And We're Off - First Day of School!

Modules have officially begun! It has been a long time coming, and it’s a relief to have some place to be and something to do with spare hours. After my first lecture in my Scottish Literature class yesterday (which introduced us to the overview of the course), I wandered around campus for an awkward hour between until my Greek Civilization lecture, trying to figure out what to do and where to go, and wondering how everyone seemed to have a bunch of friends that they automatically paired off with no matter what time of day it was or where they were going.

I thought I would have all three of my courses yesterday, but I ended up only having two. To give you an illustration of what administration at Edinburgh University is like, I will share this story: I found my classroom on the second floor of a real hole-in-the-wall building – literally. The entrance to the building was right next to two other doors, and it led immediately up a flight of steps because there wasn't enough space for an entire building. I opened the door to my classroom, and there was another student sitting at the corner of the gigantic seminar-like table.

“Fiction in Edinburgh?” I asked tentatively, and he said yes. It's surprising how quickly a wave of relief spread over me. I had found the right place, or if I was incorrect, then I wasn’t alone. The other students began to trickle in, and we exchanged awkward glances and smiles at our classmates. A redheaded Scottish student whipped out a copy of one of the books on our reading list, and the student sitting next to her followed suit with the same copy. Another student brought out a third copy, this time stamped with “Edinburgh University Library” on it and little pastel-coloured sticky flags jutting from the pages like a multi-colored stairway, telltale signs of having read the material. I began to be a little worried.

Another one of the visiting students – we stick out like sore thumbs – asked if were supposed to have read that. The other students, the Scottsish ones, said they had received an email from the instructor saying which parts they should read, and also some reading questions. I felt like an ostrich with no place to hide her head, awkwardly sticking out in a mass of black, white, and gray feathers.

The instructor came in, and was taken aback at the number of students patiently awaiting his erudite tutelage. He called this a typical “Edinburgh blunder,” saying that it was like the University to make the students come to the same class, when there’s really another section on Wednesday for the visiting students. I’m a bit bummed about that – I won’t get to have a seminar with Scottish students – but it means that instead of meeting twice a week for two hours, Fiction in Edinburgh will only meet once a week for two hours, which is much more reasonable, I feel, and more typical of the Scottish system. Needless to say that the confusion I felt when looking at my course schedule earlier today has been resolved.

I've spent most of today in the library, doing the required course reading and letting myself get distracted by perusing secondary sources. All of the instructors not only want us to read the material, but they want us to read commentary on them, which is something that is very interesting to me. As I understand it right now, we have a long list of suggested books and reading, but it's nice because I feel I have a lot more time and autonomy in figuring out what I want to read and when I want to read it. Also - I'll keep you updated on how that's going.

It has also been really nice to sit almost all day in the library, although I wish  I had a library buddy or two so that I could leave my stuff more easily in one place, go pick out a book, and then come back without having to load all of my stuff up. And I feel kinda bad blogging in the library - but I saw one girl on Facebook a few minutes ago, so I won't feel guilty.

Whoa, Wait - Thesis?

I think I just had an idea for my thesis. Yesterday I was walking back from the grocery store, listening to “Howling at the Moon” by the Ramones on my iPod. All of a sudden, an idea just popped into my head about what I wanted to write about – nothing too specific, but a topic at least.

I have always thought of thesis as something vague and far-off, and whenever any of my friends talked about thesis and topics, I always retreated back into the safety of thinking that I would probably write something about John Keats. What, exactly, about John Keats, I did not know.

However, my thoughts about thesis took me completely by surprise. There I was, walking along the street, and like a great gust of wind the idea was in my head, and the feeling “I want to write about this for thesis” was in my head. It didn’t even have the decency to wait until I was at a computer or had a pen and paper in my hand.

I rushed back to the apartment as quickly as I could, stuffing the groceries into the fridge, booting up my computer, and then waiting for it to warm up so I could record my thoughts. Already the thoughts and ideas and whatever chemicals that gave me such a rush were leaking out of my head. I got the bare bones of the idea down - and a few more authors in addition to Keats - all at a point of time when thesis wasn't even on my mind. It might be an answer to a question I've had on my mind the past week, but it's still too early to tell.