Seminar Numero Uno

Okay, first day of class for real this time. Had my Reading Victorian Lit. seminar, and it was really good. The atmosphere is very friendly and there was a lot of intelligent conversation to be had. We discussed the nature of literary eras: why we insisted on defining them, how we defined them at all, and the issues that come with having to try to sort out the massive world of English literature in history. We also had a brief discussion of Modernity (which you, Dad, would have loved, given your disdain for the terms Modern and Postmodern) and what it actually means as a historical movement, as a feeling, and as a definition of time in relation to other, past times.

The fluidity of what we like to call revolutionary movements continues to surprise me--I, and I think many other scholars, love to fall into the trap of putting things neatly in boxes, and time and history are simply not that organized. I remember watching a documentary during my literature course this summer at UMass in which it was stated roughly that, "when Wordsworth died, it was the end of the Romantic poets, and the era". It sounds fairly innocuous--Wordsworth was the last Romantic poet to die, as his compatriots like Byron and Keats died so young. But really, Wordsworth wasn't even made Poet Laureate until 1843, more than a decade after many scholars mark the "beginning" of the Victorian era with the Great Reform Act of 1832. There's just so much bleed-through between so-called eras that we really have to be careful when throwing around adjectives like "Victorian" because, as my professor said today, "just because we slap a label on something doesn't mean we've defined that label". It doesn't mean that we even could define it if we tried.

Anyway, it was a good discussion, and I like the group so far, including our professor, who seems to strike a good balance between responding critically to our statements and also occasionally letting us go off on tangents. We have a nice mix of students, as well--three American, two Japanese, five or six English, and one Irish student. So, lots of perspectives floating around.

And now, I am off to some sort of international meet-and-greet with Marta and Zouina. Should be fun!