Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Fun reading

One of the great things about the Lit class I'm in right now is that it is forcing me to read (that is, something besides books and magazines about poker). The class is on British Literature, The Great Authors (could it sound any more pretentious). While I'm sure it's all considered very good, some I've enjoyed more than others. I think reading Canterbury Tales was roughly equivalent to digging my eyeball out with a fork. But I've really enjoyed reading Beowulf, The Tragic History of Dr. Faustus, Jane Eyre and some others.

I thought I would post one of the poems I really enjoyed here. The author is John Donne, who is definitely an interesting cat. He lived from 1571 - 1631. This one is called The Apparition and is taken from The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Seventh Edition, The Major Authors.

The Apparition
When by thy scorn, O murderess, I am dead,
And that thou thinkst thee free
From all solicitation from me,
Then shall my ghost come to thy bed,
And thee, feigned vestal(1), in worse arms shall see;
Then thy sick taper will begin to wink(2),
And he whose thou art then, being tired before,
Will, if thou stir, or pinch to wake him, think
Thou callst for more,
And in false sleep will from thee shrink,
And then, poor aspen wretch(3), neglected thou
Bathed in a cold quicksilver sweat (4)wilt lie
A verier ghost(5) than I;
What I will say, I will not tell thee now,
Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent,
I had rather thou shouldst painfully repent,
Than by my threatenings rest still innocent.
1) Virgin
2) Flicker
3) Aspen leaves flutter in the slightest breeze
4) Sweating in terror; quicksilver was a stock prescription for venereal disease and sweating was part of the cure.
5) truer
Sounds like someone's got some issues with his special lady friend eh?

2 comments:

Robin said...

Don't most men???

and....You are only as old as you feel! I myself am perpetually 35!
And I feel good about that!
Until the lady at Walgreens wanted to give me a free sample...a new mini-pad...and then she went pale..."YOU do still need them?"
UGH!!!
Must get more moisturizer!!

Ace said...

lol, excellent point. I think they were much more repressed back then so they had to make up poems about their ghosts haunting girls that spurned them and call them tramps.

I'm feeling older by the day, although your discussion of mini-pads has me wanting to make teenager like beavis & butthead comments - does that count for anything. huh-huh, huh-huh.