There has been little in the way of an update to this meagre blog, mainly due to the fact that not much has been happening. I am reading, of course, an inordinate amount of pages from the 19th century (which should excuse any heights of language to which I here aspire), but that's about it. I hear on the wind that there's to be a bit of a movie night tonight. Even so, that's not much of a change from the usual. For those who might care, and those who don't, I am presently making myself acquainted with the Right Honourable... Sir Walter Scott. His novel Guy Mannering is my present occupation, though I hear it is not one of his most popular. It has held my interest, though, for 320 pages, and I do not think I'm stretching my faith in Scott's authorship when I say that it will probably remain agreeable still for the 200 pages I have left to go. After this, I must blitz through Thomas de Quincey's odd memorandum entitled The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. I make my confession this: that I did not know till now that opium could be eaten. Ah well. There will always be ignorance of something, great or small, to humble us.
because you were all wondering what I'm writing my dissertation on, here's a brief synopsis of my 'research context': When James Macpherson published his Fragments of Ancient Poetry in 1760, he went to great lengths to make the Fragments appear to be authentic remains of an ancient, heroic oral tradition. His reasons for this were largely political, and as such, influenced the content of the epics themselves. As an attempt to establish a particularly Scottish identity, the poems were quite effective. However, to do so required both a simplification and a manipulation of traditional mythology. Stripped of anagogical significance, the Ossian epics more or less represented an Enlightenment version of history, tradition, and mythic heritage. The stories themselves were changed by their very purpose and in turn changed the manner of representing myth in future narratives. Moreover, the emphasis on the Ossian epics as authentic tales from the past, as ‘fragments,’ served...
Comments
Post a Comment