Skip to main content

After the GRE

So I took the GRE subject test in English Literature this Saturday. Found my way to USC alright, got lost on campus, walked in ten minutes late, remembered that this is California - even the GRE starts half an hour after the posted time to accommodate our laxity - and proceeded to prove my literary worth after ZERO hours of study. Read a wide, self-satisfied grin right here.

Actually, that's not exactly true. Tara and I read two or three poems on the floor of my bedroom a few days before. One of them is posted below, and was not remotely helpful - only personally inspiring. The other one was featured on question 23, or thereabouts. I know, I know - I'm not supposed to reveal the contents of the exam to a single soul. Like they're really going to rehash that one with that very number and everything. Whatever.

Anyway, what I really should have done was asked Tara to write out little blurbs for each big-name in literary theory. Something catchy and rememberable. That would have been a good idea. As it was, I didn't think of it at all, and she thought of it only several days after the fact. Anyone interested in a thorough overview of the major theoretical bastions should absolutely check out her blog post here. Anyone not remotely interested, anyone with contempt or carelessness or frustration or tearful confusion regarding literary theory should check out her blog post here. (hint: it's the same thing.) Have fun.

Comments

  1. Hello, I'm Emily Clare.25 October, 2008 08:32

    Yay for the GRE... *yawn*
    So glad I don't have to do that stuff. I'm sure you OWNED it!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. David25 October, 2008 15:22

    Well how did it go?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unknown25 October, 2008 19:13

    alright. easier than i thought, which means i probably bombed it. lots more chaucer than i expected. caedmon's hymn, shtuff like that. light on theory, heavy on identifying authors from quotes.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Unknown26 October, 2008 16:43

    correction: 'quotations' not 'quotes'. 'quotes' is a verb in the present singular. not a noun. knowing this, however, will not improve your chances of acing the gre subject test.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hello, I'm Emily Clare.28 October, 2008 20:33

    **yawn**

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Can someone please explain why my Quicktime isn't working? Anyone with prophetic awareness of my little Atlas, none so old but recently behaving so?
8 comments
Read more
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...
6 comments
Read more
Rounding out my year of dwelling in the Athens of the North, as Edinburgh was called during the Enlightenment, I have experienced the shortest night of my memory. Around eleven o'clock last night, I closed the curtains to a sky streaked with the dark blue of a finally setting sun. I fully intended to drop off to sleep immediately after, but as I usually do, found myself still putting around after two in the morning. Between the curtains, which I had not closed as well as I should have, I noticed something unusual. There was unnaturally natural light streaming through. I opened them wide only to find the sky streaked with the same blue they had been filled with but three hours before. Had there been any night at all? If so, I had closed my curtains to it, only to find morning rising just as sleep found me - morning in the middle of the night. Long live Scotland.
5 comments
Read more