All 13 entries tagged Virgil

Monday, August 14

Fulfilment of obligation to not shirk writing something worthwhile on finishing chapter

No, I didn't honestly think I could get away with slithering through the chain–link gates without producing a fuller report on my efforts yesterday. It's just that I'd finished the chapter, wanted to immerse myself in my few hours of guiltless freedom, had used up almost all my quota of written expression power et cetera…

Worth noting that the chapter was dangling about 400 words away from being finished for almost all of last week. All that I actually added yesterday lunchtime — although clearly, it was so taxing as to leave me too enfeebled to blog properly — was a concluding paragraph that questioned the wisdom of reading Boccaccio's Buccolicum Carmen as overwhelmed by the personal presence of Petrarch.

Try saying that with a mouthful of dry Weetabix…

My feelings on the chapter are that — although it is maybe a little top–heavy, with the power of analysis rather dwindling in the second half — it is fundamentally sound and definitely illuminates Petrarch's Bucolicum Carmen in a way that Chapters II–IV do not and cannot. If I can't get it to Andrew before the start of term I hope to supply him with an email attachment for feedback.

Also pleased with having finished in less — alright, only one day less — than three weeks, which I suspect makes it my least sluggish chapter to date. I make it that there are about six weeks until my present library card expires and with almost 29,000 words in the bank, it may not be folly to think I can at least have the components of a Master's thesis together by that time. Mightn't be all corrected, revised, polished and refined but the body of the words themselves could be there.

What I have to smear the remaining 7,000–10,000 words between are; some kind of concluding section [a Conclusion], and my Introduction — both currently embryonic in my thinking; and my final — ironically enough, what will be the first in the final study — chapter, on the Latin eclogues of Dante.

I'm thinking Chapter I will be only half the length at best of the others, as there are only two poems and I may not be able to gather the resources on other medieval ecloguists to really bulk it out. At the moment, I envisage that the chapter will take as its epigraph Boccaccio's comment on all the bucolic writers between Virgil and Petrarch being "obscure and not worth considering" and use Dante's poems to ask whether Petrarch deserves to be thought of as a reviver of the Eclogue.

I have a few days this week where I can bury my nose in the books and set myself thinking about how the chapter will take shape. I'm away this weekend for a wedding and probably moving house next week so I could do with taking advantage of what time I have now, while I still have it.

So anyway. That seems fairly thorough. Can I go now?

: 14 Aug 2006 14:18 |  Tags: Boccaccio Classics Eclogues Ma Petrarch Research Virgil |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Sunday, August 13

It appears two weeks have gone by since I last blogged. Very sorry about that.

Finished my chapter this afternoon, anyway. I am reasonably pleased with it.

Anyone wandering types who'd like to read, please email I.D.Fielding@warwick.ac.uk.

Only about 7,000 words left to write on the project. Plan to launch into my Dante chapter as soon as possible.

: 13 Aug 2006 15:40 |  Tags: Boccaccio Classics Eclogues Ma Petrarch Research Virgil |  Comments (6) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Sunday, July 30

Chapter continues to progress, with 1000 words added this weekend. I'm only half–way through discussing the sixteen eclogues of the Buccolicum Carmen and I've already ploughed through almost half of my chapter's length. Things are getting very dense in the middle and I can tell already there will be a lot of fat to cut away once this thing is cooked through. Better to have too much than too little.

Hope to update again tomorrow.

: 30 Jul 2006 22:41 |  Tags: Boccaccio Classics Eclogues Ma Petrarch Research Virgil |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Friday, 27 July

Added some 700 words today — not quite as fluidly as an Alastair Cook century innings — to push my week's work on Chapter V up to almost 2,000. What I did today was mainly concerned with the first and earliest poems of Boccaccio's Buccolicum Carmen — composed when the influence of Petrarch's bucolics was not yet prevalant — as a kind of pastiche of Virgil's three 'amorous' eclogues. Though it's heavy on the footnotes I'm fairly pleased with what I've put together.

Working two jobs tomorrow, so I'll look to pick up again on Sunday and Monday.

: 28 Jul 2006 20:25 |  Tags: Boccaccio Classics Eclogues Ma Petrarch Research Virgil |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Wednesday, 17 May

Completing a Blogging triptych: a personal best since like January.

Continued to press down my foot on the throat of Chapter IV by finishing the section on the letters [mainly to Boccaccio] in which Petrarch outlines his theory of creative imitation. Having established how he would have determined to make his own, distinctive impression upon the pastoral form with the Bucolicum Carmen, I am now ready to unpack his poetics and explain what sort of image he'd shape it into.

Elected just to re–read notes and plot out that section rather than move on to more writing; though as the plan is far more comprehensive than what I usually give myself to work with I'm optimistic that when I do sit down to it again [Friday, I expect] I might be able to go right through and do it all. Chapter could be 4,000 words + by then.

Happened upon a little nugget in an article I must have read about a dozen times — such a lazy skimmer am I. Bernardo has a half–paragraph about Petrarch — with his tendency to personify abstract significations — writing poetry that appears complex but has a fairly simple meaning, whereas Dante (to use his comparison, though I would say the same is true of Virgil) — having more of a tendency to the opposite — writes poems that appear simple but have a very complex meaning. I think this articulates my nebulous ideas about what — beyond the allegories in themselves — it is that leads the likes of Greene to refer to the Carmen in terms like "failure", "stillborn".

Checked out Wolfson Room when I visited Library after finishing — remembered Andrew's recommendation that I familiarise myself with a little Augustine considering that he was another of Petrarch's icons. Looks a little pokey, and spoiled as I am by all this slimline technology I felt my skin crawl slightly at the sight of suitcase–sized desktop PCs. No — even when people approach me as I study and ask, "You're one of the people who works here, aren't you..?" — I'm Learning Grid through and through now. It's pointless trying to get away when the end of term is so close.

: 17 May 2006 18:16 |  Tags: Classics Ma Petrarch Research Virgil |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Monday, 27 February

Inched past the mini-milestone that is the final subheading [probably] of my Servius chapter just now. Having finished the section on Petrarch's writing the Bucolicum Carmen to accommodate the tastes of uber-finicky grammatical commentators, I now have only to complete the section on his reworking of the Servian idea of pastoral as a metaphor for the intellectual's existence. For sure, easier said than done — though I feel now that the end is very nearly in sight.

Word count is about 4,700 — so I'm on target in that respect as well.

Speaking of "intellectual existence": my research presentation on that very topic will be rolling into town tomorrow at high noon, with a six-shooter in its belt and a cigarette wedged between its teeth. If you're the macabre sort with a penchant for zinging bullets, spattered bloodstains and unadulterated ultraviolence, then I do recommend you come along. There are twelve handouts — copied at the hand of Josie Brown herself, no less, this very afternoon — to go around.

"A man's life in these parts often depends on a mere scrap of information"

Expect to spend the rest of the evening practising tomorrow's schtick.

Last Italian lecture today, with exams and revision sessions incumbent from now until the end of the year. Tutor Simon Gilson remarked that I have shown a strong improvement since joining the class [which, considering that I couldn't exactly go backwards starting from scratch, is something of a relief]. The idea now is that I spend a couple of hours every week grappling with some of the Italian texts that Carlo Caruso recommended to me at the beginning of the year.

: 27 Feb 2006 18:25 |  Tags: Classics Ma Petrarch Research Virgil |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Wednesday, 22 February

I believe the accurate term to describe what I've been having the past two days is "a mare". Among various other random acts of senselessness, I have realised [after a period of one week] that while I was out running errands on Valentine's day afternoon, I managed to somewhere misplace a book that my housemate had borrowed for me from Bristol University library. Attempts to track it down have been unsuccessful and the odds of it turning up anywhere have to be slim to nil. I have been in touch with librarians at Bristol and if it should remain lost three weeks from now, then I will do very well to have to pay only £25 to replace it.

Unfortunately, a full £50 is probably a more realistic estimate.

And so preoccupied was I on the bus this afternoon, taken by a sudden impulse to dash down from the top deck and tear Robert Dyas' to pieces with my bare hands to look for it, that I left my woolie gloves lying on the seat. It's very trying, being such a moron.

In brighter news, I have approximately 24 hours to meet my self-imposed deadline for finishing the Servius chapter. Considering my present rate and dearth of ideas, direction or motivation, I think that I would do well to have it done before the end of term. I have today returned to the writing after a hiatus of almost ten days, and added about 300 words in the last few hours. Attempted to revise the plan that is blu-tacked on the wall next to my desk so as to try to plot a course through this shadowy second-half of the chapter, but have ended up with something essentially the same as I had before. Of no consolation is the fact it still took me an hour-and-a-half to do that.

Trialled my seminar presentation for Kate last evening; such a sweet heart, to willingly sit through it twice. She said that although it was good, she found it confusing in more than one place and that I'd probably benefit from stressing more frequently my key points. The handout that I spent yesterday afternoon compiling was also, she said, difficult to follow. All in all I think that it won't require much more work and should go well, still.

Working at BioMed Grid tomorrow, till four. I'm optimistic that I may be able to steal a little ground before that deadline goes whooshing past, though.

: 22 Feb 2006 21:41 |  Tags: Classics Ma Petrarch Research Virgil |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Monday, 20 February

Just finished the script for my seminar presentation — such an alien feeling to actually conclude a piece of work. It may require a few alterations and I still have to compile the handout but on the whole I think it should go off a treat.

That's next Tuesday, the 28th, at 12pm in H204.

Under The Beech: Representations of the Poet's Existence in the Bucolics of Virgil and Petrarch

Do come.

: 20 Feb 2006 22:17 |  Tags: Classics Eclogues Petrarch Research Virgil |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

You are cordially invited…

Tuesday 28 February, 12pm. H204.

A lunchtime seminar with the following on the menu, prepared lovingly by yours truly:

Under the Beech: Representations of the Poet's Existence in the Bucolics of Virgil and Petrarch.

Promises to be delicious, I'm sure you'll all agree.

: 10 Feb 2006 17:44 |  Tags: Classics Eclogues Ma Petrarch Research Virgil |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Monday, 06 February

Today marks three weeks of uneasy coexistence between myself and my Blog. I know that my occasional inactivity has drawn more than a couple of scornful glances [mainly from Gav, the conscience of Warwick Blogs] but I make this my tenth entry in that time: that's one every two-and-a-bit days. Considering I only actually do any work about once every two-and-a-bit days, I would regard that a fairly virtuous average.

What was totally reprehensible, however, was my "premeditated absence" from Greek today. After Friday's lecture left me grumbling I opted not to spend my time travelling to campus and back for the sake of another. Used the last half-hour to catch up on what I guess I have missed; it gets done in half the time without Margaret's interjections. Grateful as I am to her to take me on as a hitchhiker in the class, you understand.

No, I spent the day instead sat in my room with the convection heater blurring the air around my desk, occasionally slipping out the door to answer another wrong number. Not that I intend to give the impression my day was wasted: I added 700 words to my total and made a serious dent in the task of surveying Petrarch's allegorical reading of the Eclogues via Servius. It has been all introduction, really: to Petrarch's esteem for Virgilian allegory and to the slippery issue of allegory in the ancient world, which is where I left it.

Tomorrow, I should throw myself headlong at the topic of autobiographical allegory in the Eclogues. My sister is coming to visit about two 'o' clock in the afternoon but if I aspire to give that the old heave-ho before then, that will be the first half of my chapter concluded. Current word-count is about two-and-half thousand, so I'm definitely on-schedule for a fiveish-k chapter.

Watched Masterchef and subsequently spent an hour making dinner. Much as I enjoy their critiqueing, Gregg Wallace and John Torode have made me hideously self-conscious in the kitchen — even when I'm just throwing together a quickfire vegetable chilli [like this evening] I can imagine them tut-tutting and renouncing my flavour combinations.

Saw Munich at the Leamington Apollo last night. I thought it was a very powerful and courageous film, even if it was at least a half an hour too long and a little clumsy in places. When I bought my ticket I enquired politely when Johnny Cash would be coming to Leam; was told that there has been a spot of bother getting hold of the reel, but that he might be here next week. Keeping my fingers crossed.

: 06 Feb 2006 18:26 |  Tags: Classics Eclogues Ma Petrarch Research Virgil |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem