So...
I'm studying for my "World literature" exam I have next Tuesday. The thing is that study materials are extensive and so much reading and no exercises (like in syntax, for example) bores me immensly. And what happens? I remember all the stupid things instead of the essence of the subject I'm studying. For example:
- Seneca was a Roman philosopher and dramatist. Roman emperor Nero accused him of "I-don't-know-what" and he was sentenced with a suicide. He was forced to kill himself! How's that possible? Can you imagine something like that? In further reading I realized this was Nero's speciality so ... nothing unusual I guess.
- A funny thing to me is how literary historians and theorist describe authors. They always tell what his / her father's occupation was. How is that relevant? Ok it's relevant a bit in the case of Flaubert, for example. He practically lived in a hospital because his father was a doctor and that reflected in his works. But come on.. John Keats' father had a rent-a-horse /carriage company. How is that relevant?
- ... and other irrellevant information. How many times they were married, which one was gay, what school they didn't finish (it's usually like that with writers, yeah ..) and what stuff they used to get high. William Blake's father voted for oppositionist liberals. ??? Nice one. :)
- One of the funniest facts today was that pre-romanticism didn't really exist. French intellectuals made it up because Germans already had romanticism and they just couldn't afford to have the same thing in France. Not appropriate. :P
Maybe tomorrow, I need some sleep now to think it all over :)
Poppy
