I'm really really freaked out about something right now!!!

[Bouncy Ball]

I woke up at 2 am in a cold sweat. I was remembering my senior year in college (my first senior year, not the second one). I was an English major and we had to choose two out of the following three authors to study in depth for at least two semesters each:

1. Chaucer
2. Shakespeare
3. Milton

Well, I chose Chaucer and Shakespeare. I read a bit of Milton and said "No FUCKING way."

I woke up in a cold sweat because it suddenly occurred to me, in my SLEEP no less, that I might have made a MASSIVE mistake.

What if I have missed jokes that have come my way over the years that were allusions to Milton or his work? How would I know? I WOULDN'T!!!!

What if I'm on a game show someday and there is a question about Paradise Lost and I don't get it but the geeky guy next to me does?

Worse yet, what am I missing from never having read more than 15 words of Milton? Is my life incomplete?

Egads, tell me!!! Have you studied him? What am I missing? Should I take a remedial Milton course ASAP???

Oh these regrets, they haunt me.....

[LiberalVoice]

1. You should take...

Prozac.

[Bouncy Ball]

3. What if I already do?

I mean, Prozac helps with depression, right? Not post-college anxiety!

[radwriter0555]

10. I recommend you take

a serious but VERY cool tranquilizer called CLONAPIN. It doesn't make you stupid, but it stops the rat wheel in your lil head.

Unless of course you LIKE the rat wheel, in which case, carry on.

[Bouncy Ball]

22. And where do I get that?

;-)

[mike_c]

2. seek help, ASAP....

Professional psychatric help. Alternatively, get good and drunk.

[Bouncy Ball]

4. MIKE!!!!

You just inadvertently gave me the ANSWER!!!

I must get drunk, THEN READ MILTON!!!!

Oh thank you, my man. Brilliant. Will be doing that this weekend.

[mike_c]

13. my fee request is in the mail....

Happy to be of service.

[Bouncy Ball]

21. DAmmit.

I thought you were free. I hope you are at least cheap.

[mike_c]

23. as cheap as they come....

No one is cheaper than I.

[LisaM]

5. Relax. Get some Cliff's notes on "Paradise Lost"

and read a biography of him. No need to plow through his work. That way, you're safe on "Jeopardy!" (Oh, and by the way, as far as the geeky guy next to you, he's more likely to know the height of the world's highest 100 mountains in order than to be on speaking terms with Milton.)

[MuseRider]

6. I have often

wondered the same thing (without the bad dreams). I read a little Milton and had the same reaction. Now when he is brought up I just feel so stupid! Not enough apparently to do anything about it though. Drink up sweetie. :beer:

[Bouncy Ball]

20. I think anytime Milton is brought up

(and mind you, it doesn't happen often, but I do have friends who would bring him up), I should just yell "FUCK MILTON" and then buy everyone a drink.

[tridim]

7. No worries.. Milton has been moved to the storage basement

with his red Swingline stapler. They fixed the glitch.

[peekaloo]

11. lol

Pandemonium in the basement.
:o

[Bouncy Ball]

18. Oh good. That's a load off.

[barb162]

8. Read" Paradise Lost" and" Paradise Regained "and be done with it

He's hard to read. Also as far as the geek next to you, if he's really as geeky as you indicate he's probably reading Alexander Pope or boring Restoration playwriters, so you won't have to worry about Milton. Beside that, if he says something on Milton, retort without answering with another question- some obscure question about Chaucer or Shakespeare that you KNOW he wont be able to answer.

Oh these damned academic games....

[Bouncy Ball]

17. He IS hard to read!!!

I'm remembering now, that's why I said no thanks and chose the other two.

Shakespeare's more fun anyway. And Chaucer is too, dammit.

[barb162]

26. As I read your last sentence it reminded me of senior yr. in

high school. The English teacher made us recite/ memorize the intro to the "Tales" or was it something in Old English versus Middle English... I can't quite remember. Anyway I remember being up there in front of the class and he made me get the gum out of my mouth first.

can't remember what the hell it was from
phonetically a part of it was

"......................... sure a soe-ta
"the drawt of march hath pair-ced to the roe-ta

..............
of which vair- tue engendered.....""

I later went on to study English literature, 19th century, as I could never get into the "Gawain and the Green Knight" stuff

[barb162]

30. it was from Beowulf I think

[Bouncy Ball]

38. No one knows who wrote Beowulf.

[barb162]

41. it had to be some monk as they were about the only people capable

of writing in those good ol' days

[fishwax]

33. ah, the opening of The Canterbury Tales

whan that april with his shoures soote
the drought of march hath perced to the roote
and bathed every vein in swych liquoor
of which vertu engendred is the floore
whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
inspired hath in every holt and heeth
the tendre croppes; and the younge soon
hath in the ram his halves course yronne

(etc.)

I had to recite it too, for a Chaucer course. (Didn't have to memorize the spelling, though, so some of the spellings might be wrong).

:)

[Bouncy Ball]

36. The boys in my class loved the part that sounded like

"have a Coors" and they'd do that part extra loud to piss the teacher off.

Hi Ms. Hunt whereever you are!!!! :hi:

[barb162]

39. okay!!!! like a foreign language... shoures soote

was pronounced, according to the prof as shor-es soe-tuh as I recall and damned if I remember what anything meant. And Chaucer was considered Middle English, wasn't he.

I was much better with the 19th century and Victorian literature.

Thank you

[fishwax]

40. you recall correctly

that's how it's pronounced, and Chaucer's Middle English is quite like a foreign language. I didn't think I would like it at all before taking the class, but I was fortunate that the prof was REALLY into it and also was excellent at reading it, and so I came out with an enjoyment of it all.

Still, though, I'm with you -- I'll stick with the later years (19th/20th century American, myself). :)

[Bouncy Ball]

35. Whan that April with its shore a sota (I am doing this phonetically)

the drought of March hath perced to the rot-a
and bathed every vein in swish liquor
of which vertu engendred is the flour (pronounced flooor).

And then something about creatures in every holt and heath, etc.

I loved it. I love speaking Middle English. It's beautiful.

[barb162]

43. yeah, yeah, the top three lines are bouncing in my head all day now.

pierced was pair-said

bathed was bo-thed (bo as in sheep's baa)

vair -tu engendred was the floor (rhyme "coor" beer)
liquor was li-coor

[barb162]

29. I meant to mention I thought he was brilliant (John Donne too)

and he had so much imagery and everything else going on and he put his words together so well, but it was so dense in its meaning and spirituality and layers of biblical references and oh my god. You know how all those guys back then had the bible memorized and they just drew these references out of their rear ends and I would have to sit there with a bible on the side trying to figure out the biblical passages just to understand what the poets were getting at, and man, it was hard.

[Bouncy Ball]

37. Oh I love Donne

now I could get into him.

[On the Road]

9. Milton? You Mean Milton Berle?

Always thought he was overrated.
:silly:

[barb162]

27. Ha Ha Ha

[LynneSin]

12. I had a similiar nightmare about Calculus that seemed so real

that I actually bought a used calculus book and swore it was the gods telling me I should have learned the subject.

BTW - I'm selling a used Calculus book if anyone needs one!

[Bouncy Ball]

15. You didn't.

Really? LMAO!! That's funny.

Ok, I've never had that thought about calculus, although when I saw "Stand and Deliver" and found out that calculus was so cool (figuring out the orbits of PLANETS? How cool is that???) I felt a twinge of regret for never having learned it. But I got over that quickly.

This Milton thing is worrying me, though. Think I'll get drunk and read some Cliffs Notes. That should be fun!

[Lavender Brown]

14. It's weird... some mornings I wake up thinking I'm late to class or forgot

to read something... and I graduated in 2001.

[Bouncy Ball]

16. I graduated in 1992

and I have dreamed that some Important People knocked on my door and said "Hand it back" and I'm like "What?" and they said "The diploma...we were going over some things and you didn't really earn it."

I wake up sweating and screaming.

[tridim]

19. I think that happens to everyone

It's such a good feeling after you come to realize it was just a dream. This was portrayed well in the movie "Top Secret", except when Val Kilmer wakes up he's being tortured with a whip and exclaims, "Oh, thank God!" :D I have to rent that movie again soon.

[barb162]

44. I graduated decades ago and still will have a dream, actually, a

nightmare, that I am missing my SAT or GRE exam. Terrifying. It's almost always the same: bad snowstorm or blizzard and the public transport isn't running well if at all and I just can't get to the test center even though I am prepared. I get there as they are closing and can't take the test to get into college.

[Demit]

24. No, no. Read "On His Blindness". Much shorter, and you can still say you

read Milton. If somebody makes an allusion to "Paradise Lost", you can parry by saying "Oh, I much prefer--" and then you quote a line from "On His Blindness".

I once stumped some very erudite people in Charades with "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?" which was the maximum seven words. Hah!

[Bouncy Ball]

25. Oooo, good idea, seriously.

Didn't know about that, ta!

:toast:

[tigereye]

28. well, I was also an English major

and I did have to read Paradise Lost. And I recently started to re-read it... I dragged it out of the bookshelf and it even had the old syllabus for the class in it. I remembered very little about it, I am sad to say. I think it is worth reading, but there are certainly others from that period who are more fun. Also, you probably need to be stoned, ala the Lit professor in Animal House. ;)


You have interesting literaty anxiety dreams, BB. If I had to pick one to re-read maybe it would be Dante's Inferno. Similar topics... different period, but more action, no?

[barb162]

45. I still remember discussing in class why Milton decided to make

Satan the most interesting and vivid character in "Paradise Lost"

[progressoid]

31. Hey! I read this same thread over at Freeperville!

Except the choices were:
1. Ann Coulter
2. Sean Hannity
3. Jerry Falwell

[Bouncy Ball]

34. Oh they are such sad creatures, aren't they?

[Shakespeare]

32. He wrote some beautiful short poems.

I took a Milton class against my will, and ended up LOVING it (and I'm a hardcore bardophile). If you don't want to read Paradise Lost, try his "twin" poems "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," and the really moving elegy "Lycidas."

And if you're feeling in a particularly masochistic mood (because it's NOT easy reading), try his treatise on free speech, Areopagitica. He was quite the radical!

[RetroLounge]

42. I have my Masters in English

and I used to have dreams like that.

The worst were the dreams that were all Faulknerian. They just rambled on forever and ever. Somebody buy that man a period.

RL

[Bouncy Ball]

46. ROFL

I had Hemingwayian (LOL) dreams. Just short and stuttery.

[ernstbass]

47. As long as you know about the Wife of Bath

you will be okay.

[BurtWorm]

48. Milton is worth reading

Without a doubt. Paradise Lost is a brilliant work. I took a course devoted to Milton and the Canon that was one of the best courses I've ever taken. I also took courses on Shakespeare and Chaucer, by the way. His prose works are worth reading as well, especially Aeropagitica, which defends freedom of the press.