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Saturday, August 16, 2003

reads

Fragments - from Floyd recommends The Sun magazine. From the about page:
The Sun isn't "literary" or "political" or "spiritual" in the usual sense. It begins where those labels end, which is where life gets interesting. Each month, in essays, stories, interviews, and poetry, people write in The Sun of their struggle to understand their lives, often baring themselves with surprising intimacy.

Letter From Yale by Helena Echlin (via newthings)
Included in Helena Echlin's observations is the corporate culture of the university
Grooming oneself into a marketable academic is now the thing – forget about the pursuit of truth and beauty
and also the loss of pleasure in reading in this academic industry
No one has mentioned enjoying a book. Analysis is practised completely free of evaluation. Manifestly, analysis is more important than the texts themselves...
Echlin also reflects on that old dilemma: Literature v Writing.
Boynton was reminded of Sylvia Plath's experience of trying to balance teaching and writing. This is somewhere in the Journals c 1957, but alas, boynton hasn't beeen able to track down the exact passage of text . Another quote from her journals is along the same lines - of wanting to be the subject of academic inquiry, rather than student.
It is sad to be able only to mouth other poets. I want someone to mouth me." (source)


Comments: reads

"I want someone to mouth me"

Pardon me for giggling, but these literary allusions crack me up sometimes.
Posted by Scott Wickstein at August 17, 2003 10:21 PM

Yeth - even though it's Plath, Mith Boynton is slightly blushing now at posting such an allusion. Can you believe she didn't see it until now!
Posted by boynton at August 17, 2003 11:19 PM

Bit of an oral girl, Sylvia - what with the cheek biting incident 'n all. Suspect she really wanted to be bit.
Posted by wen at August 18, 2003 01:40 PM

Yes the cheek biting incident has always troubled me, Wen. Still - it's all fodder for famous poetry I suppose.
Posted by boynton at August 18, 2003 01:58 PM

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