Closing out the first week with a little poetry

The first week of semester is always tough. Even when everything goes smoothly there's a lot to manage; and lots of little details to sort. One of things I have to do these days, too, is make sure workloads are evenly distributed in the English program. We have a very elaborate system that counts everything; but no simple computer programme to which everyone has equal access. Our IT support seems to be slipping behind our needs.

Anyway, it was also the week for meeting my new 3rd year class (lecture on Sir Gawain, amongst other things), and my fourth year honours seminar (also Sir Gawain, but in a different context: next week, John Mandeville and Margery Kempe in Jerusalem, with Carolyn Dinshaw as tourguide); and my two new MA students. We had a talk from Stephen Knight for the Medieval Round Table (Celtic and Christian elements in English romance), and the Middle English reading group met for the first time this year. We are going to read Wynnere and Wastoure (it is SO bizarre to have people turn up with my edition: I "forgot" to bring in my own copy, as I always find it hard to return to work I have done in the past).

I was very nervous — as I am every single year — before actually meeting the people in my honours class (9 enrolments and two or three auditing: perfect numbers), and being in the room with the 80 3rd year students. But now I have crossed that bridge, the semester looks as if the teaching will be fun.

Last night three of my girlfriends came over for a glass of wine after dinner. Sometimes these four families all get together: our sons are all about the same age, and have shared different childcare, kindergarten, primary and secondary schools. In fact, three of the boys are currently forming a little jazz trio (bass, drums, piano), so our pride knows almost no bounds.

But last night was girls' night, and very pleasant it was too. Just at the end, after one had gone, another started talking about Robbie Burns. She's a Scot, and an actor and is learning "To a Mouse" as a Christmas present for someone in her family. With a little prompting, she slipped into character, accent and voice, and performed it for us: utterly mesmerising. What a lovely way to set us up for Friday.

I was in the office this morning wrestling with the software and the workpoints; and then some more cumbersome software for some last minute additions to the "publications workbench" for the online record of research, but now I'm home. I'm going to tidy my study; do a little Italian homework; then head down to the gym, and get ready for Friday night.

There and back again

Wednesday, Jan 27.

I’m writing this on a plane from Melbourne to Perth. After a goodly 75 minutes sitting on the tarmac we’re now apparently making good time. We’re heading west, and into a late summer sunset. There’s a disc of burnished gold reflected on the wing outside my window, and we’re flying over miles and miles of flat-looking clouds. The white tip of the wing, behind me, is pointing up, just at the point where deep pink meets deep blue. As I look across the clouds into the west, the lines of blue are fading into pink and gold, and little scraps of dark grey cloud look like low rock formations rising up from still, golden waters.

Today was my first gig at speaking on behalf of the English programme as head. It was Academic Advice Day, when the new students come on campus to shop for subjects, and we all spruik our wares. Someone told me that’s a uniquely Australian word. Spruiking is not entirely dignified, but I tend to find it’s ok if you embrace the genre. And it wasn’t hard for me and two colleagues to talk up our programme. Even though our staff numbers are lowish, we’re a good team, I think, of energetic and productive researchers and teachers. What I must do soon is finalise my teaching materials for first semester. There’s another month before classes start, and yet I am already behind the various deadlines for getting stuff printed.

Tomorrow is a one-day symposium at UWA on medievalism and modernity. A bunch of us who attended the Wollongong symposium are heading there: Chris Jones, Seeta Chaganti, Louise D’Arcens and me. Also, two PhD students from UWA are presenting.

Update: two days later I’m on the plane coming home. Leaving around 11 in the morning, I touch down at 5.30 in the afternoon, because of the 3-hour time delay. It’s an odd way to spend a day, mostly in transit. We’re flying in bright sunlight, in a brand-new shiny plane with a new slick-looking entertainment system. Little screens on the back of the seat in front of you in economy class is a good look, and the seats seem a reasonable distance from each other for once. I started with Clare Bowditch and Prince, but now I have Scarlatti —  La Santissima Trinità — on the headsets, an empty seat next to me, and a bunch of work and reading to do.

The symposium was good. Seeta and Chris both gave excellent papers I’d not heard before. Both write and speak so beautifully about poetry and poetics: I found it quite inspiring to listen to them, and am going to pinch some of the poems from Chris’s paper on twentieth-century revivals of Old English poetic tradition for a lecture I’ll give half-way through my “Romancing the Medieval” subject on medievalism in English poetic tradition. I’m also going to try and recover something of the energetic love of poetry both demonstrated in their papers. Louise and I both gave papers we’d heard each other give before: Louise on comic medievalist tourism, with some lovely stuff on faciality and the idea of laughing in the face of the middle ages such tourism makes possible. I presented the paper I gave last week at Wollongong on medievalism in Australian parliamentary practice. I have to say I’m not really good at doing that, and probably should have insisted on giving something else. I tried to recover the nervous energy and adrenaline this second time around, but still felt a bit flat as I was speaking, until I couldn’t find pages 10-12. That got me going a bit better, and I remembered what fun it is to fly without a safety net. I think this time I made the mistake of half-writing the paper. I didn’t have a word-perfect script, but I had a lot of text. So it was too tempting to read, not talk. I don’t do that — talk to my paper — as often as I should. Chris did it beautifully, so I must remember, next time, how lovely it is to listen to someone speaking, not reading.

The great irony of this trip was a call from Pavlov’s Cat, in Melbourne for the day. Curses!

Oh look: lunch is coming down the aisle… Time to eat and then get to work.

Clearing the decks

Well, I said a few days ago that I had finished my essay, which I am now calling "Transparent Walls: Stained Glass and Cinematic Medievalism." But there was one more stage, to send it to a few people to read. One came back with some extraordinarily helpful technical advice; the other drew attention to the embarrassingly large number of apologies, signposts and diffuse explanations that were really clogging up the essay. I'm lucky to have such good friends and relations (any one else channelling A.A. Milne with that phrase?); and have spent a cold winter's day correcting mistakes, unclogging the essay, converting footnotes to endnotes and writing an abstract. I have just pressed "send" to move it off my desk onto someone else's.

We are heading out tonight to a winter solstice feast. I'm taking the two small left-over Christmas puddings I've had in the fridge for (1) six and (2) eighteen months. I poured extra brandy over them last night and they look as fresh as when they were first cooked. We are all invited to bring a seasonal poem to read, and I have been practising the first six stanzas of Henryson's Testament of Cresseid. Go here for text, with glosses and recording. But here's the text:

Ane doolie sessoun to ane cairfull dyte Suld correspond and be equivalent: Richt sa it wes quhen I began to wryte This tragedie; the wedder richt fervent, Quhen Aries, in middis of the Lent, Schouris of haill gart fra the north discend, That scantlie fra the cauld I micht defend. Yit nevertheles within myne oratur I stude, quhen Titan had his bemis bricht Withdrawin doun and sylit under cure, And fair Venus, the bewtie of the nicht, Uprais and set unto the west full richt Hir goldin face, in oppositioun Of God Phebus, direct discending doun. Throwout the glas hir bemis brast sa fair That I micht se on everie syde me by; The northin wind had purifyit the air And sched the mistie cloudis fra the sky; The froist freisit, the blastis bitterly Fra Pole Artick come quhisling loud and schill, And causit me remufe aganis my will. For I traistit that Venus, luifis quene, To quhome sum tyme I hecht obedience, My faidit hart of lufe scho wald mak grene, And therupon with humbill reverence I thocht to pray hir hie magnificence; Bot for greit cald as than I lattit was And in my chalmer to the fyre can pas. Thocht lufe be hait, yit in ane man of age It kendillis nocht sa sone as in youtheid, Of quhome the blude is flowing in ane rage; And in the auld the curage doif and deid Of quhilk the fyre outward is best remeid: To help be phisike quhair that nature faillit I am expert, for baith I have assaillit. I mend the fyre and beikit me about, Than tuik ane drink, my spreitis to comfort, And armit me weill fra the cauld thairout. To cut the winter nicht and mak it schort I tuik ane quair - and left all uther sport - Writtin be worthie Chaucer glorious Of fair Creisseid and worthie Troylus.

A day off tomorrow for cooking and having some other folk for dinner; then it's back to the Garter. I'm giving myself a day in the State Library on Monday, reading Anstis's 1724 edition of the Black Book, the Register of the Order, and will treat myself at lunchtime at Mr Tulk's cafe with the radicchio and talaggio* focaccia, which is almost as much fun to say as it is to eat.

It's very satisfying to finish and send off a discrete piece of work. I'm looking forward to returning the books and DVDs to the library, and cleaning my desk and piles of books and papers belonging to this project. I've also finished my ARC assessments, so I'm clearing the decks (desk) in all kinds of ways. Really, soon, there'll be nothing to do but finish writing this book.

taleggio. (thanks, Anthony. Yeah, Middle Scots is easy: it's the Italian that's tricky!)

Farewell to Phillie

My last night in Philadelphia. I'm just going to try and finish a report on an article tonight, then pack up in the morning, and get an early afternoon train to New York. The rest of the family are on their way, and they'll arrive there tomorrow evening.

When I think of Philadelphia, my image is that of Liberty Place. I'll paste it in again.


Of course at street level, or at the tenth floor level of my apartment, it looks nothing like this. I can't see the building from here; just some other apartment blocks and glimpses of 1930's office towers. Walking along the street you're just as likely to be huddling into your coat against the wind, or fighting with your umbrella to stop it from folding inside out. The shops are smart; the food is pretty good; the little neighbourhoods within the city are neat, too. But there are people living on the street, asking for money, or sleeping in doorways, or even just curled up on the street. People just step around them.

Last week I was in Boulder for a few days to give a talk. You fly into Denver and drive along some very very flat, low industrial terrain for about forty minutes, and then suddenly the mist clears and you can see the foothills, and then the Rockies behind them, still snow-capped, and stretching along, wider than you can take in. From everywhere you look, the mountains look quite different, and if you get to drive up into them even a little, they will take your breath away with their beauty. Cliffs, rocks and trees, with little by way of undergrowth — quite unlike the bush or the tropics. You are 5430 feet above sea level, so you feel a bit dehydrated and dizzy.

But it's a different world, in other ways, too. Boulder is a small, affluent and white city. It's sporty and outdoorsy, but also a bit of a haven for hippies, organic farmers, etc. A lovely farmer's market on Saturday morning. Extremely pleasant for people like me, though there is still poverty. We'd had a spectacular meal, indulging in the best of local produce and organic foods, and then spilled out into the streets. We saw a homeless man in a wheel chair, and I remain haunted by his face: brown skin drawn tight around staring, vacant eyes. Beth gave him some money, but I still hesitate to do so. There are good arguments for assisting organisations, rather than individuals, but I haven't done that either.

I stayed with two different friends in Boulder. One lives out in a new suburb. Eerily quiet; with very few people around, though the house was a beautiful warm and golden place inside, and surrounded by trees and trellises. But because it's only just very early spring, the trees are mostly still all white. We walked around the new estate, with houses ranging from large to enormous, and came to the rise of the hill where the old farmhouse still stood, and looked over at the mountains. It was mid-morning, and the air and the light and the mist were all a stormy blue grey; and the trees and mountains white and cloudy. Ethereal, silent and still.

My other friend's house is much closer to campus: an older, more cluttered house, and an older street, and I think a bit more neighbourly, so she has colleagues who live over the road, for example.

When I travel, I can't help but wonder what it would be like to live in the place. I could see myself in either Philadelphia or Boulder — and both universities, while quite different in style, are also very good ones. But while I sometimes hanker to be in a place where I might have more medieval colleagues, I'm very pleased to report that being here hasn't made me particularly dissatisfied with my lot. I'm also very pleased to say I've not felt too homesick, or beset by anxiety about my work.

And something of a revelation, too. Jeffrey gave me a copy of Poems for the Millennium, Volume Three, and I keep picking it up and turning up some new, or some familiar gem. Follow that link and check out the contents page if you want to see what "romantic and postromantic poetry" looks like these days.

Now, on with that report, then a little preliminary packing.

Bye, Philadelphia

Hard Times for Breast Cancer Survivors

I know there's a lot of dispute about the term "survivor" for anyone who's had cancer and is still alive. But when you read about two women, roughly your own age, who've died of breast cancer in the last week, it can be a bit tough; and you do feel like a survivor, with all the resultant complexities. Not guilt, exactly, but certainly a shiver that barely separates you and your own excellent prognosis from them and their much harder stories.

And when they are famous, there's a lot to read about them: pictures of them, their children, and reminders of their public achievements.

I think a lot of Australian women thrilled at Kerryn McCann's marathon victories, especially those with children who saw an elite athlete just powering on through with her inspirational running. She died last week at 41.

And yesterday, Dorothy Porter, a wonderful poet, also succumbed to breast cancer at the age of 54. I loved her work, and heard her read and speak a couple of times. Link to a beautiful photograph that I think is copyright-protected.

The only time I spent any different kind of time in her company was on the oak lawns in the Botanical Gardens in Melbourne, where she had invited a small group of people to celebrate the life of Gwen Harwood, who had died, also of breast cancer, a few months before. We each read our favourite poem. I read "Dialogue", an early poem addressed to a stillborn child.

If an angel came with one wish
I might say, deliver that child
who died before birth, into life.
Let me see what she might have become.
He would bring her into a room
fair skinned —— the bones of her hands
would press on my shoulderblades
in our long embrace

[She asks what brought the ghost to her; and the child replies...]

— It is none of these, but a rhythm
the bones of my fingers —— dactylic
rhetoric smashed from your memory.
Forget me again

I had never heard Gwen read this in public until I was interviewing her at the Melbourne Writers' Festival in 1992, when I was writing my book on her (you can download a full-text pdf from the e-print repository). She had agreed to do it over lunch, but all the same, had to pause, half-way through, and collect herself.

Ahhh. These women. This disease. These deaths.

Friday Garter Poetry Blogging: A Nuptial Ring

I'm willing to bet my entire fortune (heh) that whoever invented blogging did not conceive it would be used to disseminate poems written about the Order of the Garter. And who amongst us would have thought the genre would be so much fun?

Today's poem comes from the reign of James I. It's memorable for its excruciating syntax — "Catcht up the ribbon had a leg imbract/That never capor’d with a step unchast"; its unabashed avowal of the Order's homosocial bonds being like marriage — "A poesye in’t, as in a nuptiall ring"; and for its triumphal protestantism: "God keepe our King and them from Rome’s black pen".


The Originall and Continuance of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, as it was Spoken before the King’s Majestie on Saint George’s Day Last, anno domn. 1616. By W.Fennor.

Edward the Third, that truly potent King,
Whose temples worthily wore England’s Crowne,
This Noble Order, of whose fame I’ll sing,
Invents for Britaine’s trophy of renowne.
Salsburie’s Countesse hath all Ladies grac’t
That loose their garter, yet keepe honour chast.

From honor’d chastitie the Garter fell,
And in a moment rose to Royaltie;
King Edward grac’t this Ladie’s favour well,
Who humbly bends his Kingly Majesty,
Catcht up the ribbon had a leg imbract
That never capor’d with a step unchast.

The Lady dies her cheekes with tell-tale redde,
Which blabs she blushes that her garter’s found,
By him that had advanct it to a head
Which with Imperiall dignity was crown’d;
The Nobles murmur, and the King, by chance
Perceived, spoke, Hony soit qui mal y pense!

Exchanges lawlesse love for lawfull armes,
Buckles on armour, weells [wields] his warlike sword,
Beats his brac’t drums, with trumpets sounds alarms;
Thus like old Hector rode he to the field,
Subdued his foes, and for his deeds in fight,
Of the rich Garter was instal’d a Knight.

Which bred such luster in each noble brest,
As if new Troy had mustred up the sonnes
Of strong-back’t Priam, and amongst the rest,
The bold Blacke Prince to th’ field most fiercely runs,
And with his sword hammer’d in Vulcan’s forge,
Made the French Dennys kneele to English George.

For which he with the Garter was instal’d,
And made a Knight of that most Noble Order;
With many other Nobles that were call’d
Worthy by Fame, that ancient true recorder.
The Garter bred such luster in great hearts,
Each strove for excellence in armes and arts.

Saint Patrick’s Crosse did to the Garter vayle,
Saint Jaques’ Order was with anger pale;
Saint David’s leeke began to droupe i’th’tale [tail] ,
Saint Dennys he sate mourning in a dale;
Saint Andrew lookt with cheereful appetite,
As though to th’Garter he had future right.

But dragon-killing George, that still depends
Upon the Garter since Third Edward’s dayes,
In this age present hath as many friends,
As well deserving high eternall praise;
As many ages ever had before,
Never at one time better, never more.

Hannibal strove for Rome’s triumphant bayes,
Scipio for the Carthaginians’ bough;
But thanklesse Senators did dimme the rayes
Of these two worthies, and would not allow,
Nor wreath, nor branch; they died and left their fame.
Unto the glory of the Garter’s name.

Impartially a Royall King bestowes, it,
Upon some subject worthy of the wearing;
His armes advanct within a church that owes it,
The oath administred in publique hearing,
Which being falsifyed, the Honor’s crost
By heraldry, the Armes and Garter lost.

Say that a man long languishing in love,
Whose heart with hope and feare grows cold and warme;
Admit some pitty should his sweethearte move,
To knit a favour on his feeble arme;
All parts would joyne to make that one joint strong,
To oppose any that his love should wrong.

The Garter is the favour of a King,
Clasping the leg on which man’s best part stands;
A poesye in’t, as in a nuptiall ring,
Binding the heart to their liege Lord in bands;
That whilst the leg hath strength, or the arme power,
To kill that serpent would their King devoure.

For which the George is as a trophy worne,
And may it long, and long remaine with those,
Which to that excellent dignitie are borne,
As opposites unto their country’s foes.
God keepe our King and them from Rome’s black pen,
Let all that love the Garter say, Amen!

Edward's Silk or Richard's Leather? Friday Garter Poetry Blogging

While the traditional story about Edward III picking up the garter of the Countess of Salisbury (or the Queen, or some other woman) persists in English tradition, there has long been a rival theory, propounded by those who cannot accept that a military and chivalric order can have been organised around such a chance encounter, and such a "mean" item. Accordingly, it is often proposed that Edward was reviving a tradition that dates back to Richard I at the siege of Acre. Wanting to encourage his knights to further heights of courage, he is said to have promised to found an Order around a strap of leather or a buckle, perhaps, that he would take as a symbol of chivalric brotherhood. Of course this actually repeats the pattern of elevating a trivial object to symbolic greatness, through the masterful exercise of sovereign power; but it does have the advantage of displacing the messy world of women's underclothes.

In 1631, Charles Allen, writing The Battailes of Crescey and Poictiers under the Leading of King Edward the Third of That Name; and His Sonne Edward Prince of Wales, was cheerfully insouciant about the origins of the Order.


Yet in the raigne of this first sonne of Mars,
All is not sternely rugged, some delights
Sweete amorous sports to sweeten tarter-wars,
And then a dance began the garter Knights.
They dwell with love, that are with vallour fild,
And Venus doves may in a head peice build

As Sarum beauteous Countesse in a dance
Her loosened garter unawares let fall,
Renouned Edward tooke it up by chance,
Which gave that order first originall.
Thus saying to the wondring standers by.
There shall be honour to this silken ty

Some the beginning from first Richard bring,
(Counting too meanelie of this pedegree)
When he at Acon tyde a leather string
About his Soldiars legges, whose memorie
Might stir their vallour up, yet choose you whether
You’ll Edwards silke prefer, or Richards leather.

Friday Garter Poetry blogging and The Bulletin

Louise, one of my collaborators on the "Medievalism in Australian Cultural Memory" project, found this wonderful poem in The Bulletin, from August 24, 1901. I'm attaching the pdf she sent me, which is fun for the advertisements that surround the poem, but thought it worth transcribing. This poem seems to me to tap into one of the deep secrets of the Garter myth: that it is really, in the end, about sex and scandal.

Juliet Vale suggests that another of Edward III's mottos, "It is as it is" ... “is the kind of phrase that might have provided the refrain in some forms of contemporary lyric”. The Garter motto — Honi soit qui mal y pense — is easy to imagine being attached as a refrain or a chorus to lots of situations, and that's certainly how it's often used today. "Pagan"'s poem in the Bulletin seems to me of this order (pun!), especially with its emphasis on the act of saying, or singing the motto. Apologies for lack of line indentations: too hard for Blogger, I think.

To Mollie — A Flirt

Once, when our first King Edward sat
An hour apart with some fair lady,
And no one knew what they were at,
Well hidden in an arbour shady,
When they appeared, the courtiers skipped
All ways at once to hide their laughter,
For down her knees her hose had slipped
And Ned himself had donned her garter.

The gallant monarch saw at once
The reason of their titillation,
And "Honi soit qui mal y pense!"
He cried, and saved the situation.

I know a girl who's not a prude,
And hardly takes her life sedately,
But who is willing to be wooed,
And finds her fun commensurately;
So when upon a verse I start,
To drive away my melancholy,
'Tis natural that the rhymer's art
Should seek a sound to echo— "Mollie."

What power have all of Slander's tongues
To wound you, Mollie, or to hurt you?
Sing "Honi soit qui mal y pense,"
And show your dainty heels to Virtue.

Though such as she no chances give
To even the wittiest Faith's Defenders,
(For modern girls, as I believe,
Secure their hose with silk "suspenders")—
Still does that naughty spirit wake
Which spurred a king to sport so shocking;
And should a silken ribbon break,
You may find Cupid in the stocking.

Here let me mention sans offense
A fact empirically shown, dear;
(Sing "Honi soit qui mal y pense")
My chaussure fits you like your own, dear.

Dear Mollie! when you settle down,
The moon of some suburban heaven,
And twice a week go into town
Instead of every day in seven;
When Something in a pinafore
Has taught you what it is to marry,
Yet strangers think the darling more
Like neighbor Ned than husband Harry;

And, once outside your gate, commence
To hint untruths about your figure
(Oh, Honi soit qui mal y pense!) —
I'll hid behind my hedge and snigger.




Thanks, Louise! I would never have found this, and it's a beauty! And ... er ... dear readers, I would love to hear of any allusions or usages of this motto you come across. I have a fairish collection, but would love more. I will immediately put your name in my acknowledgements page (one of the best parts of the book to write!).

Friday Poetry (Garter) blogging on Saturday

Just in the airport about to come back from a wonderful conference in Perth, on which more later.... But I want to honour my proposal of blogging some poems on the Garter. This is an extract from George Peele's 1593 Honour of the Garter, in which the poet experiences a vision of Edward III and rehearses without embarrassment the traditional story about Edward, the lady and her garter. It's a full-on version of Elizabethan triumphalism.

Note that at the end of this section, Peele describes Kings and Queens wearing garters around their arms. We certainly have evidence of this practice for women in a couple of C15 effigies, but here it seems to be men as well as women doing it.


Yet was the welkin cleare, nor smoke nor dust
Anoyd myne eyes: I gazd, and as I looked,
Me thought this hoste of ayrie armed men,
Girt Windsore Castle rounde. Anon I saw
Vnder a Canapie of Crymson bysse,
Spangled with gold and set with siluer bels,
That sweetlie chimed, and luld me halfe a sleepe,
A goodly king in robes most richly dight.
The vpper, like a Romaine Palliament,
In deede a Chapperon, for such it was;
And looking neerer, loe vpon his legge,
An auncient badge of honour I espyed.
A Garter brightly glistring in mine eye,
A worthy ornament. Then I cald to minde,
What Princely Edward, of that name the third,
King Edward for his great atchiuements famed,
What he began; The order of S. George,
That at this day is honoured through the world.
The order of the Garter so ycleepd.
A great effect, grown of a slender cause,
Graced by a King, and fauoured of his feeres,
Famed by his followers, worthy Kings and Queenes,
That to this day are Soueraignes of the same.
The manner how this matter grew at first.
Was thus. The King disposed on a time
To reuell after he had shaken Fraunce,
(O had he brauely helde it to the last)
And deckt his Lyons with their flowre de Lyce,
Disposed to reuell: Some say otherwise,
Found on the ground by Fortune as he went
A Ladies Garter: But the Queenes I troe
Lost in a daunce, and tooke it vp himselfe.
It was a silken Ribban weaued of blewe.
His Lords and standers by, seeing the King
Stoope for this Garter, smiled: as who would say,
Our office that had beene, or somwhat els.
King Edward vvistlie looking on them all,
With Princely hands hauing that Garter ceazd,
From harmelesse hart vvhere honour was engraued,
Bespake in French (a could the language well)
And rife was French those dayes with Englishmen;
They went to schoole to put together Townes,
And spell in Fraunce with Feskues made of Pikes.
Honi Soit Qui mal y pense, quoth he,
Wherewith vpon aduizement, though the cause
Were small, his pleasure and his purpose was
T'aduance that Garter, and to institute
A noble order sacred to S. George:
And Knights to make, whom he would haue be tearmed
Knights of the Garter. This beginning had
This honourable order of our time.
Heereon I thought when I beheld the King,
But swifter then my thought by that I saw,
And words I heard, or seemed to heare at least,
I was instructed in the circumstance:
And found it was King Edward that did march
In robes, like those he ware when with his Lords,
He held S. Gorges royall Feast on earth,
His eldest sonne surnamed the Blacke Prince,
Though black of hue, that surname yet in Fraunce
He wan; For terror to the Frenchmens harts
His countenance was, his Sword an Iron scourge.
He one a cole-black Coorser mounted was,
And in his hand a battel-axe he hent:
His Beuer vp, his Corslet was of Steele,
Varnisht as black as Iett: his bases blacke,
And black fro head to foote, yea horse and hoofe
As black as night; but in a twinck me thought
A chaungd at once his habite and his Steede,
And had a Garter as his father had.
Right rich and costly, with embroyderie
Of Pearle and Gold. I could on it discerne,
The Poesie whereof I spake of yore;
And well I wot since this King Edwards dayes,
Our Kings and Queenes about theyr royall Armes,
Haue in a Garter borne this Poesie.

Three Excruciatingly Personal Blog Entries, No. 1A

Two days ago, I posted an entry that began like this:

The new academic year is about to descend upon us, and all kinds of cycles are drawing to a close. I'm now into my second year of breast cancer treatment, and settled into a routine of monthly injections and daily tablets. The blog has also seen me through an entire cycle of applying for a research grant (this was one of its initial aims), through first-time rejection to second-time success. I've finally made the breakthrough of making the Garter book my highest priority, the first thing I do on a good day, while I'm also just about managing to juggle the several other projects I have in hand, as well as fulfilling my teaching and administrative obligations.

It seems to me that the Humanities Researcher blog may also be winding up this phase in its life. Before I make any big decisions, though, I have in mind to write three long posts. Each will be full of embarrassing personal revelations, and each will test to the limit the territory I think of this blog as inhabiting, as space in which I attempt to reason my way through some of the personal and emotional vicissitudes of intellectual work in academic and familial communities. This first entry takes its spark from a recent event, and will become a second-order meditation on privacy and the personal in the poetic text: the relationship between poetry and life, if you will. The second will be the long-promised Menopause Post. Third will be the most embarrassing of all, when we move from emotions and the body to the world of spirit.

The entry then launched into a long post that did indeed test to the limit my sense of how personal a blog entry could be. It was about a poem written by a former partner that seemed to refer to me by a mole on my shoulder. I might not even have seen the poem, except that my beloved spoke to me about it. The blog entry then tried to untangle the knot of emotions about poems (and blogs) that seem to refer so closely to people's intimate lives, and the way poems (and blogs) can be read as personalised messages, while seeming to be impersonal or intellectual or artistic exercises. I wrote about how uncomfortable, even angry, I had felt previously (sixteen or seventeen years ago) when people would ask me about the poems the poet had written about me after our break-up, even though they could be read perfectly well without knowing anything about me (or him, for that matter). Despite our best formalist reading practices, we still love a good autobiographical reading. And how much more so with blogging.

I wrote, as I say, to test the limits of what I felt my blog could do; and I still plan to write the next two entries in the series. But if the test of this is "how do you sleep at night?", the answer is, "very badly indeed". That's two nights, now, I have been awake between three and five, anxious about the potential for damage and hurt and the infringement of others' privacy. So I've deleted the bulk of that post. (Of course, I've kept a copy for myself. You never know!) I'm keeping the comments box alive there, because part of this process is rehearsed there, in the remarks of some of the bloggers I admire most; and as usual, Pavlov's Cat has helped me articulate how I feel. And of course I'm glad they got to read the post. But now I'm glad its potential for emotional damage has been restricted. I must also thank the blogger who wrote to me off-line (I had you in mind as I was writing, I hope you realise!).

If you missed that post, you haven't missed any great or scandalous revelations; heavens, the poem in question is far more revelatory of whoever that woman is than my blog entry was about the poem's readers!

I wonder, though, am I cheating the blog genre, by putting out my post and winning such lovely engaged comments from my readers, and then withdrawing it?

I remember being very struck by reading Ross Chambers' Story and Situation, in which he distinguished between narrative and narratorial authority. Narrative authority belongs to the story-teller at the beginning of the narration, and is gradually passed on to the reader as the story is told, as they take possession, as it were, of the story. But by giving their attention, and hopefully, their admiration for the way the story is told, the reader or listener gives back narratorial authority. It seems to me that this episode is in large part about narratorial authority. Who gets to write about whose body, and publishes it where? And who reads that text, and who gives that text to someone else? And in the case of a blog, who gets to post, and who gets to delete?

But in terms of my three Excruciatingly Personal Blog Entries that test the limits of the blog, this has got to be a definite strike. Two more to go.