The Mirror in my Mind

After reading two articles referencing aforementioned chronicle and finishing the first series of Doctor Who, my new mental image of Edward IV is Captain Jack.

In a mad sort of way, it works. Both are very good in wartime but somewhat problematic in peacetime, both are incredibly charming and will sleep with anything that moves, and both are generally cleverer than they are given credit for being, although if Jack dies of a heart attack after overeating himself into a stupor, it would be truly awful.

ETA 2:10 AM: The articles used segments of the chronicle to posit that Edward IV may have been bisexual. I'd accept it as a possibility, though not based on those particular segments, which may well have been using 'love' in a nonsexual way. Who knows? Subtext, how I love thee.

( Why doesn't Edward IV get any love? Cut to spare the uninterested. )

Anyway, all of this is in an effort to avoid writing that introduction to my dissertation outline that justifies its existence. I have a page of semi-incoherent ramblings about appropriation of women as characters that is only partly related to the cultural framework of queenship but has far more to do with the twisting of those frameworks to fit the needs of propaganda...which is the right idea, but not in any way that makes sense.

On a completely unrelated note, I did notice this in the film, but it is rather staggering how good Joaquin Phoenix sounds when he sings Johnny Cash.

ETA 2:10 AM: More thoughts added under the cut.

Still not better. Voice sounds slightly better, but is now interspersed with violent coughing fits. I'm not very fun to be around right now, but unfortunately the computer is still incommunicada, which leaves me no recourse but the library. Where there are other people constantly distracted by aforementioned coughing fits. I feel horrible about it, which makes me try to stifle the coughing, which makes it worse, which...you get the picture.

At least today's Chronicle of Choice was short and to the point. Well, one of them was. I actually managed to transcribe all relevant bits by hand in a reasonable amount of time. The other one, I've asked the lovely people at the counter to keep in hopes that my computer will magically reappear in the next five days. I know there was a time when everyone transcribed by hand, and that I have no right to complain...but I intend to complain anyway.

::deep breath::

It takes too long. And it hurts my hand, which has developed this inexplicable cramp between the thumb and forefinger. Plus, if I get distracted, my handwriting becomes practically illegible, which is not helpful in the least.

I did finally finish Charles Ross's biography of Richard III. He seems to espouse the 'he really was no better and no worse than any other person around him' theory. Which is fine with me; I'm actually finding that to be my theory of choice these days. He just seems content to set out the information and let the reader decide what they think. Plus, he points out the foibles of both sides of the Ricardian debate equally, and he's actually very nice to P.M. Kendall. Of course, this is pre-Weir, so I have no idea what he'd think of her.

One of my stack requests got cancelled, much to my annoyance. It happened to be the article about Pope Pius II who decided on a whim to compare Marguerite of Anjou to Joan of Arc, and I was really looking forward to that, simply because it's an odd notion and moderately amusing. Supposedly, the Upper Camera Reserve has it, and I might try to make it there after stopping by the English Library to pick up copies of Shakespeare's various Henry VI plays.

I'm trying to decide if I want to go to a lecture tonight. It sounds interesting (19th Century Literature and the Bible), but I'm tired. And I've run out of sugar, which is something of a calamity in my world. At any rate, I've got half an hour to decide, so we'll see.

THIS is why I'm writing a dissertation on literary afterlives of historical figures. Because people think it's interesting! Because it provokes arguments! Because angevin2 occasionally makes awesome fingerpuppet videos involving said literary afterlives of historical figures.

(And because I'm a huge nerd. But moving on...)

This whole thing began after several people (myself among them) made joking comments about Shakespeare's Richard III being a Tudor hackjob. For me, it was joking. I don't know about anyone else. She then posted a very clear and interesting response that points out the flaws in the 'hackjob' theory, linked above. Personally, I'd love to see junediamanti and a_t_rain's thoughts on the subject.

( For those who are curious, ramblings regarding the late and occasionally lamented Richard III and Tudor Hackjobbery follow )

In other news, note to self re: Oxford weather -- It doesn't matter how warm it is in the morning. Nor does it matter that you're planning to spend several hours in a library. It's the middle of October. Wear a coat. Because Murphy's Law demands that the day you leave the house wearing a sleeveless top is the day you return to the house in very cold rain.

At least I've started keeping the umbrella with me at all times.

Picked up last term's essays. Suffice it to say the weather echoed my mild to moderate terror of this particular errand. It's been raining all day.

They were...lower than I wanted.

I passed both of them, thank God. If I hadn't, I'd probably be suffering a nervous breakdown right now. And, thanks to my very high mark from first term, my average has barely scraped past the minimum mark for the Ph.D. programme.

It's ironic that the essay I was more confident about was the one that came out with the lower mark. I was sure I'd written a nice, coherent piece, but apparently it contained rather large logistical gaps that I just hadn't seen. I managed to scrape the mark they gave me, on account of the vast amounts of research. Thank goodness it counted for something; I certainly spent enough time on it.

Of course, the silver lining on the cloud is that the essay that picked up the High Pass mark is the jumping-off point for my dissertation. And most of the problems pointed out by the examiner--i.e. lack of secondary sources, no real discussion of the parallels between Dumas' theatre and fiction, etc--are all things that will be dealt with in detail in the dissertation.

So I suppose it all evens out cosmically.

I think I'm going to drop my clothing into the washing machine and have a drink. Preferably something alcoholic. I don't care that it's the middle of the afternoon. Sometimes you just need alcohol.