Post Here if You're Procrastinating - The Oxford Chat Thread Mk2

I'm back in Oxford tomorrow, and there's so much to do: look into signing up to a course in the Language Centre, apply for internships and try and organise a the hire of a portable miniature railway (that's a shameless plug for the 2013 Exeter College Ball).

When will the ball be held?

Also, miniature railways?! Is there some kind of transportation theme?

They should really get better filtering so we don't get stuff aimed at postgrads...

Did you get the email from Sophie Marnette? I'm quite apprehensive about Medieval...


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Ooooooh you're French medievalists! I love SM and HS, especially the latter. Excuse me for butting in on your conversation, but which topics are you covering?

And don't worry about there being too much to do - we have it easy compared to many of the modernists, in that our texts are generally much shorter and so can just be pretty much re-read before writing an essay...

Yes, I get the feeling that it's more onerous than any of the other papers because there's a lot more to read? It certainly feels like the most important at the moment, but I suppose that's because nearly all my summer reading has been for paper VI. It's the only literature paper I'm doing - I imagine you're doing others though?

I must admit that was partly my motivation for choosing Medieval, even if things like Le Roman de la Rose aren't exactly light reads....

Sophie Marnette has always scared me a little for some reason....


I have a few questions about the paper if that's ok?




I've chosen to do:
Early:
Verse romances (Chrétien de Troyes)
Prose Romances - La Mort le roi Artu
Early Lyric
Fabliaux
Le Roman de la Rose

Later:
Other narratives - Jehan de Saintré (Chosen totally arbitrarily)
Later lyric poetry
Theatre

Sorry for inundating you with questions! I'm just a bit worried about Medieval - much more so than any other aspect of FHS.

I'm doing lyric poetry, narrative poetry, verse romances (Tristan), prose romances and humour from the early topics, and lyric poetry, narrative poetry and François Villon from the late topics. Just went for the standard-sounding ones and the entertaining-sounding ones

Sounds good! I'll ignore the growing suspicion that I haven't paid enough attention in my reading (usually for ten minutes on the train on my way to work at the moment ...) and look forward to it


Yes, I get the feeling that it's more onerous than any of the other papers because there's a lot more to read? It certainly feels like the most important at the moment, but I suppose that's because nearly all my summer reading has been for paper VI. It's the only literature paper I'm doing - I imagine you're doing others though?

Don't worry (about the questions and the course). SM can appear a bit scary, but she is really lovely and gives excellent feedback on essays. I did Fabliaux, Early Lyric, Chansons de Geste, Verse Romances (Marie de France), Farces, Charles d'Orléans, Christine de Pizan and Alain Chartier. I wish I had done hagiography instead of some of the poetry, and perhaps more theatre in general, but I loved the Fabliaux, Farces, Chartier, Christine and Marie. The lectures are really great as well - go to as many as you can at the beginning, even if you're not studying the specific topics as it's really helpful for background knowledge. Especially if Huw is doing any this year!

Well.. normally you would do your period paper in Michaelmas/Hilary 2nd year, and it is good to get it out of the way. There is no real benefit I don't think to splitting it, but I don't suppose it would matter that much if you had to. I thought I heard that SM was going to be on sabbatical in Michaelmas, but if you're having a meeting with her, then presumably I'm incorrect. Anyway, I'm a keeno medievalist and doing all medieval French, so I study Roland, Tristan and Villon anyway, and I'm planning on doing my special subject on the Rose.

Which other medieval paper - Paper III? I don't do that as it's just for French soles, but I would if I could!

I love Molière! Nearly picked him ...

Glad you like linguistics, given that some people get on with it and others (for some reason! ) don't. Quite a lot of Prelims phonetics was learning the phonetic alphabet - I think it started off as everyone's favourite topic last year. I've almost come to the point where I can't imagine studying a language without knowledge of linguistics, though.

Thanks for the info!

I meant the Roland/Villon/Tristan paper - that requires a translation/commentary right? The language in Villon isn't too far off modern French though.

I think for Paper III I can avoid doing medieval translation because they have a wide range of passages from different periods.

Oh wow, are you doing all medieval topics for Spanish as well?

I had lots of maths to do today. So I made instant friend kits for my college kids instead.

I thought that as time went on, I'd get better at packing and gradually reduce how much stuff I take — but the car was fuller than ever today.

I'm having my 3rd or 4th existential crisis since I graduated Oxford. It really does instill in you the necessity for a clear, focused life plan, doesn't it? It's been 4 months and I'm still nowhere.

Another piece of Oxford exceptionalism bites the dust.

From June 2013 Oxford graduands will be invited to a specific degree day. I think the implications are that it will be expected that you graduate either in person or in absentia on that day and that if you do not accept that invitation, there will be no guarantee of when you might be able to graduate in person in the future.

Gone will be the idea that you choose when to take your degree.

Another piece of Oxford exceptionalism bites the dust.

From June 2013 Oxford graduands will be invited to a specific degree day. I think the implications are that it will be expected that you graduate either in person or in absentia on that day and that if you do not accept that invitation, there will be no guarantee of when you might be able to graduate in person in the future.

Gone will be the idea that you choose when to take your degree.

Another piece of Oxford exceptionalism bites the dust.

From June 2013 Oxford graduands will be invited to a specific degree day. I think the implications are that it will be expected that you graduate either in person or in absentia on that day and that if you do not accept that invitation, there will be no guarantee of when you might be able to graduate in person in the future.

Gone will be the idea that you choose when to take your degree.