Re: OT: White Goddess

At 10:50 pm -0400 10/4/01, John Cowan wrote:
>bjm10@CORNELL.EDU scripsit:
>
>> Yeah, it's called a "novel".  Graves was too self-important to admit that.
>
>Well, Graves also wrote novels, clearly labeled as such.  I have not read TWG,
>but it strikes me as analogous to Yeats' _A Vision_, which provides the
>self-designed (Yeats attributes it to "spirits") mythical underpinnings
>for much of his poetry.
Yes, I haven't read Yeats' book, but the 'self-designed ........ mythical
underpinnings for much of his poetry' sounds analogous.  But in Graves'
case it also provides the underpinning for his novels also.  Graves,
however, did not attribute the underpinning to "spirits" or, indeed,
anything supernatural - quite the reverse, in fact, he purports, as you may
have gathered, to provide factual evidence from history, literature,
comparative mythology etc.
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At 11:33 pm -0400 10/4/01, John Cowan wrote:
>(Private response)
>
>> Ray,
>> Bachelor of Arts, Master of Letters, Master of Science.
>
>My father was in full:
>
>        Thomas A. Cowan, A.B., B.A., M.A, Ph.D., LL.B., S.J.D.
>
>and could rightly be addressed as Doctor Doctor Cowan.  Later, the American
>universities retroactively changed all LL.B.'s to J.D.'s, after which
>he would have become Doctor Doctor Doctor Cowan.
Whereas I can't rightfully be addressed as even a single, solitary Doctor   :(

In case there's any misunderstanding, I didn't quote my degrees to impress
or show off - that, I think, would be silly on this list which I know
contains several Doctors (some probably with more than one doctorate) and,
I guess, a high percentage of degrees - but to show that my studies have
spanned both the arts & the sciences for, as I said, I think the division
between them is an artificial one & has not been helpful.

>These are earned degrees -- he may also have held honorary degrees.
>It all shows what you can do if it's the middle of the Depression
>and going to school seems more sensible than trying to get a job.
Whereas I had to get the master's degree while still working.  Indeed, the
M.Sc. in Computing Science was a matter of necessity - I found I was being
included in short-lists for jobs for the "fun element" - a classicist
couldn't really understand computers!  It was necessary to get the piece of
paper which showed otherwise.

Ray.



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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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