So I'm taking this Early American Literature class. I opted to take it instead of Early British Literature so I wouldn't have to read Beowulf. Maybe I'll have to read that book sometime just to see if it's worse than what I'm reading now. So far readings for my class have consisted of journal entries from Native Americans and early American Colonists. Borrring! I did find it interesting to read Christopher Columbus's journal, and I never knew Benjamin Franklin was funny, but all in all the class is rather dull.
I was pretty excited when my professor told us we'd be reading "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" for Monday's class. I was having flashbacks to the cartoon I used to watch as a kid during Halloween. Good ol' Ichabod Crane. Let's just say I'm not even halfway through the story yet, and I decided writing this post was a much better alternative. Leave it to the Colonists to make what should be a scary ghost story the equivalent of an excerpt from the driest history textbook.
Here's my theory about early American Lit: No one who came over on the Mayflower was a decent writer, so what I'm reading is the kind of crap the settlers had to put up with while they were waiting for a new book to be sent over from the motherland. And now I have to spend a semester learning about the early Americans' inability to write anything anyone would want to read. I can't wait till we start reading The Scarlet Letter. The sooner we finish, the sooner I can burn it.
The good thing is my friend Michael Kocher stopped by a couple nights ago on his way back to Canada. Hooray for good friends!
5 comments:
I have to say, that class is a lot duller than I expected it to be. Although I'm glad we aren't reading Beowulf. I've had to read bits before. Interesting story but a much harder read than what we are reading now.
Maybe Michael can handle that burning of the book for you! You are so funny! This WAS good literature for the colonists because they had nothing else to compare it to!!! Excitement in life was a little different when all you wanted to do was survive. And maybe gossip a little ;o)
Dude. I HATE The Scarlett Letter. I decided to read it for fun because I was never made to in any of my English classes so I felt a little left out. Um I threw it against the wall when I was about halfway through and nothing in the book had been accomplished at all. That is all. I feel bad for you.
I hope you haven't read any William Bradford yet. She's terrible. Just wait till you get to Emerson. You'll wish you were having a polite lunch with Mary Rowlandson and all of the other cooky puritans.
They didn't understand that good literature involves something thats actually interesting. Indians don't count.
I think the trouble is the person deciding that that is "good literature". These people could have been writing gobbledygook to cure their boredom.
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