The hour badly spent

Among English majors — well, the fun ones, not  — there is an unspoken race to make sex the topic of conversation. Wednesday afternoon, in the process of reviewing for an impending exam, I found out that winning isn’t everything. Rhymes With Fairy and I discussed Alan Seeger’s poem, "I Have a Rendezvous With Death."

I have a rendezvous with Death    
At some disputed barricade,    
When Spring comes back with rustling shade    
And apple-blossoms fill the air—    
I have a rendezvous with Death            
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.    
It may be he shall take my hand    
And lead me into his dark land    
And close my eyes and quench my breath—    
It may be I shall pass him still.            
I have a rendezvous with Death    
On some scarred slope of battered hill    
When Spring comes round again this year    
And the first meadow-flowers appear.    
 
God knows ’twere better to be deep            
Pillowed in silk and scented down,    
Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep,    
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,    
Where hushed awakenings are dear …    
But I’ve a rendezvous with Death            
At midnight in some flaming town,    
When Spring trips north again this year,    
And I to my pledged word am true,    
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

Pompous English Major: It’s a strangely erotic poem.  It’s written in the language of love, with sexual imagery. I think exaggerating the erotic with the valorisation of Death mocks Romantic ideals.
Rhymes With Fairy: Erotic? I don’t see it that way.
Pompous English Major: "Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep?" Come on. That’s clearly a wet dream.
Rhymes With Fairy: No! I don’t wanna look at the poem like that.
Pompous English Major: "I close my eyes and quench my breath." Come on. It’s an orgasm.
Rhymes With Fairy: Fine, you’re right.
Pompous English Major: Well, what do you think of it?
Rhymes With Fairy: I hate you. [ed. note: not really]

British Survey has been pretty tedious lately. Medieval literature is all "the grace of God this," "forgiveness through Christ that." What a drag. It’s started to feel like going to church, except without all the fun "God Damn America" bits (what’s your church like?). But today we covered Sonnet 135, and Wendy Matlock promised some good stuff.

"It’s always important, in a literature class, to get the sex. We’ve been neglecting that lately." Speak for yourself, Green-stripey-socks-Matlock. Without further ado:

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy ‘Will,’
And ‘Will’ to boot, and ‘Will’ in overplus;
More than enough am I that vex thee still,
To thy sweet will making addition thus.
Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
Shall will in others seem right gracious,
And in my will no fair acceptance shine?
The sea all water, yet receives rain still
And in abundance addeth to his store;
So thou, being rich in ‘Will,’ add to thy ‘Will’
One will of mine, to make thy large ‘Will’ more.
Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill;
Think all but one, and me in that one ‘Will.’

I know this was supposed to be sexy, but maybe can we skip the stuff written by other dudes about their own penises? It invokes my castration complex. Kthxbai.

Leave it to an English professor to use a high-minded subject like medieval literature as an excuse to flirt with students and fixate on sex, thus guaranteeing a captive audience.

"I’m a big geek," she said, going on to prove it by explaining that she watched the special features on her Lord of the Rings DVDs, which gave her insight into armor worn by medieval knights. Hell yeah that’s hot, and that’s not all.

Today’s topic was the lais (songs performed in 13th and 14th century Europe) written by Marie de France. What are lais usually about? Matlock explained by means of what she called a bad joke: "A lai is basically a brief romance." Actually that was an excellent joke.

One lai was about Lanval, a knight in King Arthur’s court. Depressed, Lanval went off into the forest and fell in love with a magic pixie dream girl. She loved him back and blessed him with wealth. Lanval grew generous at court, and people started to like him.

Once Lanval’s status rose among his peers, Queen Guinivere went after his nuts (and failed). Matlock made kissey noises to illustrate her point.

Later we discussed Tristan and Isolde, a timeless tale illustrating the pleasure of adulterous lovers being together. Matlock was satisfied that the movie "had pretty people." (We like when teachers take backhanded swipes at subject matter).

By the end of the class, there was more material to examine, but not enough time for it. "I skipped the part about celibacy," she said. "You can read that by yourself if you’re interested."

Did she just tell us to go masturbate? We were going to do that anyway.

I asked him why he doesn’t date the Chinese girl who tutors him in English. He told me he prefers girls with big chests. He called it "volume up."