Literature is just a collection of names that hung out with each other and exchanged references to Greek mythology. That's pretty much what the GRE Literature test preaches. If you don't know that Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Lamb spent time as neighbor's in England's "lake region," you're in the dark. If you don't know that Pater influenced Wilde, even if it's only because Wilde misinterpreted Pater's work, you have some problems. T.S. Eliot was born in America and a big Wagner fan. He also wrote some poetry. Something about peaches, or April being a bad month or something. Nobody really cares about the poetry anyway.
So that's what I'm studying, almost as we speak. Trivia and lots of it. Fortunately, I have a 15-odd year head start on the Greek mythology part of the test. I'm a bit slow on trivia about 20th century black authors, which seems to be a big part of the test, but I'm catching up quickly. And then there's the regular ol' GRE, with all it's fancy words and math. That's important too.
So I'd better be getting back to the studying, I suppose. Not much use sticking around here doing nothing. Marvell and coy mistresses and all that.
Posted by Rob at December 6, 2004 03:51 PM