I Meant It

My graduate seminar for next semester is not going to happen.  I didn't get enough students. My topic was going to be interartistic approaches to literature. My reaction, in front of some of my colleagues, was to say "Oh, well when I eventually do get to teach it then I will be smarter than I am now so that course will be even better." Of course, I actually did mean it.  I am still learning things every day so of course by the time I get to teach it I will know more about musicology and art history. My colleagues were laughing at me, of course.  Since they know me very well they have that right.  

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I used to resent those approaches because I felt poetry was enough by itself. I still resent half-assed approaches to it, for the same reason. I had a phase where I felt you had to do something with poetry, translate it or set it to music or film, that the analytic approach was too narrow. That was because of my own learning process. I realized that I was taking for granted to ability to read the damned text. That cannot be taken for granted in the least. It turns out to be amazingly difficult to do interartistic approaches.