Hello! I'm sure many of you are reading this and expecting I
talk about Utopia, not just due to the fact that a Utopia posting would be on
schedule, but maybe because you wanted to see what your classmate thought of
such a difficult reading? (I hope it isn't just me who has found Utopia so
intimidating. Because let me admit it…I really, really do.)
Anyway…I guess what I'm trying to say is that well…I won't
be speaking about the Utopia reading. Not yet. At least, not about the content
directly. To be honest, I'm still trying to muddle through it, gaping at the
sentences that you'd think would be run-on sentences, but are somehow
grammatically correct. I'm groaning at the sight of such generous use of semi-colons,
and wondering why on earth he doesn't just use the incredibly practical period.
But whatever. As I'm sputtering out what are probably fragmented sentences, More
is showcasing his broad knowledge of grammatical structure. Is it awful that I
find him pretentious for it? Because truly…even if writing is more flowery in
older texts, why would anyone go out of his way to use a more difficult form of
grammar unless he is trying to showcase his own intelligence?
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| STOP. |
I suppose the question I have is…is this one of the first
uses of prose in literature? Is this what it was like to write a novel in the
16th century? I can't even say this is prose in its infancy, because
at any rate, it seems that prose has regressed on the evolutionary timeline.
This form of prose is intricate, and almost seems to be a code in need of breaking.
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| Is this true? |
And I…I…I miss Chaucer! I miss him like a sixth grader misses elementary school (or was that just me). I'm not sure his language was much easier (well, I found it to be, now that I think about it) but that once translated, what he was saying was more relatable. Funny, if you will.
I'm sure there's some simple answer to the plot of Utopia
and that I'm making an ass of myself, but upon reading the first page I was
bombarded with leviathan sentences about kings, friends of kings, and something
about an agreement about land or money or whatever kings worry about. The philosopher we meet,
Hyrholday is apparently an “expert in nonsense,” which confuses me more because
I was hoping the philosopher would help me understand the plot more. It's similar to The Pardoner in Canterbury
Tales, who straight up told us he would be telling us a lie.
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| I Googled "nonsense." I got Darth Vader with a Brita filter. Okay. |
However, there's a character that Chaucer created that makes
me miss Canterbury Tales and tempts me to read more of it. Who else than the Wife
of Bath? Oh, how I miss her. She was a character ahead of her time. A woman who
was both sexually powerful and intelligent, a strong, clever woman who was
snuck into 15th century literature when women were not yet thought
of as such. How realistic she was to me. And oh, how I hope that there will be
a character as likable as her in Utopia.
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| WOB...AKA Scarlet O' Hara to me |
Dr. MB said that other students have loved it, so I will
keep an open mind. That being said, the book is looking at me menacingly as I
write. I suppose I better give it another go…
So when I told Rory today that Book II of "Utopia" would be better than Book I, I was actually taking a wild (eh, we will call it semi-educated) guess. This guess was based on the fact that, struggling to focus on reading the first book, I flipped through the second and noticed these wonderful little page breaks that let you know what the author was going to address in that section. I must say that reading the second book is definitely going much better than the first did. I felt like I was going out of my mind with the giant sentences and the free use of the the word "I". Ugh, it was not easy getting through 38 pages of that. At this point, half way through the second book, I still kind of like the "Canterbury Tales" better. Yes, the language was more difficult, but I too feel that it was more relatable. I am enjoying "Utopia" more than I was, but Chaucer gave me characters to hate and root for. We do not really get that in "Utopia". It feels more like a "How to" book than anything.
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