My Paper Topic - Finally!

Alright, I know I haven't blogged in a long time... like last semester, I'm having trouble keeping up with my blogs this semester. After discussion with Dr. Sexson, I think I have an idea for my final paper.

I took a class from Dr. Kimberly Myers a few years ago (British Literature, I believe?) and she talked a lot about the melancholy poets and how from the awful and divine state of melancholy can spring some of the most epiphanical experiences. In fact, she was more enamoured with the idea of melancholy and poetics than anyone I have ever met. I think I want to focus my final paper on this state of melancholy and the work that has been produced from this state of being or a state of being a direct reflection of the melancholy work.

I hope to focus on Theodore Roethke, citing both 'The Far Field' and 'The Waking' in my paper, and will also focus on Hamlet as one of the most melancholy figures in literary history. I want to draw from some of the poets I touched on with Kimberly Myers, like Keats, Wordsworth, and Yeats, but I haven't sorted all of that out yet.

In many cases, melancholy is a state in which one almost has to exist in order to reach some sort of higher consciousness, found in many characters in literary history and even in the poets doing the writing. It's an awful state because it is one, like Roethke said, where people 'learn by going where they HAVE to go' instead of where they want to go. It's beautiful because there is nothing that exists which is more bittersweet than being in this state of melancholy. I have specific notes at home from Dr. Sexson which I will probably post later.

My paper will probably touch on the same topics as Katie Mason (light epiphanies from dark experiences), but I want to focus more on the dark experiences and dark epiphany. Not all epiphanic experiences can be light, a common misconception.
Honestly, life is short and difficult and slippery and dark ... and the realization of this may open up the mind to more epiphanical experiences than anyone can imagine. Dr. Sexson puts all of this far more eloquently than I can ... bollocks. More later!

Oh... and I think my title will be 'I Learn By Going Where I Have to Go', referencing Theordore Roethke, of course. And I will probably come back round to the beginning of my paper in the end. In my end of my beginning. I'll be referencing T.S. Eliot quite a bit, as well. Obviously. :)