Dear reader,
As much fun as this blog has been, sadly, this will be my last post—but don’t despair! I promise, this will be a good one.
George Inness, Twilight, c. 1860, oil on canvas
Open Access…
In all honesty, when I first began this blog I was completely out of my depth. I had never made an academic blog before, and wasn’t sure what to populate it with or how to use WordPress. I had never even heard of Knowledge Commons!
Aaron Swartz protesting the Stop Online Piracy Act in 2012.
Photo by Daniel J. Sieradski, Wikimedia.
My first post was ‘”The Internet’s Own Boy,” A Documentary Memorializing the Life and Work of Aaron Swartz,’* which I chose because in those uncertain beginnings, it seemed like a safe option to respond to a text assigned in EN6009.
*As a brief side note, I began writing this blog naturally in US English, but later decided to switch to UK English. I wasn’t sure if this was necessary, as this is meant to be a more casual format, but I ultimately decided to go with British spelling and punctuation, hence the discrepency here.
The emotional film documents the early life, activism, and tragic suicide of ‘open access warrior‘ Aaron Swartz. My post analyses more the experience of viewing the film than its contents, examining my emotional response and how disclaimers forbode tragedy. I felt pain and frustration in seeing individuals such as Swartz’s ex-partner blame themselves when they were relatively powerless to their opposition. However, there is comfort in Swartz’s gains for open access.
While The Internet’s Own Boy was my proper introduction to open access, we would continue analysing the topic throughout EN6009. I made a mock journal with my peers, Opening AI, which we each contributed an article to.
My article, ‘Controversies of the New AI Elite,’ examined the powerful actors behind AI, in particular Sam Altman, CEO and co-founder of OpenAI. I also discussed the origins and morals of chatbots.
I spoke particularly about OpenAI’s controversies. Despite its name, CEO Altman has made it clear OpenAI will not be made open-source, and this lack of transparency can be disconcerting, especially alongside their allegations of copyright infringement.
OpenAI also has many ties to the Trump administration. Trump roled back Biden-era restrictions on AI, awarded the company with a defense contract in return for technology, and unveiled the Stargate Project in 2025. Trump’s campaign has also been bankrolled by these actors, pulling in massive contributions from Altman, Elon Musk, and Greg Brockman (President and co-founder of OpenAI).
Elon Musk of GrokAI (fromerly of OpenAI).
Photo by Gage Skidmore, Wikimedia.
Sam Altman of OpenAI.
Photo by Village Global, Wikimedia.
Research Seminar Responses
Because I was unfamiliar with Breakdown and Seven Steeples, my response was limited to a theoretical one. Dr. Laird aimed to prove that these novels ‘allude to the leave-no-trace movement,’ highlighting anxieties around consumerism and materialism. It was noted in the Q&A that these books are still operating within a neoliberal framework: they are preoccupied with consumption, but not production. In my blog post I pointed out the inadequacy of this approach to ecocriticism:
For novels that are interested in climate change and consumerism, they are firmly rooted in the middle class and in neoliberal frameworks that are unable to sufficiently attack the root causes of the issues they raise. […] Consuming in the ‘right’ way is entirely useless in an economic landscape where mega corporations pollute and profit endlessly.
This is not to say that writing from a middle-class perspective is a bad thing, but to say that addressing climate change and reckoning with our post-capitalist society through a neoliberal, capitalist lens is absurd. How is a working-class reader meant to empathize with the holier-than-thou farmer’s market shopper? Their means of ‘improving’ their habits of consumption are simply inaccessible to the working class, and beyond that are entirely insufficient. They effectively become tone-deaf moral posturing.
The two research seminar responses I submitted were on Dr. Heather Laird’s ‘Leave as Little Trace as Possible: Ethical Non-Consumption in Cathy Sweeney’s Breakdown and Sara Baume’s Seven Steeples,’ and Prof. Jane Degenhardt and Prof. Henry S. Turner’s ‘Shakespeare’s Dark Cosmologies.’
I believe my second response is an improvement from the first, not only because I am more familiar with Shakespeare and was able to delve deeper in my analysis, but because at that stage I had figured out how to use WordPress properly. I think the visual presentation is significantly improved because of that.
*Quotes from seminars are in quotation marks. Quotes from my blog posts are additionally indicated in bold italics in lieu of block quotation formatting.
Heliocentric, Copernican diagram of the spheres, 1660
Geocentric, Ptolemaic diagram of the spheres, BL Yates Thompson 31, fol. 66
Profs. Degenhardt and Turner ask the question:
‘If a cosmology is a system of meaning and value, requires judgement and reason, and looks at ethical questions, what is the value of dark cosmology? A cosmology of darkness, death, and disorder?’
James Caldwell, The Witches Appear to Macbeth and Banquo, 1798, etching on paper
John Singer Sargent, Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth, 1889, oil on canvas
They began first with some definitions and context:
…cosmology not only means the study of the universe, but how society constructs ideas about the universe and our world, and how this is often revealing. In studying the cosmology of Shakespeare, we are set in a world of social change and scientific advancement. Prof. Degenhardt references Copernicus’ assertion of heliocentrism, and Giordano Bruno’s assertion that the universe is infinite.
Prof. Degenhardt cites various appearances of the music of the spheres throughout Shakespeare’s work to make the claim that…
…theater at this time entertained moments of increased cosmological consciousness.
The assertion of Bruno’s infinite universe, with ‘boundless and regenerative multiplicity’ necessarily casts away the universe of harmony and perfection in exchange for one with limitless potential.
Prof. Turner explored how this dark, tumultuous, and contested cosmology of the time presents in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. We enter into a world where day and night are indistinguishable, where the natural, the supernatural, and the metaphysical are in constant conflict. The struggle between the physical and the metaphysical generates a cosmological challenge. Turner identifies the witches as the ‘avatars’ of this disorder; They are tools of darkness; As the ‘Celtic sisters’ of the three fates, they exist at the threshold between the natural and supernatural worlds; Their morality, like their corporeality, is ambiguous.
The tension between the natural and the supernatural, the physical and the metaphysical, bleeds into reflections on action versus inaction and the real versus the imagined. Turner notes that here, murder exists in its negation, in Macbeth’s imagination. For Macbeth, what is imagined becomes more tangible than reality. The witches’ prophecy has beguiled him. Now Macbeth’s cosmology, what exists, is made up of only what does not exist. And yet, action must be taken in order to enact the prophecy. Macbeth’s perception of reality creates cosmological chaos and contradiction in accord with his tumultuous interior.
While Prof. Turner cites Act 1, Scene 3, line 155 as a prime example of this dark cosmology, I found examples of my own:
And nothing is but what is not.
—Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3, l. 155
In Act 2, Scene 2 the tension between action and imagination can be observed, even after that mortal act has been committed. Macbeth is pitifully absorbed in the psychological distress that follows his murder. He tells Lady Macbeth, ‘I am afraid to think what I have done’ (l. 66), exemplifying Macbeth’s simultaneous torture and respite within his mind, for were he to think about his murder, then it would become real to him, allowing his guilt to consume him. He is placing psychological distance between himself and his actions, creating his own cosmology.
Lady Macbeth seems to understand this when she says, ‘Th’attempt and not the deed / Confounds us’ (ll. 14-15). I interpret these lines not only as implying the dangers in an unsuccessful attempt at murder, but also as highlighting that the despair Macbeth feels (and later Lady Macbeth) is not in response to ‘the deed’ itself, but in the cognitive experience of it—in our perception of the world and of ourselves and how we must contend not only with the external consequences of our actions, but more importantly must contend with how we feel about ourselves. Lady Macbeth’s suicide is an example of reaping the consequences of self-inflicted psychological torture rather than consequences enacted by external players.
Macbeth seems to sense this existential danger in cognition when he delivers the penultimate line of the scene: ‘To know my deed ’twere best not know myself’ (l. 94). Here, depersonalization is used as a defense mechanism. Macbeth cannot be accountable while maintaining a concrete sense of self, for to face the murder he has committed with unadulterated responsibility and remorse would disfigure his sense of self beyond recognition, and transform his interior state into an inhospitable, unrelenting, confounding, and threatening space. Macbeth is attempting to maintain what little mental health he can hold onto, and by necessity must estrange himself from his actions in order to watch them play out. This is because while action and imagination are pitted against each other, action is still necessary to drive the plot forward. These actions are often fueled by selfishness and personal gain, actions that are corrupted. Because these actions are performed in a setting stretched between the physical and the metaphysical, the natural and the supernatural, they remain powerful yet never grounded.
Character Charts
The Trojan War
ADHD & Learning Styles
I think that another contributing factor is that I have ADHD and enjoy visual learning. With many texts I can keep track of characters in a mental map, but when there are too many characters introduced at once, characters with similar names (I’m looking at you, Wuthering Heights), or characters whose backstories are not fully explained because a contemporary audience would have already known that information, it becomes too chaotic to juggle mentally. My thoughts are already jumbled enough as it is!
I find that when I make character maps, I feel more at ease throughout the reading experience, as I am not wasting mental energy trying to keep track of excess information, and the creative and tactile act of organising characters on a page helps to make the information stick. I know this because I have more successful outcomes when I create my own character chart rather than using someone else’s […].
I suppose it is a similar to the idea that if you are trying to memorise information, it is helpful not just to read it on a page, but to write that information down or to speak it aloud as you read. It is providing your brain with extra pathways to reach that information, and strengthens existing neural pathways. This is how I feel when making decisions on how to organise my character charts—it is cementing the information about each character every time I draw lines between them or relegate them to an area of the page.
As you can see, I’m a huge fan of colour-coding!
I often use colour-coding when planning essays, as well, especially longer or more complex ones. Because of my ADHD, I find it rewarding to put in extra time in the planning stages of essays. When I forgo this crucial step, I find it difficult to retrieve quotes or concepts from my memory, to stay grounded in the structure of the essay, and to keep track of my progress, i.e. which points I have made or need to make, which quotes I’ve used, page numbers, etc. A good example of this was the essay I wrote on the Harley MS 2253.
There are many tricks that I’ve picked up over the years as a neurodiverse (and perfectionistic) student, and they are really invaluable. Character charts are just one of the tools that I enjoy using as someone whose thoughts wiz around their mind like a tornado, wielding chaotic power that can often be destructive if not prepared for.
‘The Trojan War: A Constellation of Actors’
When our class was studying Troilus and Criseyde, I made a diagram of the characters of the Trojan War. In Chaucer’s epic poem…
…[w]e are immersed in the lovers’ emotion in a way that seems to pause time, arresting the action of the war and allowing the battle only enough attention to raise the stakes between the lovers, whose suffering eclipses the turmoil of the war.
Because Chaucer’s telling of the tragic romance between Troilus and Criseyde is so tight in its view, the details of the Trojan War fall to the margins, and an in-depth knowledge of the events of the war and its actors is not essential.
Despite this, I found the chart helpful, mainly for keeping track of unusual spellings, and especially due to the corruption of the Greek source material as it has been transmitted through time:
It does strike me as a bit funny that after so many iterations of a story, you essentially are left with some sort of bastardized multiverse of characters. While books as objects memorialize these stories for posterity, nothing can ever go through so many iterations unmarred. Is Troilus the son of Hecuba and Priam, or Hecuba and Apollo? It depends who you ask! Did Chaucer name Calchas’ wife Argyve as a nod to the wife of Polynices, or just to confuse us? God knows! And of course, we can’t forget about Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s mixup between the Greek and French names of two characters Chryseis/Astynome and Briseis/Ypodamia, accidentally splitting the Chryseis of his source material into two separate women (much to my chagrin and confusion upon embarking on the who’s who of this chaotic multiverse).
Laocoön and His Sons, attributed to Agesander, Athenodoros, and Polydorus c. 200 BCE to 70 CE.
‘More Fun with Character Charts: The Tragedy of Mariam’
As for The Tragedy of Mariam: The Fair Queen of Jewry, I think my character chart is much improved. The relationship types and their visual representations are more complex, and I outlined some of my choices:
You may notice that Doris and her son Antipater are within the yellow box, but are left white. I did this as a visual representation of the fact that they have been denounced by Herod. I have also represented the hierarchy of Herod’s servants spatially. I used transparent layers to imply when people are in multiple groups this time, for instance how Mariam is within Herod’s court, but is also within the Israelite lineage. This round, I also added information such as a map, a key, and a reminder of the source material.
After making the Mariam character chart, I realised that of all the texts we studies this year, the only two that compelled me to make in-depth character charts were historical or pseudo-historical ones.
It might seem superfluous, but I think looking into this information helped me conceptualise the context of this tragic drama, and the relationships between and motivations behind the characters. I now realise that this has been a pattern for me throughout my studies, even going back to my undergrad. Did I need to make a character chart for A Midsummer Night’s Dream? No. Did I need a character chart for Richard III? YES! Growing up in America, I had never studied the War of the Roses, and needed to familiarise myself with that historical context. However, […] I don’t make character charts exclusively for historical dramas. When our class read The Taming of the Shrew this year, I drew a more casual character chart. This was mainly for the purpose of keeping track of characters and their many alter egos. The drawn version sufficed for that text, however The Tragedy of Mariam required a bit more dedication and organisation.
Playing with Poetry!
‘Prosody and Poetic Device in Paradise Lost’
‘”Memory:” A Poem Inspired by the MA Curriculum’
I presented my poem in the style of medieval manuscripts as a nod to our Histories of the Book class.
*For text version, see original post
Before writing a poem of my own, I examined Milton’s prosody and
poetic device in an excerpt from Book II.
At line 621 the meter is momentarily freed from iambic pentameter. The line has four stressed syllables on either side of a caesura: a double spondee followed by a spondee and double iamb (— — — — || — — ◡ — ◡ —). The line is also unique for its assonance that forms a quasi-internal rhyme scheme of ABBC||ACBC[.]
The first half of the excerpt heavily relies on enjambment to endow the text with a forward motion that emulates the fallen angels’ movement through space; Our eyes must ‘rove on’ to the next line in order to complete the clause.
[The] lessening of enjambment coincides with Milton’s use of amplitude, and allows us deceleration to fully appreciate how every subsequent line modifies and adds to the last. There are two main subjects of amplitude: The ‘lamentable lot’ […]; And the perversion bred by Nature.
If most amplification and ‘unnecessary’ wordage were removed, the 15 lines could become five:
Thus roving on in confus’d march forlorn,
Th’adventurouos Bands with shuddering horror pale
View’d first their lamentable lot, and found
No rest: A Universe of death where Nature breeds,
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things
While more efficiently conveying the same meaning, much of the poetic beauty is lost. This highlights how much of the poeticism of Paradise Lost lies in Milton’s descriptive work, capturing the imagination while giving us hints to slow down and consider, or to speed up and become enthralled in his magnetic language.
← Click here for my reading of the poem!
Towards the end of the academic year, I wrote a poem inspired by the texts we covered. I was especially inspired by Milton’s techniques, as described above.
When writing the poem, I tried using poetic devices that stuck out to me during the year. I used alliteration heavily, inspired mostly by Old English poetry, but alliteration is of course not exclusive to the period. […] I tried to use the caesura, as well, another common feature in OE poetry, however in OE, the caesura is on every line. It was not my goal to reproduce a strict poetic style or structure, but to be loosely inspired by poetic features across many different periods.
I experimented with various metres, and aimed to modulate their flow and speed in a loosely Miltonic way, via assonance, enjambment, and alliteration. Assonance and rhyme are sometimes created by two words in tandem, such as in ‘…vermin fettered, infest…’ and ‘…words / Unspoken, still unwoke, ensared…’ I debated the latter due to the awkward grammar of ‘unwoke,’ but was delighted by the rhythm too much to remove it.
Other times I wanted to affect a slowing down in the rhythm, for instance at the end of the third stanza the forward momentum is slowed by ‘O Maria‘ and further slowed by a triple amphibrach: ‘entrancing, encumbering, in ecstasy’ (albeit with an odd unstressed syllable at the end, the effect remains). I considered following the example of Renaissance authors such as Shakespeare who note contracted syllables with an apostrophe in order to fit meter, wherein I would write ‘encumbering’ as ‘encumb’ring’ or ‘moldering’ as ‘mold’ring,’ etc., however I decided against it in fear of defamiliarization or maybe cold feet. I’m still feeling ambivalent on that call.
Finally, the content of the poem is inspired by the technique of personifying abstract concepts and speaking to them. This is a common technique, whether in the beginning with the ‘invocation of the muse’ or by encountering the ‘person’ within the narrative. For example, Troilus and Criseyde begins each book with the invocation of a different muse; Paradise Lost begins with the invocation of the spirit that inspired Moses, later invokes the concept of light, and personifies Sin and Death within the narrative. Virtues and vices or concepts such as Fate are often the subject of this personification.
Mary Beale, An Unknown Man, called John Milton, c. 1660, oil on canvas,
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Mnemosyne, 1875-81, oil on canvas.
Growth, and Goodbyes
Robert Julian Onderdonk, Late Afternoon in the Bluebonnets, S. W. Texas, 1913
I think my growth throughout the year is exemplified by this blog, especially when contrasting my first and second research seminar responses.
This year showed me that it’s never too late to learn new things about your study habits, and that it’s wise to lean into whataver works for you (charts, in my case).
I had fun writing ‘Memory,’ and it was a challenge I had never undertaken before. It forced me to be creative, and not to be too self-conscious during the process.
I had a great time creating my ‘About Me’ page, where I could also flex some creative muscles, but with that being said, I bid you…
Adieu!
Robert Julian Onderdonk, Moonlight in South Texas, 1912
Copyright Notice
All images/graphics without citations are in the Public Domain or were taken/made by myself and do not require attribution.
All images used with Creative Commons licences have been attributed to the author as required.