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Thursday 26 February 2009

Flying by the seat of...

Occasionally it comes home to me just how utterly ignorant I am, and how patchy my knowledge of my field is. Whenever that happens I am slightly confounded as to how I ended up on scholarship at one of the world's top academic institutions (Thank you, Lord, for bringing me here, and thank you also, for populating my life not only in Oxford but all along the way with the most wonderful and gifted people who have enriched me in so many ways).

Whenever I am awoken by the realization that I am often flying by the seat of my pants, I am struck dumb. How can I possibly write about anything in the Middle Ages if I know so little?

I guess the answer is that I'll do it the same way I've always done: make it up as I go along, and rely on useful hints and tips for those who know more. So I've just drawn up my two essay topics and submitted them to our indubitable Graduate Studies Officer. How do they sound?

For my course on bibliography, palaeography, and theories of text, I have:
'Go, litel bok, go': medieval literature in the age of digitisation.

For my course on Chaucer before the Tales, I have:
Almost Famous: the quest for a 'certeyn thing' in Chaucer's early poetry.

It's hard to believe that in 3 weeks time I will have produced, uh, 5,000-7,000 words for each of these two titles. God help me. Panic dawns.

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