[lit-ideas] Re: Lit Snit from Nobel Swede Reader

  • From: "Simon Ward" <sedward@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 18:34:47 +0100

I might have to agree with Eric here. Kind of.

I belong to a couple of literary lists concerned with eighteenth century and Romantic lit. Whilst there was indeed stuff going on in the United States (or what would become the US) in these periods, everybody wants to talk about stuff that was going on in Europe. But the thing is, everybody who want to talk about this stuff, for the most part, works in US universities. They seem to own Jane Austen!

Insular? Not in this field.

The same applies to my other fave list which (at last again) discusses British Dark Age history. The subject matter is obvious enough, but the participants seem to be equally split by the Atlantic. There's a New Yorker who's a 'Celtic' linguist, the moderator teaches at the University of Florida and other contributors are across the pond.

'Yeah', I say in reference to an ancient hill fort, 'but have you been there!'.

If I was French I'd finish with a nonchalent hurumph, Italian, I'd flick my thumb nail off my top teeth, but since I'm British, I keep it to smug.

Simon
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