A little piece of university history

So today I was sitting in the English faculty library, pecking away at an essay I'm writing for my supervisor.  It's a soggy day, and I spent the morning rowing in the rain.  I'm feeling a bit stressed about how many things I'm not getting done this week as we prep for a race on Friday.

As part of my argument, I thought it might be useful to look at Paley's Evidences of Christianity, a book that used to be required reading for exam regurgitation at Cambridge, and which Tennyson and his friends thought to be a prime example of pedantic theology that totally missed the point.  Happily, they have a copy here in this library, so no need to go outside...

Most of the books in this building are fairly modern, but this one was published in 1884, and the editor's preface says it was organized to be a study book for the Cambridge exam.  It also has an inscription inked on the first page:
J.C. Collins
The Knoll
Harrow
31.3.89


Then in pencil, in different handwriting, underneath:
J.C.C.
Jesus College
Cambridge

I love that this is the physical object that some Victorian student used as part of getting his degree.  And one thing I love about universities in general is that they are forever youthful.  Newton and Byron and many many other giants have been part of this place, but we are their equals because they were once students just like us, and we have the advantage of being the current generation of students, which is the primary concern of any university.

So even on a less-than-pefect day here, there's nothing else I would rather be doing than this.

Writing on a rainy day

Greetings to all from my window view of a rather rainy tree.  It makes me miss my old apartment, with a view over the pool, but otherwise rainy days always make me want to write, anyway.  Either that or quilt.

It's a very rare day (it may be the first) that I have no activity planned until 11:00pm, so for once I have the luxury of sustained writing.  This is a good thing because my supervisor told me in no uncertain terms to produce something hands-on rather than just a summary of my reading.

My muddled mess right now is basically arguing that in his poem In Memoriam, Tennyson used words in such a way that you have to keep all their meanings in your head at once to grasp the full truth of what he's saying.  This reflects his attitude toward faith, which was essentially that specific, fixed doctrine was too narrow to give the truth of God/the spiritual.  Would you buy that?  After all,

Our little systems have their day;
     They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of thee,
     And thou, O Lord, art more than they.


Other than that, I've been running around with my typically-overpacked schedule: guest speakers, classes (I should stop choosing to go to so many), yoga, rowing, etc. etc. etc.  Oh, and way back in January my hallmates and I celebrated my birthday with pizza and cake.  Here's a picture, with an unfortunate lighting effect on my nose: 

Spring break travel plans are being pondered, too -- but I don't want to think that Lent term could be over so soon!  So much yet to do!

A soggy taxonomy

WARNING: MAJOR GEEK-FEST AHEAD!

The wind has really been roaring around Cambridge the last two days, which reminds me of a conversation I had recently, trying to figure out the difference between a bog, marsh, fen, moor, etc.  Think about it: can you really tell me the distinguishing features?  So here goes, courtesy of the OED:

Fen
1a. Low land covered wholly or partially with shallow water, or subject to frequent inundations; a tract of such land, a marsh.
b. esp. the fen (obs.), the fens: certain low-lying districts in Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, and some adjoining counties.


Cambridge, I've heard repeatedly, is in a fen.  People usually say this by way of vaguely complaining/making fun of it for being flat land with less-than-perfect weather.  Arthur Hallam, Tennyson's best friend, referred to it as "this college-studded marsh."  Which brings us to...

Marsh
Low-lying land, often flooded in wet weather and usually more or less waterlogged throughout the year; a tract or area of such land.

So, much the same thing but more consistently water-filled "throughout the year."

Moor
1. Originally: a marsh; marshland, fen (obs.). Now: any of the flat, low-lying areas of Somerset, England, which were formerly marshland.
2. A piece of unenclosed waste ground; (now usually, esp. in Brit.) uncultivated ground covered with heather; a heath. Also: a tract of ground strictly preserved for shooting.

The first one suggests that all these terms used to be basically interchangeable.  Based on my many readings of the classic children's book The Secret Garden, I'm going to go with definition #2, uncultivated & covered with heather.

Bog
A piece of wet spongy ground, consisting chiefly of decayed or decaying moss and other vegetable matter, too soft to bear the weight of any heavy body upon its surface; a morass or moss.


At last, a distinct definition!


Morass
A wet swampy tract, a bog, a marsh; an area of very wet or muddy ground; (as a mass noun) boggy land.
Now we're just repeating ourselves.  But another one that's often metaphorical is...

Mire

An area of swampy ground; a boggy place, esp. one in which a person may be engulfed or become stuck fast.

Interesting how this one is mostly defined by its effect.

Slough

A piece of soft, miry, or muddy ground.

Swamp
A tract of low-lying ground in which water collects; a piece of wet spongy ground; a marsh or bog. Orig. and in early use only in the N. American colonies, where it denoted a tract of rich soil having a growth of trees and other vegetation, but too moist for cultivation


Who knew that swamps are only American?  Speaking of which, here's one the OED labels as only a U.S. word:


Everglade
A marshy tract of land mostly under water and covered in places with tall grass; chiefly in pl. as the name of a large swampy region of South Florida.


The best part of this entry is that they have no idea where the word came from:
Etymology:  ? < ever adv. + glade n.¹
The formation is irregular, and the intended etymological sense uncertain; perhaps ever was used to mean ‘interminable’.



And let's not forget...
Bayou
The name given (chiefly in the southern States of N. America) to the marshy off-shoots and overflowings of lakes and rivers.


Bonus fact: it's from Choctaw (by way of American French).


So it turns out that, except for the decaying-moss specificity of "bog," and the American-only nature of a few, these words have always been more or less interchangeable.  In fact, Beowulf uses them right next to each other:


"Se þe moras heold, fen ond fæsten"
[Something like, "he who holds the moors, in fen and stronghold"]


In short, this waterlogged taxonomy has shown that there isn't much difference at all.  Hurray. =P

Lent term begins

As you might guess from my long absence, I went back home to the Bay Area about a week into December.  It was a smooth transit, though due to Cambridge being a long bus ride from Heathrow, I was up for 24 hours straight.  On the upside, this made for essentially no jet lag as I slept like a baby when I got to my own bed.

Briefly, winter break was busy and fantastic.  I got to see my entire family and adore my six-month-old nephew, who must be the most sociable baby ever born.  Then I flew to Miami to play with the band at the Orange Bowl (go Stanford!), drove to Orlando for some Disney World time, and finally back home for a week before returning to England.

Here's me on the sidelines before the pre-game show.  Notice the sheen of sweat from wearing a wool jacket in Miami.

So now I'm at the end of the second week of term.  Here are some thoughts that have been rattling around in my head:

Ever-evolving academics
Those of you who saw me over break may have seen me carrying a hefty biography of Tennyson with me.  Just before heading home, I met with my supervisor, and we agreed on a slightly modified direction for me to look at for my research.  I'll bore you with it another time, but in short it looked/looks like Tennyson would be really helpful.  Cue one of those surprising realizations that you really don't know anything about X really famous author.

One 583-page book later (and one other good one), I am very comfortable talking about him and his circle of friends -- but not his poetry, which I still barely know.  I continue to consume various books that I find in the library catalogue.  In fact, my bibliography suggests that I've read at least part of just under 20 books/articles, many of those made up of multiple articles.  That doesn't sound too impressive, but my goodness it feels like a lot!


You never know who(m) you'll "run into" around here
So reading all those books I run across a number of people multiple times.  For example, there's Edward Bulwer-Lytton.  He wrote Anglo-Saxon themed children's books using real historical figures.  He was also a friend of the pompous, social-climbing uncle Alfred Tennyson disliked.  And, the internet tells me, he wrote the infamous opening line, "It was a dark and stormy night."  The other day I was eating my lunch in the Trinity Hall hall, and I absently read the name card on the portrait opposite me.  By golly, there was Edward Bulwer-Lytton!

I also learned that Trinity Hall has an F.D. Maurice Society, named for an incredibly deep-thinking theological scholar (and former T.H. student) who simultaneously worked for social justice with things like colleges for women and working men.  He was also a very influential member of the Cambridge Apostles, the secret society that Tennyson was part of.  Small world.

Spring is coming
For one thing, it hasn't been nearly as cold as when I left.  For another, I'm hearing little birds twittering around me more often.  And finally, the gardeners are digging things up and planting other things, giving the smell and impression that life is reemerging from the ground.  QED.