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Lament of the Literature In English Gre Subject Test-Taker

As Sol arises, greets the morn the soon test taker wails, "I'm doomed! If I had only read The Canterbury Tales! Or more of Samuel Collerige, or Wordsworth, Yeats or Shelley, More Medieval or Old English, some Eliot or Browning! Or how to spot a romantic or how a Victorian, or who saw Tutors on their shift in this timeline Aenean? I know not Byron from Whitman, or Herrick from John Donne, or Frost or Pound or Tennyson, cannot read Piers Plowman. There's just too much literature, (I can't believe I spoke this thought, it's blasphemy I'm sure) like the Raven I quoth. And though most know the Raven, I do too, and that's not bad. Though I think the extent of my knowledge's not ironclad. Though I can say with certainty, amidst my sad lament, the technique I used priorly is known as enjambment. And I know too that rhyme royal is seven verses long, where octavia rima's whole is eight - one more verse strong. And I've read Paradise Lost and many Shakespeare works, and much more Poe than The Raven, and know Dickinson's quirks. And I know Marvell and Camus Gogol, Dostoyesky; perhaps my portents were untrue, my knowledge not so petty. Perhaps I'm ready for this test, though not well-versed as some. Like caesuras, I'll take a rest and stop acting so glum. From a review book, I'll apply this truth which first appalled: If you know all this well, then why attend grad school at all?"

Copyright © | Year Posted 2009




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Date: 11/13/2009 4:55:00 PM
LOL ending here, Zach ... I never went past the 14th year and have read more in the last 10 years than ever in my life but I still have trouble with alot of the "classics" ... smile ...
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Book: Reflection on the Important Things