Given the chance to finish my essay on Montaigne and Austen in class this morning, interruption-free, I would have completed my first body paragraph, in which I had begun to write about the wide array of topics that Montaigne addressed in his essays. (Please excuse me if I repeat what I had already written today; I was given quite a bit of information between 7:30 am and 3 o'clock today and I can't exactly remember where I stopped.) Briefly, Wallace's quote is a reflection of Montaigne's assortment of ideas and stream of consciousness. Each of Montaigne's essays is on a different subject--family, customs, imagination, etc.--and from there, each of the essays moves along through as he ponders the subject. Montaigne's ideas are indeed "too fast and all interconnected" as they evolve into other ideas via the stream of consciousness.I also would have attempted to contrast Jane Austen's style and techniques to Montaigne. Yes, we all see that Montaigne and Austen has very different general styles and voices, being from different time periods and countries. Montaigne, again, has focused his pieces on his own stream of consciousness, while Pride and Prejudice was not narrated by Austen herself nor one of the characters.
After I had left class today, I realized that I had so very little to say about Austen. I did have a few ideas about how to compare and contrast as I sat down upon our return from the library, but before I could get them on paper I was back on my first paragraph and before I knew it, class had ended.
The interruption in the middle of class, well, interrupted my thought process. Who could have guessed? Even though I was forewarned about the essay and the library run, I still allowed it to make me forget most of my thoughts. We really should be more careful with our ideas. Even the ideas I had jotted down in pencil in the margins (a habit developed in an effort to actually finish essays in class last year while also using less paper) had gone by the time I dragged myself home. Not to mention the fact that I seem to be cursed with a memory that would be unfair to an aged person, let alone someone who is not yet even seventeen.
"As water, trembling in a brass bowl, reflects the sun's light or the form of the shining moon, and so the bright beams flit in all directions, darting up at times to strike the lofty FRETTED CEILINGS"
ReplyDelete-Virgil, Aeneid VIII,22
As quoted in Latin by Montaigne on occupying one's mind so it won't "rush wildly to and fro in the ill defined field of the imagination"...
Well, I say let your imagination run wild, as no good books were written without that!