That Interests Meme

[coraa]

LJ Interests meme results

1. carolingians:
   Oooh... Early medieval European dynasty, centered in what is now France/most of Germany/northern Italy/north-eastern Spain/Czechoslovakia/and a smidge more. I did my thesis on Charlemagne, the great Carolingian king.
2. cultural history:
   Cultural history isn't the history of who ruled when, and which army massacred which -- not that that isn't interesting; just that it isn't all there is to history. Cultural history is what people knew and thought and felt; and how they lived. (Material culture history is even more insteresting as far as I'm concerned -- what they ate and wore, and how they plowed, and what faces they carved on the butt-ends of their spears or the sides of their three-legged pots, and why.)
3. folklore:
   From Beauty and the Beast to the Princess Who Loved Insects -- world folklore is rich with the beautiful and grotesque, the profound and bizarre. Once upon a time, long ago and far away, lived a woodcutter and his wife -- a king had three sons -- there lived a girl as beautiful as the day -- and she met a strange old woman -- and a fox spoke to him most courteously -- and they went, one by one, to seek their fortunes....
4. holy roman empire:
   Neither holy nor roman nor an empire. Spanned Europe from the early middle ages until it was disbanded by, I believe, Napoleon in the early 19th century. Especially cool in the middle ages (but wasn't everything?)
5. logic:
   I took formal logic for the first time in eighth grade, and learned to analyze a syllogism and build a circuit... I think that's why I enjoyed computer science so much, that I loved logic.
6. merovingians:
   Oh, it's hardly fair to get this *and* Carolingians *and* Holy Roman Empire. Too similar.
7. p.g. wodehouse:
   Funny, funny man. (The BBC Jeeves & Wooster series is very funny as well.) If you want a good laugh, read him; I recommend The Code of the Woosters as a good start.
8. repartee:
   "Winston, if I were your wife I'd put poison in your coffee."
   "Nancy, if I were your husband I'd drink it."
9. social history:
   Bah. See 'Cultural History,' above. This quiz has a mania for history. (So do I, but I prefer actual history rather than dry discussion of historiographical categories.)
10. william butler yeats:
    Where dips the rocky highland
    Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
    There lies a leafy island
    Where flapping herons wake
    The drowsy water-rats;
    There we've hid our faery vats,
    Full of berries
    And of reddest stolen cherries.
    Come away, O human child!
    To the waters and the wild
    With a faery, hand in hand,
    For the world's more full of weeping than you can
    understand.
    
    Where the wave of moonlight glosses
    The dim grey sands with light,
    Far off by furthest Rosses
    We foot it all the night,
    Weaving olden dances,
    Mingling hands and mingling glances
    Till the moon has taken flight;
    To and fro we leap
    And chase the frothy bubbles,
    While the world is full of troubles
    And is anxious in its sleep.
    Come away, O human child!
    To the waters and the wild
    With a faery, hand in hand,
    For the world's more full of weeping than you can
    understand.
    
    Where the wandering water gushes
    From the hills above Glen-Car,
    In pools among the rushes
    That scarce could bathe a star,
    We seek for slumbering trout
    And whispering in their ears
    Give them unquiet dreams;
    Leaning softly out
    From ferns that drop their tears
    Over the young streams.
    Come away, O human child!
    To the waters and the wild
    With a faery, hand in hand,
    For the world's more full of weeping than you can
    understand.
    
    Away with us he's going,
    The solemn-eyed:
    He'll hear no more the lowing
    Of the calves on the warm hillside
    Or the kettle on the hob
    Sing peace into his breast,
    Or see the brown mice bob
    Round and round the oatmeal-chest.
    For he comes, the human child,
    To the waters and the wild
    With a faery, hand in hand,
    From a world more full of weeping than he can
    understand.
    
    -- "Stolen Child," William Butler Yeats

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