A time away: Williamsburg ASECS — & Judi Dench on Antony

Dear friends and readers,

Tomorrow afternoon I go away by train to Williamsburg, Virginia, to which I’ve never been. Jim and I did take Yvette to the College of William and Mary when she applied for a place there; as I recall she was eventually accepted, but it came late and she had already accepted an offer from Sweet Briar. So we never returned.

There is an American Eighteenth Century Society meeting in Colonial Williamsburg (as it’s called) that I mean to attend. I was going to read poetry by Anne Finch and talk about her, but I decided I wasn’t up to performing in public; so I’ll just come along and enjoy myself listening to others, occasionally talking. There are many many sessions on all sorts of interesting topics. A dance session. Music. There is to be a masquerade ball so I’ll bring a pretty dress, shoes and mask and I’m having dinner with a friend one night. I’ll be back Sunday noon.

Poor pussycats will miss me and I them.

I should say today I had an offer to teach at the OLLI program at GMU: a course proposal for “The Historical and Post-Colonial Turn in Recent Fiction” was liked for the summer (it’s really novels of the last 35 years which tend to be nominated for or get Booker and Whitbread prizes, self-reflexive types with inset past histories embedded); and “The Gothic” (needs no explanation, but accent will be on the more recent female gothics, Jackson’s The Haunting with the rightly famous 1960 film, Mary Reilly &c&c) for next fall. I figured out three ways to get there by public transportation. I am enjoying my course at OLLI at AU very much. While I read and teach Jane Austen I feel happy, and I cry over the Austen movies. Right now I’m reading Pride and Prejudice and have just watched The Jane Austen Book Club — a very clever movie.

Today I had an experience that made me associate to Cleopatra’s speech about Anthony as I heard Judi Dench utter it aloud in a Great Performances program a few weeks ago. Here is but the opening:

Cleopatra: Think you there was or might be such a man
As this I dreamt of?
Dolabella: Gentle madam, no.
Cleopatra: You lie up to the hearing of the gods

Had he lived he would have gone to such a ball as an admiral; he was my captain and there’ll never be another such a he for me.

Sylvia

Author: ellenandjim

Ellen Moody holds a Ph.D in British Literature and taught in American senior colleges for more than 40 years. Since 2013 she has been teaching older retired people at two Oscher Institutes of Lifelong Learning, one attached to American University (Washington, DC) and other to George Mason University (in Fairfax, Va). She is also a literary scholar with specialties in 18th century literature, translation, early modern and women's studies, film, nineteenth and 20th century literature and of course Trollope. For Trollope she wrote a book on her experiences of reading Trollope on the Internet with others, some more academic style essays, two on film adaptations, the most recent on Trollope's depiction of settler colonialism: "On Inventing a New Country." Here is her website: http://www.jimandellen.org/ellen/ No part of this blog may be reproduced without express permission from the author/blog owner. Linking, on the other hand, is highly encouraged!

8 thoughts on “A time away: Williamsburg ASECS — & Judi Dench on Antony”

  1. Jill: I love Williamsburg. It’s one of my favorite places to visit.

    Me: There is a walking tour on Saturday afternoon, and I thought I would try to make that. Follow someone about and see a bit of the place.

  2. Have a great time Ellen. I remember the mental struggle you had to book, since you were worried about the travel. So I hope the travel goes smoothly and the stay is a good experience with many interesting presentations.

    Clare

    1. Thank you. That is precisely what I am hoping for: a smooth trip, many interesting presentations, a little socializing, maybe a walking tour and then home again. I’m bringing The Claverings because I can always read Trollope. I’ve never bought a Trollope novel on a trip where I regretted carrying it as I usually read it. I’m taking my cell phone (or is it an “iphone” — it’s really a little computer) so I can keep in communication a bit the way I did in Boston.

  3. Excellent, sounds like you are all organised. I was busy when away in Bath, but still managed to read Trollope. The more I read of him the better I realise he is. I get so drawn into his books. He’s such a fascinatingly wonderful writer. Mark always asks what I am reading ” is it the Austen woman or the mighty Anthony?”. He thinks that I only read those two by choice, everything else, in his opinion, is “duty reading” as he calls reading for the Museum readers’ group. He thinks that I am either reading “the terrible twins” , as he calls them, or reading about them. He may have a point. He’s a bit worried that when you come we will just sit and read. I’ve assured him that we’ll have to take you to places of interest. LOL.
    Have a wonderful conference.

    Clare

    1. Assure him we won’t just sit and read. We might read at night when back at home but daytime is for friendship and doing things together. Austen has a letter to this effect (in the later 1790s just before she had to leave Stevenson) to her beloved friend, Martha Lloyd. Austen is coming for a visit and Martha writes to tell her to bring this and that book.

      1. He knows that really, he’s just teasing. He’s used to me reading evenings and in bed. I’ll have to look for the letter. Well MY beloved friend, good luck with the journey and relax and enjoy. I remember how engaged we were at Exeter and wish I was coming to this one.

  5. That is excellent news about GMU, Ellen. Williamsburg sounds like it will be interesting and fun. Enjoy!

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