Wishlists and blogs, oh my! (I couldn’t think of a third something.)
March 31, 2010
My wishlist is brief because for the most part I’m happy with how class discussions are going. My problems with the tutorial center more around the work load. I would like to throw my support behind Ariel’s debate idea. I also like the historical summary and EEBO article that we’ve decided to do (even if I have to be the first one and it’s due the day after my birthday.) I would like it if we narrowed our weekly focus a little bit. I feel like we bounce around a lot in class, which can be fun, but I don’t know if it is completely productive. I liked how we went over the chapters last night and brought up any issues or questions we had. I thought it contributed to an interesting discussion, more than I got just by doing the reading on my own.
And now on to the blogs I’ve found (with a little help from Jane.)
American in 1692
It’s pretty easy to figure out why I picked this blog. The author here has decided to post events which happened on specific days of the year, mainly focused on the Salem witch trials and the reconquest of New Mexico. I have a habit of needing to know and getting excited about historical events that occurred on my birthday, and it turns out that in Massachusettes Elizabeth Proctor of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible fame had an allegation leveled against her that day. Kick ass! Some days are the same old while others are super exciting. Just like real life! Just these people didn’t have electricity or the internet to entertain themselves with.
Mercurius Politicus
Besides having a really cool name, this blog is immensely fascinating. Jane told us about how popular and well respected it is, so I spent some time clicking around. This blog works old texts and prints into the blogging format astonishingly well. It’s especially useful for our needs because of its study of early modern texts.
Early Modern Underground
This is a blog about early modern English literature which doesn’t revolve around Shakespeare. What a concept! There are lots of play summaries and discussions, and the author is very open to constructive criticism and allowing comments and posts by other writers. This is awesome for drama geeks like me who want to get past the basic high school teaching of Renaissance English literature.
LOL Manuscripts!
I very educational and hilarious exploration of early modern manuscripts and the obvious lols they can bring. I especially enjoyed this one about a werewolf in Germany (not in Paris! Shocking!) and its accompanying illustration.
Tudor Stuff: Tudor History From the Heart of England
Now I haven’t gotten a chance to really read through this blog, but after some scrolling I noticed a lot of beautiful pictures of Tudor architecture. It discusses all things Tudor, which I love. This Anne Boleyn post looks pretty promising.
Okay then end! Hopefully this is a good start to blog exploration.
The Three Kingdoms and Virginia 
April 1, 2010 at 12:32 pm
Hi – I’m Nick, otherwise known as Mercurius Politicus. Thank you so much for the mention. I am always astonished that a blog I started just as a bit of fun/dumping ground for my thoughts during my Masters is spoken well of by others, so thank you very much indeed for the link.
Good luck with this blog, it is a great read so far.
Incidentally I see one of your posts was about John Pym, so you might like this – my favorite pamphlet about Pym: http://mercuriuspoliticus.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/an-early-modern-letter-bomb/
April 1, 2010 at 8:43 pm
Oh man thank you so much for reading and commenting! I’m totally honored. And thank you for the link. I will definitely take a gander since I have such a strange love for Pym.
April 4, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Hey Irina: Great job finding blogs so clearly connected to your interests!
Early Modern Underground reminded me of your wanting to read The Roaring Girl. I think she appears in the *first* line of the Ladies Parliament pamphlet (at least I think it’s that one) that I passed out a couple of sessions ago.
Might be interesting to investigate the “Moll” phenomenon in our decades. Did she have as much currency in the satirical pamphlets from the 1640s or 1650s that excoriate women as she did in the first decade of the 17th century? Was she as much a figure of fascination between those decades?
Thanks for introducing me to LOL Manuscripts–that werewolf woodcut is a hoot. Incidentally, noticed the author is studying library science–she might be a good source of information about graduate study (assuming your tumblr descriptor was on the up and up 😉
Cheers, Jane
April 4, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Here’s a less esoteric idea that might appeal to you for investigative purposes. Exactly what happened to play acting and play writing in the 1640s? Common wisdom has it that Parliament closed down the theater entirely. Is that true?
FYI, before I changed the focus of my dissertation, I was going to write one about non-Shakespearean drama, particularly a genre called city comedy. I have quite a few editions of non-S plays if you ever want to take a look at them.
April 5, 2010 at 11:12 pm
Hey, thanks for the link! I’m the guy who did the 1692 blog. Glad to hear it’s still finding an audience. It was a project I did over the course of a single year, so I’m no longer updating it, but the nice thing about blogging is that the stuff basically just stays up forever.
Nice blog you’ve got here, btw. I don’t know a whole lot about the English Civil War (it’s been a long time since I did any early modern stuff, actually), but I think it’s a really interesting period for a lot of reasons. I especially like your focus on both England and Virginia; as you can no doubt tell from the 1692 blog, I’m kind of fascinated by related things happening simultaneously in different places. Anyway, I’ll definitely stop by here from time to time to see what you come up with.