The best use of my time

So I woke up early this morning, but instead of writing my paper, I took a practice GRE Literature subject test, and it was great fun. I learned things about myself, like: The texts that I have read generally turn up as choices that are wrong - like they'll give a passage from David Copperfield and offer The Three Musketeers as an option, or they'll give a passage from Lorca and offer A Hundred Years of Solitude (ugh) as an option. Which helps me to eliminate one option but not all the rest, darn it.

Turns out I did not learn any modern criticism at all. Except that if something sounds wacky, it is probably Barthes; and if it uses the word "bourgeois" it is probably Marxist. Otherwise there was some solid failing on the criticism front. They had one bit where you had to pick which passage of criticism came from Arnold, Frye, or Bloom, and I just didn't even have the tiniest scrap of a clue. I didn't even know how to begin to guess. I wanted to fill in F, No idea, but I've heard of them all! Arnold did something with schools, and Frye has a massive Anatomy of Criticism book, and Bloom is controversial and edited critical editions of everything!

I have a retentive memory, as it turns out. I was actually really surprised at my memory and its helpfulness. It didn't fall down on the job, not even once. There was no text I'd read before that I forgot and got wrong when a question on it came up; instead of that, my memory kept tossing up answers that I wouldn't have expected to know. My memory was a trooper. I wanted to clap it on the back and offer to buy it a drink when we were all done. Like there was a passage from "Lycidas", and I would have said that I didn't remember anything from "Lycidas", but I saw the word "swain" in it and my memory said, Milton, "Lycidas". I would have asked my memory a few questions about this, such as, Really? Just from "swain"?, but I didn't want to be all looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Sidebar: Actually, it kind of perturbed me that I remembered "Lycidas". I don't like "Lycidas". I know it was useful for the purposes of my vanity on this particular day, but in general, I don't need to have "swain" and "Lycidas" permanently linked in my mind. What good will that do me? Quit it! Quit taking up brain space with stuff I don't need! Devote that Lycidas part to Paradise Lost!

Another thing my memory retains without my asking: I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of ecstasy, and indeed it goes so heavy with my disposition that this goodly frame the earth seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof [something] with golden fire, why it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent con[something - gregation? flagration?] of vapors. What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god. The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals - and yet to me what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

Thanks, memory. That'll be useful for when - um - oh, right, never. DROP IT.

I was good at the guessing. I did a lot of really top-notch guessing. With passage identification. This made me feel really good about myself, how good I was at guessing what passages were from whom even though I'd never read anything by them (like Dryden and Conrad). It strongly confirmed my previously-held opinions about certain writers. I read the passage and thought, Huh. This sounds like exactly how I have always imagined Conrad. No wonder I've never read that shit, and lo, it was indeed Conrad. It was a whole section of authors I've always suspected I don't like - Conrad, James, and Joyce - and I got them all exactly right. This served the dual purpose of making me feel clever and also very content with my ability to predict what authors I will and won't like.

(As long as I ignore those times I held my nose and checked out duty reads that I ended up being in love with, like The Ground Beneath Her Feet and The Three Musketeers and Inherit the Wind.)

Oh, and, and, and, I was excellent at dating things. Sometimes they provided passages and said: This was written when? and I was good at that, even when they were tricky. And I got the one that asked during whose reign something was written. I got it even though it was modernized spelling and a king I don't know anything about except that there is a funny picture of him getting crowned with an angel that looks like she's thinking GOD when can I get OUT of here? and an angel next to her that is giving her a reproving look (Richard II). Oh, and Wat Tyler, also, I know that Richard II was when Wat Tyler had a Peasants' Revolt. So with that knowledge base I think it was pretty impressive of me to have chosen Richard II.

In other news, there is no essay on the literature in English GRE subject test. Shit, if I'd known that I'd've taken it in a second. I thought about taking it and then I was like, Blaaaaaah, writing standardized test essays is such a draaaaaaaaag, that won't be any fun and I don't waaaaaaaanna.

Moral: Be informed before making a decision based on laziness. The literature in English subject test is jolly and essay-free!