I LOVE teaching…

I LOVE teaching Shakespeare. Okay, I might get tired of it someday. But today was my first day, and I lectured on Petrarchan sonnets and the way they figure woman (beautiful, cold, distant, cruel, ultimately unreal and insubstantial). And then I got to talk about "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" and "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun," which are all about how *real* Shakespeare's woman is by comparison, and it was so fun.

Then a quick end of class segue to Jonathan Swift's "The Lady's Dressing Room" with its maddened refrain: 'But  Celia, Celia, Celia shits!', ending in a discussion of how we still, today, expect women to 'clean up' all their messy, real bits -- waxing eyebrows, shaving armpits and legs and bikini line. With the last few minutes, I directed them to go look up both merkins and vajazzling, and they started immediately doing so on their phones and the class exploded into delighted outrage. Fun fun fun!!!