Thomas Ouphe

Fifteen years of thought and reding led me to the conclusion that I drew in the last instalment. Should I ever run into Petunia (from the first instalment) again. And, should we talk long enough for the subject to come up, I will be ready to pounce like a theoretical puma in a forest of hypothetical trees. Unfortunately, I don’t have several years to wait in the hope of bumping into her so about a week ago, in the interest of rounding off this introduction, I looked her up on Facebook. To my absolute horror, I discovered she had become an English teacher. I would have been happier if she was working developing chemical weapons or testing cosmetic products on animals. I would like to elaborate on her Saul-like conversion to literature: explaining in detail how my earlier, much less though out, defence of literature had sparked a passion for literature in her that was only rivalled in intensity by the unending physical pain she felt at the regret of dumping me. However, she ignored my fr...

He wonder'd that your lordship Would suffer him to spend his youth at home,   I have to say, this one almost killed the whole Shakespeare project for me. There is a play called The Yorkshire Tragedy that was originally attributed to Shakespeare.  Critics have generally said The Yorkshire Tragedy has to be knock off Shakespeare because it's just not good enough to be written by him.  I’ve read it, it isn’t this bad.   Now, I didn’t start this project with the intention of saying all Shakey’s plays were rubbish.   But so far, that is how the wind is blowing.   Hopefully, Love’s Labour’s Lost will break the streak. Two Gentlemen of Verona is about two friends, Proteus and Valentine.   Proteus moves to Milan and falls in love with the Duke’s daughter Silvia.   Valentine stays in Verona because he’s in love with Julia, who is overplaying her hand with him.   He follows Proteus to Milan, meets Silvia falls in love with her.   But he...

As far back as 1920 in,   Erwin Edman’s Human Traits and Their Social Significance   the definition of what makes a human unique from other animals has been primarily the upright stance and numerous physical peculiarities such as jaw structure and peculiar hair patterns that partially separate us from other great apes. However, minor physical peculiarities are common in most species of most groups of animals. Therefore, social psychology and anthropology have sought to categorise humanity by behavioural traits such as unusually long periods of infancy, which other animals do not share. If you are interested in a long catalogue of what makes us human I suggest you turn to the books of those scientific disciplines (they are actually very interesting) for as I made clear in the first instalment, I am no scientist. What interests me is the one form of behaviour that humanity does not share with any other species on the planet and that unique behaviour is literature. The anthropolo...

In the end, even preternaturally large gorillas must face their mortality. Having touched briefly on the Christian creation myth in the last instalment, I would like to return to it just as briefly to talk about storytelling. Storytelling seems to have been what our ancient ancestors used in lieu of information. Creation myths exist almost universally throughout human culture and they are a good example of how literature fills the gaps of human knowledge. Certain things within the human experience are simply unknowable and, it tends to be those unknowable elements of our existence that stop us from sleeping properly. As a man who prides himself on having moved past the Eighteenth century regretting only the loss of cottage industry I am able to see creation myth for what it is - literature. In The Bible, we are given the following information: that God created the world from the word. However, there is no explanation of what force created God. Most of the important back-story is absent...

Whilst there is room to debate the issue within the creation of matter, humanity as we know it begins with language. In the beginning, reads   The Bible , was the word and the word was with God. Not only that but the word is so powerful that God only has to use a few more words to create light, the universe and all life as we know it. The Bible holds words in pretty high regard and so it should, the Bible is all just words. Seems like a simple point to make, most books primarily consist of words. However, take a minute to stop and think about the profound effect that one collection of words has had on the world. Think about the wars, the conversions, the cultures lost suppressed and destroyed. Think about the personal sacrifices it inspired, the acts of compassion, of heroism and of generosity. Feel free to stop and make a cup of tea if you want, it always hurts my head to think about it too. The Bible   is only one book in one branch of literature; its influence on the world,...

See, Bukowski gets it. I've just seen the #thingsIwillmissaboutlockdownhashtag trending.  So, I'll say this, I will miss not having to go to work. Look, I know people have it bad.   This Covid-19 thing is kicking the world’s economy right in the ass and taking down a lot of good people, both physically and financially.   And yes, this post is coming from a place of privilege; because, if I were about to miss a meal I know I’d be happy to get back to work.   Over the years, I’ve done some pretty humiliating stuff to make ends meet: from cleaning bottles of piss left by workmen on construction sites to lining up at an agency at 4am in the hope they might send me out for the day.   Thankfully, that’s all a while behind me, and right now, in a usual year, I would be marking exams for 14 hours a day seven days a week to top up my meagre teaching wage. So, let’s be honest, work is shit.   The average person with an average job, on average, earns below the a...

Behold the shrew in all its wildness! Shakespeare follows up his sloppy first outing into comedy by attempting a cross-genre comedy horror.  The play opens with a framing device that, in a step up from Comedy of Errors, has jokes in it.  Granted, they haven't aged well.  The funny bit here is that a bunch of nobles meet a salesman called Christopher Sly.  For shits and giggles, they get him wasted. Then humiliate him by convincing him that he's a lord.  To facilitate this, they force a young boy to wear drag and flirt with him. Yeah. You're right, I agree. It hasn't aged well. Christopher Sly does throw out a few good one-liners and one very artful monologue that make this whole section, not just tolerable but somewhat entertaining.  The nobles put on a play to distract Sly; namely, The Taming of the Shrew.  None of this first section is related to the rest of the narrative in any meaningful manner, and it all seems a bit pointless. However, as the plo...