A nice Southernism . . .

[Charles Doyle]

I started the semester in my Shakespeare class by having the students write me a letter of introduction.  I wanted to see a little about how they write sentences, but even more I was interested in the various ways they might define and present themselves, their "selves."  From there we would move on to considering Renaissance "self-fashioning," the early-modern way in which one could construct the self as a "character" (in the divine comedy of the world, all of which is a stage)--and thence to the scripting of characters in that preeminent genre of the time, the drama, where a "self" consists entirely in the wording of speeches.

One student included in her introduction the following clause:  "Once I was old enough to fin for myself . . . ."  A Southern belle just swimming along in the school!

--Charlie
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