I'm finishing up Bullfinch's Mythology and am most of the way through the "Age of Chivalry" section. I remembered a lot of this stuff from a Spring Term class I took on Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur. As I was reading through the sections about the quest for the Sangrail, I was taken back to a daydream I had in the Malory seminar about how much of a pain in the ass Galahad had to be to deal with. I mean, here we have this holier-than-thou chaste-as-can-be dude rubbing it in his Dad's (Launcelot's) face that Launcelot didn't have a prayer of achieving the Sangrail, given his indiscretions with Guenever and his pursuit of material things. Meanwhile, he's Launcelot's kid, dammit. And if Launcelot didn't do the things he did, Galahad wouldn't have even had a chance to do the whole "go right to heaven - Do Not Pass Go" thing. Meanwhile, here are all these righteous knights sitting around lamenting their past sins, getting all upset about how they can't even SEE the Sangrail because they're not worthy. And the whole time, Galahad is bragging about his life of chastity and purety, even when God layeth the smacketh down on his own Dad for trying to sneak a peek at the holy vessel.
Never really brought that up in class. Oh, well...
Coincidentally, I got an e-mail from W&L today about the strategic plans they're putting together for the future. They asked for some feedback, and I mentioned Spring Term as something W&L should never change. Some of my favorite classes were short, 6-week seminars during Spring Term that allowed me to explore cool stuff like Arthurian legend, in-depth reporting and advanced design outside the encumbrances of the typical 12-week term. 'Twould be a shame if they got rid of it, as they've been trying to do for several years.
