From John Donne’s meditations on his illness to medieval travel writing, Michaelmas has brought with it a welcome variety of reading. In the last few days of term, I met up with a friend from another college for lunch. We started speaking about our studies, and it struck me then that so much of the reading I’ve done this term has just been silly. Between green knights and their green horses, dastardly cony-catchers, and a woman who keeps a man’s corpse in her bedroom for years, I’ve been reminded of how bizarre literature can be. I spent far too long in the Upper Bodleian one morning looking at the illustrations in a medieval bestiary, surrounded by people who I’m sure were doing much more serious work. The images of red cows, crocodiles eating men whole, and bears licking their bear cubs into shape provided ample entertainment amid the exhaustion of seventh week.
It’s been a long term. My first essay, on revenge tragedy, feels like a distant memory. As much as I’ve embraced the silliness of literature, it also seems a lot of the texts I’ve studied this term have been about grief in some way or another: unrequited love; unfulfilled possibilities; the loss of children, friends, partners or self. There’s a certain kind of grief that comes at the end of term, too. As much as I am looking forward to (in the words of Chris Rea) driving home for Christmas, Oxford terms are always fleeting. The buzz of first week quickly turns into fifth week blues, and, before you know it, you’re packing your bags.
As the Instagram posts flood in at the end of term, it’s difficult not to be reflective. The dinner plans that didn’t come to fruition; the abandoned nights out because you were too tired to leave your room; the people you didn’t spend enough time with. I’m always excited to go home, to see my family and the cats, and to sleep properly for the first time in ten weeks, but a part of me mourns the term that has passed. In a couple of months, I will be at Halfway Hall. Now, more than ever, I want to make the most of my time at Oxford. It is exhausting – at times it feels impossible – but for half the year this place is home.
Michaelmas has been a term of silliness and sadness. There’s been a lot of singing and dancing (mainly to Dizzee Rascal’s ‘Dance Wiv Me’), and a lot of late-night heart-to-hearts. I don’t get much time to read for fun during term, but I did manage to finish one book: Bobby Palmer’s Isaac and the Egg. It is a novel of (you’ve guessed it) silliness and sadness, and it has made me smile every time I see it on the shelf above my desk. If you’re looking for a good cry, and a little bit of hope, I’d highly recommend it.
I don’t know what next term will bring, other than my twentieth birthday and the midway point of my degree. I wouldn’t be surprised if those two things conspire to bring about an identity crisis, or something equally dramatic. I do know two things, however. The first is that, before then, I need to have read Paradise Lost. The second (and the most important, unless my tutor stumbles upon this article) is that I want to keep hold of the silliness – those moments of ridiculousness you can find every day if you keep an eye out for them. University is hard, so you might as well get through it laughing. I had every intention of ending on a profound note, with a nugget of wisdom from a text I’ve read this term, but I can’t seem to call anything fitting to mind. Instead, I’ll conclude with the reminder to keep being silly – because if you can’t be silly at Christmas, when can you be?