Kakisteia

[dr_pretentious]

So there we were at, of course, a Starbucks--tokeiwakamidesu the Shiny Young Classics Major, hunched over the paper on Lucan's Pharsalia that he has to hand in when he gets back to campus, and me, the Escaped Composition Prof, hunched over my novel. And we had the kind of cheerfully pretentious conversation that explains why he's my favorite in-law. It went sort of like this:

Shiny Young Classics Major:

Hey Sarah, if one of your students handed in a paper that used the word "aristeia-ish", what would you write in the margin?


Escaped Composition Prof:

In my secret heart of hearts, I'd be charmed. In the margin, I'd say it was too colloquial for a paper.


Shiny Young Classics Major:

Okay, how about "aristeia-esque"?


Escaped Composition Prof:

Ow. You hurt my brain. What's the context?


Shiny Young Classics Major:

Lucan hates the guy he's writing about, so he writes this long passage that's structured like an aristeia, with a catalog of all the blameworthy things the guy is doing, and it ends with this totally ignominious death. I mean, like, the guy's impaled with so many spears his body can't absorb any more, and then he rolls down a hill on the sphere of the butt ends of all the spears, like some kind of giant hedgehog of doom. It's aristeia-ish, but not.


Escaped Composition Prof:

So it's reminiscent of the aristeia...or typical of the aristeia...only instead of being the very most honorable stuff the guy ever does, it's the very most shitty stuff the guy ever does. That would make it, what, a kakosteia, right? A passage recounting the very most shitty deeds?


Shiny Young Classics Major:

No, not quite...it would have to be kakisteia, not kakosteia. It's got to be the superlative of kakos, see, the very most shitty.


Escaped Composition Prof:

Dude, it's been a long time since I last needed to form a Greek superlative.



So now, of course, the Little Book needs at least one aristeia and at least one kakisteia, though I'm pretty sure there will not be a giant rolling spear-hedgehog of doom.

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Comments

[jeneralist.livejournal.com]

Didn't Monty Python do a riff on the hedgehog of doom? Spiny Norman, the 60 foot tall imaginary hedgehog roaming London looking for Dinsdale, one of the Pirana brothers?

"Dinsdale! Dinsdale!"

Getting from Lucan to Monty Python in two steps before morning caffeine: priceless. (Have I ever told you what an entertaining LJ you have?)

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

We couldn't remember Spiny Norman's name, but yes, he did come to mind. I get the impression there are a lot of Pythonesque things in the Pharsalia.

Lucan also describes an ill-fated battle in a desert in which huge numbers of characters get killed by poisonous snakes. Several of tokeiwakamidesu's classmates are working on papers with titles that riff on Snakes on a Plane.

Sometimes I do miss teaching college students.

My lj is entertaining mostly because my life is full of entertaining people. (Glad you're one of them.)