There are four poems miraculously preserved in a single manuscript by an unknown poet, who is usually called the Gawain poet. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” and “Pearl” are considered works of genius, but the two other poems “Patience” and “Cleanness” are less celebrated.

When it came to looking at a dissertation topic, when my other suggestions were discouraged as being monumentally boring, Dr Moores was OK with me looking at the less celebrated of the poet’s works.

Most of this appears to be a combination of overeach and wishful thinking but if you ever were looking for a contrarian reading of these poems have a look.

I did spend an awful lot of time and effort on it and she did give me a grade of 7 (out of 7). I think she rightly struggled with my style suggesting that I wrote arts essays like a scientist.

Abstract:

Dissertation:

…and there ended my studies at the University of Queensland and logically should have ended my studies altogether.

It didn’t and I did use UQ libraries a lot when I embarked on further studies later on. This was because they were just better than the ACU library at Banyo, except for niche areas, and I was more familiar with them.

I found both the factual test and the two hour exam paper that between them were 50% of the marks for this subject.

I had an advantage in that I was up to my neck in the Gawain poet in my dissertation and that was a lot of the exam.

My last coursework subject at UQ was rewarded with a grading of 7 (out of 7)

My essay for this subject related to Guthlac A, The Passion of St Edmund and The Battle of Maldon.

It was graded 20/21.

1997 was my last year studying at the University of Queensland, where I did my Medicine degree and my Arts degree and the Honours in Arts part time, then called a Postgraduate Diploma in Arts.

In trying to recall what else was going on, I’m pretty sure I did the RCIA and became a Catholic that Easter, and at some point that year was mad enough to go part time as a General Practitioner to become a medical adviser to the Department of Veteran’s Affairs. We had four children, a relatively new house and with all the driving and trains to the city for the new job I have no idea how or why I was still studying English.

Otherwise what I was mainly doing was my dissertation under the loose and benevolent supervision of Dr Elizabeth Moores, but in second semester, while struggling to finish that beast, I also did this unit. After the brave and foolish decision to go straying into modern feminist lit the previous year, I got permission to go back to the medieval era by taking an undergraduate course, EN282, at postgraduate level.

The topics covered were fairly broad and avoided the topics covered in more usual medieval subjects, that is, Chaucer.

We looked at:

• Old English literature – Saints’ Lives, Maldon, Beowulf
• Old Icelandic – Viking Romances, Prose Edda
• Gawain Poet – Pearl, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
• Malory

She didn’t follow my orderly list as above though, we meandered backwards and forwards a lot. There were lectures and tutorials most weeks.

Assessment was actually quite extensive. We had a small essay in the first week looking at the difference between Myth and Legend. There was a factual test after two months that I think was ungraded. She set a major essay due well before the end of semester and a two hour examination.

I remember a lot of reading and especially the Malory texts which were something in which to get really bogged down.

For some reason I went to the case of Buddy Holly to define a Legend as opposed to Myth.