so I’m Sonia Nicola and I am here to
tell you some stories about ellipses now
since I work in English literature it
shouldn’t surprise anyone we have to
take the first story from Shakespeare
some of you may have spotted that
Hamlet’s famous last words are in my
title but I actually want to take us to
a different set of last words I want to
go to that last scene in Othello I want
to think about how Yago the villain has
one more knife to twist and he delivers
those last lines like a curse demand me
nothing what you know you know from this
time forth I never will speak word and
so we ask ourselves we ask this play
what’s the reason what’s the explanation
why did all of this jealousy and hatred
and death have to happen and Iago won’t
answer us and so I see this scene play
out in my classrooms I see my students
frustrated with these Iago texts they
pour their words into our brains and
then refuse to give us a clear answer at
the end and I do understand the
frustration I understand the pressure to
get the right answer so you can get the
right grade so you can graduate with the
right marks I also though the pressure
of sitting next to Hermione whose hand
goes up before the question is even
finished but really I understand the
frustration because I’ve been there I
know what it feels like to just want the
answer and be confronted with dot dot
dot my own story of ellipses begins on a
beach I’m standing on a beach with
Antoinette but if I’m going to tell the
story properly I guess I need to
introduce Antoinette once upon a time
two girls came to Harvard one was from
Los Angeles and womans from Detroit they
were both pretty poor and trying
figure out how to fit into this new
world they lived in the same dorm they
studied English and they became friends
then one day they stood on the beach
writing in the sand that’s me I am
working on Prospero’s lines from The
Tempest because Shakespeare we are such
stuff as dreams are made on and our
little life is rounded with a sleep I
thought I was so clever this was perfect
the waves would watch the words away
like dreams this is good it was awful it
was a terrible choice it’s way too long
to write on the beach I wasn’t even
halfway done with Prospero and I look
over and Antoinette is on her patch of
beach and she’s written three words I am
uh I am a what No she says that’s the
whole thing huh it’s from Ulysses she
says when bloom writes I am on the beach
and he can’t finish it now she had
gotten a head start on modernist writers
I knew about Ulysses the way you know
about Mount Everest but I hadn’t read it
myself I was confused oh ok ok
but bloom is a what you you’re a what no
she said it’s unfinished that’s the
point she was so confident in the
unsolved I was frustrated I wanted the
answer I wanted to get it right
I wanted the solution to the puzzle but
Antoinette saw that the unfinished miss
was the important thing that was the
thing worthy of remembering and
replicating and there on the sand I
learned from her the most significant
thing I’ve learned at Harvard right
there on the sand I began my battle for
not against the unanswered the ellipses
now the first thing that I did in this
battle was read Ulysses this is the page
when bloom writes on the beach it’s
complete with my college notes and when
I look at it now here’s what strikes me
about what anthem that did
in Joyce’s text blooms phrase is
emphatic and solid I am all capitals and
periods but it’s also it’s broken
sporadic it’s interrupted by blooms
neurotic inner monologue Antoinette’s
translation was unified was flowing was
elliptical I am uh she took a phrase
that was full of angst and effort and
she turned it into something that was an
affirmation a declaration of identity if
I can interpret her interpretation
unfinished miss in Joyce’s text is
something difficult painful shameful
signifying maybe impotence the failure
of middle-aged masculinity I am NOT the
first to suggest that blooms inability
to finish writing is a sign of his
inability to finish other things but
Antoinette was celebrating identity as
unfinished as complex changing
rewritable not finishing the phrase i am
a– that’s not failure
that’s necessity none of us can be or
should be encapsulated in a single term
we are many things we contain multitudes
and tomorrow even later today we will be
something else again no matter how much
we write and rewrite ourselves there
will always be new sand that’s what I
love so much about studying English
literature now today we are the ones who
get to do the writing and the rewriting
every one of us has our own beach to
write on whether we are women or poor or
black or queer whether we were born here
or there each one of us gets to decide
what Ulysses means every one of us gets
to interpret the words of a famous dead
white dude and we
speak our meanings up until shockingly
recently a place like Harvard any
university would have ignored or
rejected the voices of people who looked
like us talked like us thought like us
but the tide comes in and the words
change and the world changes so why I
don’t see English as just a discipline
just a thing to study at university I
see it as a way of thinking about and
talking about the world it’s a way of
recognizing that identity and meaning
are fluid in literature we don’t just
suggest that the story is always open to
interpretation we insist on it and so
our students can see us as Iago’s
frustratingly silent when all they want
is the answer here’s the thing about
Iago he doesn’t just deny us his answer
he reaffirms our knowledge what you know
you know what’s truly essential about
studying literature is that recognition
that you get to find the ellipses and
you fill them in with your meanings
built from your experience and knowledge
and belief make that text reflect you
because literature is a mirror to life
you’ll hear that a lot what you might
not hear is that it’s often a funhouse
mirror
it’s that mirror in the dressing room
that’s at just the right angle it’s
pleasurable but it’s a distortion for
instance NPR pop culture critic Linda
Holmes she talks about the words ever
after as being kind of nonsense who has
ever been happy ever after they rode off
together and they rode off together are
very different ways to close your book
my next story of ellipses is an example
of this second kind
closing they wrote off together this is
the movie children of men which is
Alfonso Cuaron’s adaptation of PD
James’s novel this is a dim grim
apocalypse mankind is facing extinction
because no babies have been born for
decades
there’s guy named Theo and he is
fighting across this wasteland trying to
get the last pregnant woman key to
safety at the end of the film
they are aboard a rowboat heading for a
ship on the horizon we watch Theo die
with his last gaze on ki and her newborn
child and then we cut to black words
children of men appear and we hear the
sound of kids shrieking with laughter
they rode off together but what do what
do we make of this ending this is a
hopeful rebirth has Theo whose name
means God has he delivered a miraculous
Savior through a sacred young woman is
she the key or is the cut to black a cut
to ultimate darkness after all what can
one baby do in a dying world if nothing
else
Theo God has left the building and what
is on that ship
is it salvation is it imprisonment is it
exploitation we are adrift on a sea of
possible meanings just like he and her
child so how do we decide what this
movie means well how do you feel today
what do you understand or believe or
know about the world the power of this
text is that it gives the power to you
it gives you its images and emotions and
ideas and you decide what to do with
them what this movie means and how the
world will go is up to you this is a
huge responsibility that literature asks
of its readers all the burden of
interpretation and understanding is on
your shoulders and there is no answer
key to flip to
literature is not a puzzle with a single
solution and that’s because you can’t
solve life by filling in the correct
bubble the answers to the problems that
life gives us they can’t be addressed in
a press conference or in a soundbite and
right now more than ever we need stories
that do not let us brush uncertainty
away we need stories that will confront
us with our lack of knowledge and teach
us not to fear the complex or the
unknown because if we’re afraid we will
have that fear used against us that’s
why I’m happy to play Iago I will twirl
my moustache and I will refuse to
reassure my students with that single
simple answer as it turns out Iago
offers us the harder and the more heroic
path because the villain in life is the
one who says I have the answer the
villain says I can solve your problem he
says just by this thing he says it’s all
their fault literature with all of its
frustration and ellipses is what gives
us the tools to stand up to the villains
to say wait and think and listen a lot
of stories do close with finality period
the end and those stories can be
satisfying and powerful but nothing in
life resolves that neatly none of us
gets to live in a fairy tale and anyone
who suggests otherwise is selling you
something okay that is the eat your
vegetables life is tough pull your socks
up get on with it side of things but I
also want to argue for the beauty of the
ellipses I have one more story for you
and it’s the story of a gravestone the
poet John Keats did not get happy ever
after he was only 25 when
he died from tuberculosis but he did
leave the world some of its most famous
poems think nightingales Grecian urns as
the story goes
what Keats wanted on his tombstone was
the phrase here lies one whose name was
writ in water isn’t that just like a
poet of all the artists they understand
the importance of silence of rests and
breaths between beats of that lovely
irreconcilable space between this image
and that what does it mean to be rich in
water does it mean that Keats’s name is
invisible inconsequential doesn’t mean
that his time on earth is as fleeting as
the tide or did keith’s do something
remarkable something magical
did he inscribe his thoughts and his
words on the face of nature itself can
we somehow see him in every rippling
stream every raindrop every wave what
happened is that Keats gave this
beautiful strange phrase to his friend
Joseph Severn and Severn was me on the
beach
once upon a time he could not deal with
the unsolved he erected this tombstone
this grave contains all that is mortal
of a young English poet who on his
deathbed in the bitterness of his heart
at the malicious power of his enemies
desired these words to be engraving on
his tombstone here lies one whose name
was written water Severn thought he had
the answer to Keats his mysterious
phrase he read it as bitterness as
despair sadness at a life cut short and
I’m fine with sevens interpretation he
was Keats his friend he was right there
as he was dying I’m not fine but the
fact that he carved it into stone I
prefer the beauty of words writ in water
or scrawled in the sand at low tide
words that are always moving
and changing slipping away and coming
back to us in unexpected amazing ways
once upon a time two girls stood on the
beach they wrote the words of some dead
guys in the sand they talked to each
other and they listened to each other
and today one of them is teaching Joyce
in Shakespeare and the other is a
playwright and it’s our job to hand out
words to be deciphered debated discussed
washed away and rewritten there are so
many words life is full of words but
it’s also full of punctuation
leapin exclamation points interrupting
Dash’s song lyrics are stuck in your
head with quotation marks curled around
them but more than anything life is full
of ellipses moments of emptiness and
openness indications of silence of words
and voices that have been cut out
repressed omitted what’s truly
empowering is to recognize those spaces
and to think about what words haven’t
been spoken what voices haven’t been
heard what knowledge do we still have to
discover to celebrate the ellipses is to
celebrate that need to think and to
listen to each other but also to
ourselves so what is your story of
ellipses what will it be I have a
suggestion for you for everyone whether
you read literature or not
the next time you find yourself on the
beach or in the fresh snow or in front
of a foggy mirror anywhere that is
momentary ephemeral right I am and leave
it unfinished think about that ellipses
dot dot dot and think about
all of the things that you are today all
of the words that you could use in that
space then imagine all of the things you
will be someday all of the other words
you might one day use I am a say
powerful phrase and the most powerful
thing is its ending which isn’t an
ending and doesn’t need to be an ending
because the waves will come in the snow
will melt and will begin again tomorrow
and we’ll begin differently as
Antoinette taught me it is not about
filling in the ellipses it’s about
living in the ellipses thank you
[Applause]
tell you some stories about ellipses now
since I work in English literature it
shouldn’t surprise anyone we have to
take the first story from Shakespeare
some of you may have spotted that
Hamlet’s famous last words are in my
title but I actually want to take us to
a different set of last words I want to
go to that last scene in Othello I want
to think about how Yago the villain has
one more knife to twist and he delivers
those last lines like a curse demand me
nothing what you know you know from this
time forth I never will speak word and
so we ask ourselves we ask this play
what’s the reason what’s the explanation
why did all of this jealousy and hatred
and death have to happen and Iago won’t
answer us and so I see this scene play
out in my classrooms I see my students
frustrated with these Iago texts they
pour their words into our brains and
then refuse to give us a clear answer at
the end and I do understand the
frustration I understand the pressure to
get the right answer so you can get the
right grade so you can graduate with the
right marks I also though the pressure
of sitting next to Hermione whose hand
goes up before the question is even
finished but really I understand the
frustration because I’ve been there I
know what it feels like to just want the
answer and be confronted with dot dot
dot my own story of ellipses begins on a
beach I’m standing on a beach with
Antoinette but if I’m going to tell the
story properly I guess I need to
introduce Antoinette once upon a time
two girls came to Harvard one was from
Los Angeles and womans from Detroit they
were both pretty poor and trying
figure out how to fit into this new
world they lived in the same dorm they
studied English and they became friends
then one day they stood on the beach
writing in the sand that’s me I am
working on Prospero’s lines from The
Tempest because Shakespeare we are such
stuff as dreams are made on and our
little life is rounded with a sleep I
thought I was so clever this was perfect
the waves would watch the words away
like dreams this is good it was awful it
was a terrible choice it’s way too long
to write on the beach I wasn’t even
halfway done with Prospero and I look
over and Antoinette is on her patch of
beach and she’s written three words I am
uh I am a what No she says that’s the
whole thing huh it’s from Ulysses she
says when bloom writes I am on the beach
and he can’t finish it now she had
gotten a head start on modernist writers
I knew about Ulysses the way you know
about Mount Everest but I hadn’t read it
myself I was confused oh ok ok
but bloom is a what you you’re a what no
she said it’s unfinished that’s the
point she was so confident in the
unsolved I was frustrated I wanted the
answer I wanted to get it right
I wanted the solution to the puzzle but
Antoinette saw that the unfinished miss
was the important thing that was the
thing worthy of remembering and
replicating and there on the sand I
learned from her the most significant
thing I’ve learned at Harvard right
there on the sand I began my battle for
not against the unanswered the ellipses
now the first thing that I did in this
battle was read Ulysses this is the page
when bloom writes on the beach it’s
complete with my college notes and when
I look at it now here’s what strikes me
about what anthem that did
in Joyce’s text blooms phrase is
emphatic and solid I am all capitals and
periods but it’s also it’s broken
sporadic it’s interrupted by blooms
neurotic inner monologue Antoinette’s
translation was unified was flowing was
elliptical I am uh she took a phrase
that was full of angst and effort and
she turned it into something that was an
affirmation a declaration of identity if
I can interpret her interpretation
unfinished miss in Joyce’s text is
something difficult painful shameful
signifying maybe impotence the failure
of middle-aged masculinity I am NOT the
first to suggest that blooms inability
to finish writing is a sign of his
inability to finish other things but
Antoinette was celebrating identity as
unfinished as complex changing
rewritable not finishing the phrase i am
a– that’s not failure
that’s necessity none of us can be or
should be encapsulated in a single term
we are many things we contain multitudes
and tomorrow even later today we will be
something else again no matter how much
we write and rewrite ourselves there
will always be new sand that’s what I
love so much about studying English
literature now today we are the ones who
get to do the writing and the rewriting
every one of us has our own beach to
write on whether we are women or poor or
black or queer whether we were born here
or there each one of us gets to decide
what Ulysses means every one of us gets
to interpret the words of a famous dead
white dude and we
speak our meanings up until shockingly
recently a place like Harvard any
university would have ignored or
rejected the voices of people who looked
like us talked like us thought like us
but the tide comes in and the words
change and the world changes so why I
don’t see English as just a discipline
just a thing to study at university I
see it as a way of thinking about and
talking about the world it’s a way of
recognizing that identity and meaning
are fluid in literature we don’t just
suggest that the story is always open to
interpretation we insist on it and so
our students can see us as Iago’s
frustratingly silent when all they want
is the answer here’s the thing about
Iago he doesn’t just deny us his answer
he reaffirms our knowledge what you know
you know what’s truly essential about
studying literature is that recognition
that you get to find the ellipses and
you fill them in with your meanings
built from your experience and knowledge
and belief make that text reflect you
because literature is a mirror to life
you’ll hear that a lot what you might
not hear is that it’s often a funhouse
mirror
it’s that mirror in the dressing room
that’s at just the right angle it’s
pleasurable but it’s a distortion for
instance NPR pop culture critic Linda
Holmes she talks about the words ever
after as being kind of nonsense who has
ever been happy ever after they rode off
together and they rode off together are
very different ways to close your book
my next story of ellipses is an example
of this second kind
closing they wrote off together this is
the movie children of men which is
Alfonso Cuaron’s adaptation of PD
James’s novel this is a dim grim
apocalypse mankind is facing extinction
because no babies have been born for
decades
there’s guy named Theo and he is
fighting across this wasteland trying to
get the last pregnant woman key to
safety at the end of the film
they are aboard a rowboat heading for a
ship on the horizon we watch Theo die
with his last gaze on ki and her newborn
child and then we cut to black words
children of men appear and we hear the
sound of kids shrieking with laughter
they rode off together but what do what
do we make of this ending this is a
hopeful rebirth has Theo whose name
means God has he delivered a miraculous
Savior through a sacred young woman is
she the key or is the cut to black a cut
to ultimate darkness after all what can
one baby do in a dying world if nothing
else
Theo God has left the building and what
is on that ship
is it salvation is it imprisonment is it
exploitation we are adrift on a sea of
possible meanings just like he and her
child so how do we decide what this
movie means well how do you feel today
what do you understand or believe or
know about the world the power of this
text is that it gives the power to you
it gives you its images and emotions and
ideas and you decide what to do with
them what this movie means and how the
world will go is up to you this is a
huge responsibility that literature asks
of its readers all the burden of
interpretation and understanding is on
your shoulders and there is no answer
key to flip to
literature is not a puzzle with a single
solution and that’s because you can’t
solve life by filling in the correct
bubble the answers to the problems that
life gives us they can’t be addressed in
a press conference or in a soundbite and
right now more than ever we need stories
that do not let us brush uncertainty
away we need stories that will confront
us with our lack of knowledge and teach
us not to fear the complex or the
unknown because if we’re afraid we will
have that fear used against us that’s
why I’m happy to play Iago I will twirl
my moustache and I will refuse to
reassure my students with that single
simple answer as it turns out Iago
offers us the harder and the more heroic
path because the villain in life is the
one who says I have the answer the
villain says I can solve your problem he
says just by this thing he says it’s all
their fault literature with all of its
frustration and ellipses is what gives
us the tools to stand up to the villains
to say wait and think and listen a lot
of stories do close with finality period
the end and those stories can be
satisfying and powerful but nothing in
life resolves that neatly none of us
gets to live in a fairy tale and anyone
who suggests otherwise is selling you
something okay that is the eat your
vegetables life is tough pull your socks
up get on with it side of things but I
also want to argue for the beauty of the
ellipses I have one more story for you
and it’s the story of a gravestone the
poet John Keats did not get happy ever
after he was only 25 when
he died from tuberculosis but he did
leave the world some of its most famous
poems think nightingales Grecian urns as
the story goes
what Keats wanted on his tombstone was
the phrase here lies one whose name was
writ in water isn’t that just like a
poet of all the artists they understand
the importance of silence of rests and
breaths between beats of that lovely
irreconcilable space between this image
and that what does it mean to be rich in
water does it mean that Keats’s name is
invisible inconsequential doesn’t mean
that his time on earth is as fleeting as
the tide or did keith’s do something
remarkable something magical
did he inscribe his thoughts and his
words on the face of nature itself can
we somehow see him in every rippling
stream every raindrop every wave what
happened is that Keats gave this
beautiful strange phrase to his friend
Joseph Severn and Severn was me on the
beach
once upon a time he could not deal with
the unsolved he erected this tombstone
this grave contains all that is mortal
of a young English poet who on his
deathbed in the bitterness of his heart
at the malicious power of his enemies
desired these words to be engraving on
his tombstone here lies one whose name
was written water Severn thought he had
the answer to Keats his mysterious
phrase he read it as bitterness as
despair sadness at a life cut short and
I’m fine with sevens interpretation he
was Keats his friend he was right there
as he was dying I’m not fine but the
fact that he carved it into stone I
prefer the beauty of words writ in water
or scrawled in the sand at low tide
words that are always moving
and changing slipping away and coming
back to us in unexpected amazing ways
once upon a time two girls stood on the
beach they wrote the words of some dead
guys in the sand they talked to each
other and they listened to each other
and today one of them is teaching Joyce
in Shakespeare and the other is a
playwright and it’s our job to hand out
words to be deciphered debated discussed
washed away and rewritten there are so
many words life is full of words but
it’s also full of punctuation
leapin exclamation points interrupting
Dash’s song lyrics are stuck in your
head with quotation marks curled around
them but more than anything life is full
of ellipses moments of emptiness and
openness indications of silence of words
and voices that have been cut out
repressed omitted what’s truly
empowering is to recognize those spaces
and to think about what words haven’t
been spoken what voices haven’t been
heard what knowledge do we still have to
discover to celebrate the ellipses is to
celebrate that need to think and to
listen to each other but also to
ourselves so what is your story of
ellipses what will it be I have a
suggestion for you for everyone whether
you read literature or not
the next time you find yourself on the
beach or in the fresh snow or in front
of a foggy mirror anywhere that is
momentary ephemeral right I am and leave
it unfinished think about that ellipses
dot dot dot and think about
all of the things that you are today all
of the words that you could use in that
space then imagine all of the things you
will be someday all of the other words
you might one day use I am a say
powerful phrase and the most powerful
thing is its ending which isn’t an
ending and doesn’t need to be an ending
because the waves will come in the snow
will melt and will begin again tomorrow
and we’ll begin differently as
Antoinette taught me it is not about
filling in the ellipses it’s about
living in the ellipses thank you
[Applause]
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