the worst part is - the worst part is - nohrnberg, i know, will be happy with a complex, wide, connecting, thoughts-lattice-type essay, like the way he writes, and milbank will want a linear thesis - something with a clear argument guided through to the end.

and somehow, i feel desperate because i can't please them both.

and, whatever advice i seek - i have certainly not supplied them with enough of my ideas or discoveries for them to - feel - understand - the topic in the same way as i do. i don't mean your advisors should know everything - how terrible it would be to be writing on - dante, for instance, with either of them - what can i say that can startle them, make them wonder? but to get into something that everyone knows something about - but different somethings about - which do not begin to cover even a little of it - i don't want to be judged - on insufficient knowledge - or a lack of common understanding. i once wrote an essay where i spoke of the obligatory three princesses in a fairy tale paradigm and because the professor is a feminist critic, that caught her eye, she saw that that was a significant point that i had overlooked - should it not be three princes? she asserted in the margin. she's a brilliant teacher of theory, but she doesn't read fairy tales. and yet the assumptions with re: to the text and to my reasoning are - flawed.

and so.