Color of Green

I am so glad I found reference to The Key of Green: Passion and Perception in Renaissance Culture as it has made the color Power Point project to be rather fun. Since I can’t see to ever focus on the contemporary world (must be the “old soul”) focusing on the culture of a past world is right up my proverbial alley. It didn’t hurt that the color in question is my favorite, thereby solving the problem of how to present on “green” without dredging up the obvious, 20th-21st century environmental references. Best of all, Renaissance green has lots to do with love and textiles and the arts, my other passions. Wow! A new way at looking at “Greensleeves”! Discovery of naughty Renaissance ballads (let’s just say the refrain “Hey dilly do down day” has a new meaning)! Who would have thought that “green” was a verb as well as adjective in Middle English and the Scots of James VI/I? My only regret is that my book order got screwed up the first time and I didn’t get the book until AFTER I had lectured on Andrew Marvell. Incidentally, the cover of the book, sans jacket, is Nile green.

The only negative thing about this project was a sinus cold over seasonal allergies and an overlay of caffeine withdrawal from all the tea and honey I drank to preserve my health. If that wasn’t bad enough, having to stare at my vibrant green Power Point slide during class until I could figure out how to change the backgrounds back to white without changing all the backgrounds of all the slides (Note to self: next time, do everything in white and then add the colored backgrounds) in whatever crazy version of Word is on the classroom computers. Talk about “green-sickness”—the techno version.

As a side note, for the font exercise, I gave a copy of “Pink Hollyhocks” to the person who first gave me the poem, and she informed me that she not only liked my treatment of the poem, but she hung it in her office, and a former student of mine whom I sent the Waymen poem and the John of the Cross poem to enjoyed both of those.