My lecture today concerns the life & times & work & life of the poet Gilroy Deathstar. Deathstar, born in 1984, lived in Oceania for a number of unnumbered years, years remarkable only for the trace of reminiscences of the trace of his presence in the margins of archival correspondence of fellow poets; this trace, repeatedly, refers to a particular odor, which emanated from Deathstar, apparently unbeknownst to him. It was an odor defined by its unmistakeable undefinability, both attractive and repellent (witness the number of reading invitations he received from prestigious and not-so-smelly outfits, based solely on the rumored impact of the odor).

Upon moving to Rhode Island, Deathstar immediately engrossed himself in the study of P.K. Bleffling, a local fictado of dubious reputation (Bleffing "sightings" are a seasonal pastime in that locale). According to Isabella Quintado, a close friend, Deathstar was obsessed with locating and tabulating the occurrence of his own name (Deathstar) in the works of Bleffling, to the detriment of his own creative labors. Quintado cites this obsessional pastime as the principal cause of Deathstar's general status as "ignota" in literary circles; but it is my purpose in the lecture at hand (which I will soon transmit from hand to voice to brains of Comp Lit 101 at John-John Univy Versity) to propose an alternative hypothesis, to wit: Deathstar's contemporary reception - between the years 1984 and 1984 - was determined solely by the indescribable, unmentionable (except in the marginal literary record) odor, which I have previously described (or mentioned, previously).

Solely, you say? Solely? And yet, how can anything solely be determined? When a literary personage enters a crowded reception room, with mirandas tinkling and martinis twinkling, and suddenly all heads turn in perplexed quizzicality (or should I say, quizzical perspicuity), and noses lift imperceptibly into the aether, and sniffs are erupting silently throughout the reception space - what have we here? Old socks? Could anything so banal serve as motive for metaphor? Or is the odor merely a sign of a social reprehension, an instinctual repulsion/attraction, which in ancient times led to "the crown that lies uneasy on the head bears"?

But I digress. Shakespeare & Deathstar, Deathstar & Shakespeare, we could spend the whole semestre incarcerated with these twins of doublet dubiety. And - hmmm. . . what's that. . . that. . . that. . . smell. . .does anyone else. . . c-c-class d-d-dism-m-missed! It's - DEATHSTAR!!! Arrrghghgh!!