yours, &c.

Seeing a lot of “death is for other people” people these days…

Anonymous asked:

Is there a symbolism in Louisa jumping off the Cobb at Lyme?

Louisa’s jump off the Cobb is a culmination of the stupidity that her and Wentworth have been engaging in up to that point. He has been encouraging her to be headstrong:

My first wish for all whom I am interested in, is that they should be firm. If Louisa Musgrove would be beautiful and happy in her November of life, she will cherish all her present powers of mind.

She’s be delighting in acceptable physical contact:

In all their walks, he had had to jump her from the stiles; the sensation was delightful to her.

And this leads to the inevitable, Louisa insists on doing something dangerous and will not hear opposition, she gets hurt while doing it. The opposition comes from the very man who had encouraged her to be headstrong.

Now is there symbolism? I don’t know. Louisa the Hazelnut did not outlive the storms of autumn, she cracked her nut instead? Her head was not in fact strong? The admiral does actually make a few jokes about this so I’m in good company.

Anyone else see symbolism? I just see character driven narrative.

I think the character driven plot of the scene is poignant on it’s own but I have thought about this myself.

Once I happened to read Paradise Lost and Persuasion concurrently and was constantly thinking they had parallels. The Milton specifically, not just the tale of genesis. I forget exactly what the connections were now. But looking for symbolism in this particular scene, it’s hard not to immediately think of THE fall. She’s a naive, blissful girl when she falls and then she wakes up into a mature, dour philosopher. Innocent to knowledgable.

Also, Louisa is clearly ‘falling’ in love with Wentworth. He has no romantic intentions for her, therefore, he will not be able to 'catch’ her in love nor on the Cobb. She may call herself headstrong but she never had to suffer the consequences until she falls. In that sense, she’s like Adam & Eve: can you truly be faithful, if you don’t KNOW what it means to be unfaithful? In Louisa’s case, are you really strong of purpose, if you are ignorant of the possible cost. Louisa clearly did not think it possible she could die by jumping on the Cobb.

Anne, on the other hand, is full of this knowledge. Now, at this point in her life, she knows what she is willing to risk to be with Wentworth. She listened to advice when she was young, but now she thinks it was bad advice even in its time. She doesn’t just think it was bad because Wentworth happened to survive and become rich and therefore there was never any risk to begin with. Knowing herself better now, she would rather have taken the risk of becoming a young widow than breaking off the engagement.

Maybe Anne doesn’t truly understand what the consequences would be for a young widow. But that’s why Austen included Mrs. Grey and Harriet Smith. Their situations as poor young widows, one dependent on her father once more, and the other ill and dependent on a nurse, are unusual for Austen’s typical ensemble. They give Anne (and us) the ability to see into that life, and know if she would have been willing to suffer the life of a poor widow for the chance of being Wentworth’s wife.

attemptedvictorian:

Shakespeare side of Tumblr.
I want to get more into his works but don’t know where to start. Guidance is welcome.

Adaptations and derivatives are my preferred entry point for shakespeare rather than jumping right into a text. Stuff as lighthearted as She’s the Man or 10 Things I Hate About You. Depends on your style but I like to chip away from the outside reimaginings to the original source rather than going from the original source to derivatives. Either way, here are a couple resources that are lesser known.

1) I really liked this 2005 BBC series of 4 plays reset in modern times called Shakespeare Retold. Their Much Ado About Nothing is my fave with Damien Lewis, Sarah Parish, Billie Piper, and Tom Ellis. This was before many of them hit it big and it even has Olivia Colman in some two bit part LOL! Whole thing on Youtube here. (And I posted a little funny clip below this post. I tried to include it here but Tumblr didn’t like it.) The others in the series are Midsummer Night’s Dream, Taming of the Shrew(second fave), and Macbeth with James McAvoy.

2) You can also find many streaming theatre performances from RSC and the Globe on Marquee TV. It is a paid subscription but there’s a free trial period. Just glancing at what’s available now there’s so many. Of RSC productions alone there’s Richard II with David Tennant and Macbeth with Christopher Eccleston and so many more i just took a screenshot.

I thought that trailer for RSC’s Hamlet was so cool. There’s other recordings from the Globe Theater (Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It) and Donmar Theatre and I noticed there’s even an old CBS tv adaptation of Much Ado from 1972.

If it interested you, there’s also ballet and opera adaptations of shakespeare on Marquee too. There’s SEVERAL ballet Romeo and Juliets, as well as a taming of the shrew ballet, the winter’s tale, midsummer night’s dream, and an opera called Beatrice and Benedict I never saw before that I may have to check out now!

3) I also like Shakespeare related original stories like Shakespeare in Love. It’s kind of unserious, but at the same time every beat is some reworking of a plot from one of his plays. Slings and Arrows is also interesting especially if you’ve ever done theater yourself. It’s about a struggling theater trying to pull off a production of Hamlet while their art director is sort of being haunted by his late mentor/predecessor/enemy. The show does give insights into the play Hamlet as we watch him direct it. I watched it on Acorn.tv which also offers a free trial.

4) All the typical feature film adaptations you’ll hear about are excellent (Branagh’s Much Ado, Whedon’s Much Ado, Tennant and Tate Much Ado especially! <- full recording, Twelfth Night ‘96, Baz Luhrman Rom+Ju) but I just wanna shout out the 2013 Romeo and Juliet with Hailee Steinfeld and Douglas Booth. I feel like no one remembers it but it is so beautiful, especially if you have any interest in renaissance art or costuming. When this came out I was literally taking a class on 15th century Italian art and it was mm mmm chef’s kiss. I was the only one in the theater and I sobbed through the whole credit reel before I could leave.

5) There’s this teacher who started getting deep on Tiktok about Romeo & Juliet and some other Shakespeare plays as well. Her username is Missviolaswamphadapoint and I’ll link a video of hers. I learned tons of new things from her that I didn’t learn in my college Shakespeare courses.

6) Once you’ve milked Shakespeare’s plays, texts, and adaptations you could check out critical essays. You should be able to find a digital resource at your local library like EBSCO host, WorldCat, and JStor.

Just some of the essays I can name from my courses: “Hamlet and His Problems” by TS Eliot, “Hamlet’s Dull Revenge” from A Theater of Envy by Rene Girard, Shakespear’s Universalism by Harold Bloom, “The Joker in the Pack” from The Dyer’s Hand by WH Auden, “Brothers and Others” also by Auden, “The Absence of Religion in Shakespeare” by George Santayana, and Johnson on Shakespeare. It’s been ages since I read any of them, so I don’t recall which are good or relevant.

Peace ✌️

Shakespeare Retold: Much Ado About Nothing (BBC 2005)

i’ve been on tumblr for over a decade, i’ve stayed through superwholock, when they changed the tumblr blue, the porn ban, the endlessly frustrating search engine, the strain tumblr takes on my internet bandwidth and my computer battery. I thought nothing could frighten me away…

but this new side bar on the left is KILLING ME

I read hunger games and catching fire when they were published but I never got through mockingjay (and basically same story with the movies). But i just read the cliffs notes about the ending and was wondering if someone could explain:

Is there some meaning between primrose and snows white roses? Like as flowers. And What would the meaning be for Katniss to put a white rose on snow at his execution when that’s always been what he symbolized himself with? It’s as mundane to him as his own name. What’s the point? Does she say?

Or Is it to show Katniss’ vengeance by continuing snows MO in cutting roses compared to Peeta’s hope since he’s the one who plants primrose? Thoughts? Has the fandom already answered this?

bethanydelleman:

mr-rochester-of-thornfield:
Did St. John attempt to dissuade Jane from sharing her inheritance with her cousins out of moral righteousness, or was he hoping to marry her and claim all twenty thousand pounds for himself (for God, yeah sure)?
You know that’s a very good question. I kind of thought he was trying not to appear selfish, since the money would help him too, but I also really don’t like him telling her what she feels in that scene. Any ideas Jane Eyre folks?

I wrote a whole bunch (under the cut) and then I actually pulled out the text, so here’s the second, cleaner draft.

Personally, I think he definitely is not trying to make a jump for her 20k pounds, not even as a way to donate that money to God’s works in order to claim a better place in heaven. First of all, I don’t think he entertains the idea of marrying her and bringing her on his mission until she displays this disregard for material gain (and also because she vehemently removes herself from the pursuit of marriage, which I think to him means he wouldn’t be stealing her from a marital life if she comes on his mission.) Second, he says

you cannot form a notion of the importance twenty thousand pounds would give you; of the place it would enable you to take in society; of the prospects it would open to you (ch35)

He cares about status, and below the cut I talk more about how his piety is really just a status race for him to get an ever higher place in heaven. But here he isn’t thinking about the hierarchy of heaven, for Jane or himself; he’s thinking about ‘society’ in the here and now.

When she says she wants family more than money, he very clearly suggests these 20 thousand pounds would allow her to marry well, have children, and build a family that way. It’s exactly the life St John could have with Miss Oliver but he gives up because it goes against his ambitions.

Even when he proposes to her later, I don’t think he would ever have given her children; not while on missionary work; not when it’s so dangerous and he basically expects to die out there. So the fact he suggests marriage here, to me, signals he has no designs on the money. Besides, he’d only be cheating his own sisters. If he had twenty thousand pounds all to himself, I’m sure he would have provided for them as a duty anyway.

St John says he sees the “justice” in splitting their uncles money, but “it is contrary to custom.” Jane cares more about justice (and fraternity) than custom and maybe we’re being shown that St John accepts custom more easily than fighting for justice. But custom could also mean that it goes against the legalese of the will or general inheritance laws at the time. Jane even says that she has to go to court and that her “task was a very hard one” just to undergo the legal battle to distribute the legacy the way she wants. She can’t just write a check. It’s hugely subversive what she does.

Mostly I don’t think he’s trying to dissuade her but he wants to know she is being serious and fully informed before he expects anything. She’s pretty emotional (I mean she just learned they were all her cousins and she’s understandably euphoric) and her meaning isn’t even clear at first. Would you tell your sisters to quit their jobs and travel home the same night someone said “I’ll give you a fortune” or would you wait for your benefactor to be sure and for all the kinks to be ironed out? Plus, he accepts Jane as his sister right then and there. It’s kind of stunted and rationalized, but it’s also the most sincere and disinterested affection I think he ever shows. He doesn’t argue any more about her inheritance following the scene.

I have always thought his surprise and push back belies that he would not have done the same in her shoes. However, technically, Jane writes that the Rivers must “have been innately conscious that in my place they would have done precisely what I wished to do.” Maybe she’s being an unreliable narrator there, or maybe I’m just speaking over the text.

Keep reading

nobodyanybody0:

Who’s your favorite female character in literature?

hungwy:

yeah. thats not very mouse wearing a sweater and holding a cup of tea behavior. sorry.

wychefolk:

Water Lilies (circa 1906)
by Beatrix Potter

1990danieljohnston:

“I remember one morning getting up at dawn. There was such a sense of possibility. You know, that feeling. And I … I remember thinking to myself: So this is the beginning of happiness, this is where it starts. And of course there will always be more … never occurred to me it wasn’t the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment, right then.”

— Michael Cunningham, from The Hours (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1998)

nobrashfestivity:
“ Claude Monet
Honfleur, voiliers et phare (Honfleur, Sailboats, and Lighthouse), 1866–1867. Pastel on blue paper.
Gift of Nani S. Warren, 2020.23.1
”

nobrashfestivity:

Claude Monet
Honfleur, voiliers et phare (Honfleur, Sailboats, and Lighthouse), 1866–1867. Pastel on blue paper.
Gift of Nani S. Warren, 2020.23.1

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