pemberlaey

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Howl, Candle for dark academia ask! ♥️📚

Howl: what is your favorite poem?

so im not really a poetry girl prefer prose but!! i really do love the wasteland by t.s. eliot!

Candle: if you could pick any time period to live in (for the aesthetic), what would it be?

like forever or for like a vacation? b/c i'd love to go to regency or victorian england for a week or so bc 19th century British lit is my area of expertise so i would love to actually live in that moment in history for a bit but im not built for a world without air conditioning, indoor plumbing, and voting rights lol

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Athens, Blazer, Ribbons, Books

Athens: if you could go anywhere right now, where would you go?

london! its my fav city in the world i'd move there if i could

Blazer: what is your favorite piece of clothing?

so many come to mind b/c im a true clothes/fashion addict but im gonna go with my black converse high tops b/c they've been my signature piece since i was like 14

Ribbons: hair up or down?

my hair is either down or in some type of braid/braids 99.99% of the time. a bun is reserved for truly drastic times

Books: where can you most often be found?

my room lol

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Hi dylan! how are you? for the chaotic academia ask : neil perry ♡

so i just watched catching fire again the other night so my instinct is finnick im not even gonna lie to you. also perchance whizzer from falsettos if this can be extended to musicals!

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Amy I'm in your walls. What does it all mean. Amy blink twice Amy Sherman-Palladino WAKE UPPPPP!!!!!!!

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May I read a passage from Diderot? The Great (2020–2023)

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by Salvatore Postiglione /detail/

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Elle Fanning wearing an Alexander McQueen dress.  Photographed by Annie Leibovitz for Vogue, June 2017

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Cuypers Library, Amsterdam

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yeah

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you may be losing the idgaf war but they wouldn't even let me enlist. on account of my poet's temperament.

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real people should feel lucky to be speculated about by me

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(some of) my literary roman empires

benedick’s “you” —> “thou” switch in 4.1

the extended portrait metaphor in pride and prejudice

may welland

the repression of female emotions in victorian fiction

henry’s “a country dance as an emblem of marriage” speech in northanger abbey + the way that 19th century dance scenes prefigure marriage in general

the moment in jane eyre when mr. rochester asks jane if she finds him handsome and she says “no, sir”

victorian floriography

ophelia’s final scene

ww1 solider poetry (sassoon, owens, rosenberg, brooke etc.)

the ambiguity surrounding bertha mason

juliet’s “O romeo, romeo, wherefore art thou romeo?” breaks from iambic pentameter because the name romeo has too many syllables so the problem is literally his name

éponine thénardier (just everything about her but especially the “i am the devil” scene)

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marius is so “oh no! anyway” about eponine confessing her love and then immediately dying that 1862 girlies could have started using “and by the way, monsieur marius, i believe that i was a little bit in love with you” as a preface to announce major geopolitical events

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By employing free indirect speech in her novels, Jane Austen ensured that there is so much humour flowing through the narrative. I love it when we occasionally get these little insight into the characters' motivations, especially when said insights are dripping with sarcasm.

One of my favourite examples is when it is used it to absolutely roast Mr Darcy in Chapter 12 of Pride and Prejudice, by letting us see into his mind and just how much he's lying to himself about how captivated he is by Elizabeth:

She attracted him more than he liked—and Miss Bingley was uncivil to her, and more teasing than usual to himself. He wisely resolved to be particularly careful that no sign of admiration should now escape him, nothing that could elevate her with the hope of influencing his felicity; sensible that if such an idea had been suggested, his behaviour during the last day must have material weight in confirming or crushing it.

It's such a subtle shift and you might miss it the first few times, as it quickly flips back to the narrative voice and to tell us what happens next:

Steady to his purpose, he scarcely spoke ten words to her through the whole of Saturday, and though they were at one time left by themselves for half-an-hour, he adhered most conscientiously to his book, and would not even look at her.

We're essentially being told that Darcy thinks this course of action (i.e. almost entirely refusing to acknowledge the existence of a woman he's attracted to) is wise when anyone with even a basic understanding of human nature can see this is a terrible idea because a) Darcy will only cause more pain to himself by repressing his feelings, as said feelings for Elizabeth are so strong they will eventually win out and b) when he inevitably cannot lie to himself anymore and seeks Elizabeth affection, she is hardly likely to offer it to a man who has ignored her in such a rude manner.

Which is, as it turns out, exactly what happens. Who could have foreseen that?!

Anyway, the opportunity to regularly peek inside the characters' minds is part of the reason I adore Pride and Prejudice so much and find it so compelling to re-read. And it will never fail to astound me that a clergyman's daughter in Hampshire pioneered this literary technique in the English language.

Jane Austen was an absolute genius.