Midnight Pals: Ladies of Llangollen
Mary Shelley: sup fuckers
Shelley: what's going on here
Lord Byron: [tossing hair] ah mary what a vision you are
Lord Byron: [tossing hair] percy and i were just about to visit the ladies of llangollen
Shelley: why are my boyfriends sneaking around together behind my back
Mary Shelley: what the hell is this ladies of llangollen bullshit
Lord Byron: [tossing hair] ah see mary it's a most curious thing
Byron: [tossing hair] two women living together
Byron: [tossing hair] science simply can't explain it
Mary Shelley: they're lesbians byron
Byron: [tossing hair] no see it's these 2 women living together
Byron: [tossing hair] and their lady servant too
Byron: [tossing hair] explain that!
Mary Shelley: what's so hard to understand? it's a fuckin polycule
Mary Shelley: we're literally in one
Lord Byron: [tossing hair] lesbians?
Byron: [tossing hair] oh ho ho only cuz they haven't met me yet!
Byron: [tossing hair] isn't that right percy old man?
Percy Shelley: yes dear
Byron: [tossing hair] now we're off!
Mary Shelley: why're you going all the way to llangollen
Mary Shelley: we got perfectly good lesbians at home
Byron: [tossing hair] what?
Mary Shelley: you heard me fucker
Mary Shelley: byron are you just going to llangollen to hide from your ex girlfriend
Byron: [tossing hair] ha ha mary what a ridiculous notion
Byron: [tossing hair] ha ha just uh
Byron: [tossing hair] ridiculous
Mary Shelley: so it wouldn't bother you if caroline lamb also visited the ladies of llangollen then
Byron: [tossing hair] it wouldn't bother me at all
Byron: [pausing mid hair toss] why? is she there? what did you hear?
[at llangollen]
Byron: [tossing hair] delightfully devilish byron, caroline lamb will never think to look for you here
Caroline Lamb: [barging into llangollen] WHERE'S BYRON
Lamb: I KNOW HE'S HERE
Lamb: DON'T YOU LESBIANS LIE TO ME
Lamb: I CAN SMELL HIS AXE BODY SPRAY
William Wordsworth: i was so inspired by those ladies of llangollen that i wrote a sonnet about them
Wordsworth: "there once was a girl from nantucket..."
Mary Shelley: that's not a fuckin sonnet
Wordsworth: uh excuse me i think i know sonnets
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being a romantic era poet: a quick how-to guide
walk around in nature contemplating Things. start hiking, swimming, sailing, rowing, shooting, riding, etc. for inspiration
be obsessed with the french revolution and related enlightenment-era figures like rousseau, voltaire, mary wollstonecraft, and madame de staël. be more disappointed by napoleon bonaparte than you are by your own father.
speaking of fathers, your parents and most of your other relatives are all either dying or dead or emotionally abusive. if you have any siblings (full, half, step, or adopted) who DIDN'T die tragically already, then you may choose to be close to them. you also may end up being much TOO close to them. various circumstances may also ban you from seeing them.
be at least slightly touched by madness and/or some other severe illness(es) including but not limited to: consumption, horrors, syphilis, deformities, lameness, terrors, piles, boils, pox, allergies, coughing, sleep abnormalities, gonorrhea, etc. — for which you must take frequent bed rest and copious amounts of Laudanum (opium derivation)
consider foregoing meat and adopting a vegetable diet instead to purify the spirits. you may also abstain from alcohol for the same reasons. alternatively, you may attempt the veggie diet, end up rejecting it, and becoming a rampant alcoholic instead. in romanticism there is no healthy medium between abstinence and excess.
reject, or at least heavily criticize, christianity. refuse to get married in a church and consider becoming a fervent champion of atheism. alternatively, you may embrace catholicism, but only on an aesthetic basis. eastern religions and minority religions are also acceptable, only because they piss off the christians.
if you’re not a self-hating member of the aristocracy and instead have to work for a living, do something that allows you to benefit society, be creative, and/or contemplate life. viable options include, but are not limited to: apothecarist, doctor, teacher, preacher, lawyer, farmer, printmaker, publisher, editor. there is also the possibility of earning a few coins from your art. if you were cursed to be born a She, no worries. we believe in equality. you may choose from these occupations: wife, nanny, housekeeper, spinster, amanuensis (copy writer for a man), lady’s companion, divorced wife, singer/actress/escort, widow, regular escort, tutor, or housewife.
speaking of sexist institutions, try rejecting marriage entirely. Declare your eternal devotion to your lover by having sex with them on your mother’s grave instead.
if you do get married — elope, and only let it be for necessary financial reasons, or to try and save a teenage girl from her controlling family, or out of true love with someone you view as your intellectual equal, or because your life is so racked with scandals and debt that you can only clear your name by matrimony to a wealthy religious woman as your last resort before fleeing the country.
After marriage, quickly assert your belief in the powers of free love and bisexuality by taking extramarital lovers and suggesting your spouse follow suit. If they cannot keep up with your intellectual escapades then consider leaving them. Later on, propose a platonic friendship with them following the separation, or beg them for reconciliation.
If your marriage is happy, try moving in with another bohemian couple to shake things up. Alternatively, you may die before the wedding for dramatic effect.
If you beget children (whether in or out of marriage, makes no matter), do society a favor by choosing to raise them with your beliefs. Consider adopting orphan children, or even non-orphan children. If their parents are poor enough they probably won’t mind. Try kidnapp— I mean adopting — children off the side of the road if you can.
DIE but do it creatively. ideally young. ideas: prophecy your own death, lead an army into war and then die right before your first battle and on your deathbed curse everyone and demand to see a witch, write a will leaving money to your mistresses or some random young man you have an unrequited romantic obsession with, carry a copy of your dead friend's poetry and read it right before you drown so that your washed up corpse can only be identified by his book in your pocket, die while staring at your lover's shriveled up heart that you keep wrapped up in a copy of his own poetry and then be buried with it, die of the poet's illness (consumption) while your artist friend draws you and then be buried with your lover's writing, get mysteriously poisoned (by yourself) after a series of scandals and accidents and then have your family announce that you were killed by god, die from romanticizing poverty or receiving bad reviews from literary critics, die from walking or horseback riding in the cold and the rain while poeticizing, etc.
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La parte migliore della vita di una
persona buona sono i suoi piccoli,
ignoti, dimenticati atti di
gentilezza e di amore.
William Wordsworth
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The World Is Too Much with Us
by William Wordsworth
The World is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours
And are up-gather’d now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. --Great God! I’d rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn,--
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
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For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.
心うつろに、或いは物思いに沈みて、
われ長椅子に横たわるとき、
独り居(ひとりい)の喜びなる胸の内に、
水仙の花、しばしば、ひらめく。
わが心は喜びに満ちあふれ、
水仙とともに踊る。
William Wordsworth
ウィリアム・ワーズワス
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