Classical Literature - Blog Posts
“Shrinking in a corner, pressed into the wall; do they know I'm present, am I here at all? Is there a written rule book, that tells you how to be— all the right things to talk about— that everyone has but me? Slowly I am withering— a flowered deprived of sun; longing to belong to— somewhere or someone.”
― Lang Leav, Love & Misadventure
"In the first week of April the weather turned suddenly, unseasonably, insistently lovely. The sky was blue, the air warm and windless, and the sun beamed on the muddy ground with all the sweet impatience of June"
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History
—Joan of Arc
The little orphan girl represented loneliness, sadness, being invisible. Emilia sat at the window as she watched another little girl get adopted—for the fourth time this week. She always wondered if something was wrong with her. She was aware that she was a bit odd. She liked things other kids didn’t. She read books about the stars and whispered to moths at night. She remembered the sound of rain more than the voices of the people who came and went. She wasn’t the kind of child who ran up to visitors with painted smiles and perfect manners. She stayed quiet. Observing. Feeling too much and saying too little. And maybe that was the problem. She tucked a loose curl behind her ear and leaned her forehead against the window. Outside, the world kept moving. Cars passed. Clouds drifted. People chose. But never her. At least not yet.
—A lady and her quill, Life at St. Stephen's Orphanage.
Time is like grains of sand slipping through our fingers — the one thing in life we cannot bargain with; each lost moment gone forever. Yet I alone wander its hidden paths, reclaiming what others surrender.
—A lady and her quill, The Almanac of a Lost Time Traveler.
"I love you. You may as well take my heart Catherine it's already full of you." "Please go!" "What is it? What's wrong my dear?" "You know nothing about me….you've known me only three weeks!" "Three weeks? Catherine I've known you all my life." "All your life?" "It's true, when I heard beautiful music I thought, 'she'd like that'. I looked at flowers knowing that one day I'd give them to you." "Oh stop, stop." "But for my heart there is another love that must come before you, my country."
—Masquerade,
Dangerously Yours
To the little girl who faded with the dying light of October, 1922— My dearest Cecilia, It is with unbearable grief that I write to you. Each passing day, I am forced to reconcile with the weight of your absence, haunted by the silence you left behind. Although it wasn’t my hands that took your life, my heart aches with regret— because in the silence of my heart, I have convinced myself that it was my fault.
—A lady and her quill, Letters to dead children.
The city was silently bloating in the hot sun, rotting like the thousands of bodies that lay where they had fallen in street battles. An oppressive, hot wind blew from the southeast, carrying with it the putrefying stench of decay. And outside the city walls, Death itself waited— in the persons of Titus, son of Vespasian, and sixty thousand legionnaires, who were anxious to gut the City of God.
—Francine Rivers, A Voice in the Wind (Mark of the Lion series).
"Why do you reject love" he asked. "I can't bring myself to accept love because I don't even know how to love myself gently. To be loved... I feel I must first be flawless in the mirror, in the mind, in a room full of strangers, in the quiet corners of my soul. How can I be someone's dream girl if I never feel good enough?" Silence lingered, heavy and unresolved.
—A lady and her quill, Notes to a boy I now resent
"Her heart was made of liquid sunsets". ⭒⛅₊ ⭒ -Virginia Woolf
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.☘︎ ݁ About me: I'm Jacqueline, She/her, 20, Christian girl, CS major, part time water fairy(lol) 🧚🏽♂️₊˚.༄
.☘︎ ݁ Current hobbies: Reading, writing, blogging, playing the violin, debating. ⋆.
.☘︎ ݁ What you'll find on this blog: Art, poetry and other stuffs that resonate with me. *:･
.☘︎ ݁ Favorite authors atm: Donna Tart, Sidney Sheldon, Francine Rivers, Chimamanda Adiche. (Still getting into the classics!!). ₊˚₊𓏲
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-My right brain 🧠.
"I wanted to be loved so desperately that my fingers shook with it, I am not beautiful but I could be" ― Emily Palermo
Obsession beats talent every time.
Beauty is terror, whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. -The Secret History
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Had the most British conversation in my classical civilisation class
teacher: can anyone give a good modern day example of epic poetry like homer's Iliad? here's what we came up with: gangster granny the minecraft movie Mulan kung fu panda Narnia
“Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.”
— Maya Angelou
"We are ever striving after what is forbidden, and coveting what is denied us."
- Ovid, Metamorphoses
"DEATH IS THE MOTHER OF BEAUTY"
- literary examples of death as tragic and beautiful in its terror
Ophelia, a beautiful, innocent girl created by Shakespeare, torn by emotions so much that in despair for her lost love, she throws herself into the arms of the river, drowning. This is clearly seen in Millais's painting. Despite her death, a young girl resists the influence of filthy water on the human body. Pale but healthy skin, rosy cheeks and pink lips desperately taking their last breath. A tragic moment captured in such a calm way. Ophelia remains forever beautiful and immortal in the eyes of the viewer.
"Perfume" by Patrick Süskind, a novel about a murderer who tries to capture the most beautiful smell. The smell of death in the form of perfume made from a young body. His victims are again little girls who die in a tragic, sometimes even parodic way, being brutally mercilessly harmed. But in the main character's eyes they still shine like stars in the sky, filling him with pure exhilaration. Especially that one woman who is his eternal inspiration.
Baudelaire creates something similar in the poem "the death of lovers". The couple on its deathbed is not concerned about the coming end. Their love seems to bloom even more, surrounded by fragrant flowers that fill their souls with peace and joy.
Finally, the story of Tristan and Isolde, another lovers, on whose grave a hawthorn grows. A symbol of their eternal love. From their dead bodies, corrupted by decay, something amazing in its beauty is created bearing witness to their everlasting connection.
It reminds me of the words of Edvard Munch: "From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity"
Writers, poets, whole literature itself create death in various ways. But showing it as a gateway to beauty is something particularly special. How death can it be glamorous, artistic and pleasing for our eyes. How to find it among tragedy, mourning, rotten skin and that disgusting smell of decay. And why show it this way at all?
"Because the world is so full of death and horror, I try again and again to console my heart and pick the flowers that grow in the midst of hell" - Hermann Hesse
“These violent delights have violents ends. And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, Which, as they kiss, consume.”
- Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Frankenstein but it’s just Victor being depressed because he realizes his entire life is his fault:
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet
“take me oh muse to the madness within and let us sink into the thought that perhaps one day I shall find you in the oblivion”
“Let be not a tragedy worse than that of mine own nature/For woe shall thy heart beat only for thine affection/Oh cursed beauty thou art the artist of my pain/Love lives not in thy body but in mine soul for shall I devote my every breath to thee”
“i will live a hundred lifetimes if it means that in one of them i can sit beside you and- even if just for a moment- know that you are mine.”
“then let this be the hundredth one and no more- for there is no life of mine where you are not beside me.”
“there must be another way, another ending to this madness.”
“but oh how I’ve dreamt of it this way.”