Saturdays At The Library @pleasesingmeasonnet - Tumblr Blog

“‘God is one, and there is only one God.’ Does not 'God is one’ mean that God is alone? Alone like us, perhaps, who receive our loneliness from him and for him bear it.”

— Mihail Sebastian, For Two Thousand Years (trans. Philip Ó Ceallaigh)

thegoodvybe

themaninthegreenshirt

Lone flower, hemmed in with snows and white as they But hardier far, once more I see thee bend Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend, Like an unbidden guest. Though day by day, Storms, sallying from the mountain-tops, waylay The rising sun, and on the plains descend; Yet art thou welcome, welcome as a friend Whose zeal outruns his promise! Blue-eyed May Shall soon behold this border thickly set With bright jonquils, their odours lavishing On the soft west-wind and his frolic peers; Nor will I then thy modest grace forget, Chaste Snowdrop, venturous harbinger of Spring, And pensive monitor of fleeting years!

To a Snowdrop by William Wordsworth

bigdreamsandwildthings

“It’s like a fairytale suspended in time-the princess forgotten, the hero eaten whole by a noble Fir goblin. The story ended, but no one remembered to burn the haunted forest to the ground.”

leikamei

oddfilmstills

armchairoxfordscholar

“And then, because they were both Englishwomen and their hearts were somewhat broken, they turned back into the room and put on the kettle and made themselves a cup of tea.”

— A Song for the Summer - Eva Ibbotson (via our-faulty-stars)

minuty

“I would like to be known as an intelligent woman, a courageous woman, a loving woman, a woman who teaches by being.”

— Maya Angelou (via minuty)

obvioussuggestion

Compliment people. If you think a good thing about someone, there’s no harm in saying it aloud.

cryptonature

‪You won’t see most of this planet. Under each rock. Beneath the water. Secrets of air and soil. ‬

‪Can you feel the joy behind this limitation?‬

‪That there is always a new thing to discover, a new way to grow, is one of the sweetest parts of living, and it’s free and inexhaustible.‬

trochaictrimeter-deactivated202

crash course in literary theory twentieth century onwards

structuralist linguistics: saussure invents linguistics to study language as structures. for him, words don’t give names to preexisting things but create concepts that determine the way we understand the world

russian formalism: thought literature was only form, no content. the idea that art existed to make the familiar seem strange. jakobson founded the moscow linguistics circle when he was 19 wyd with your life

new criticism: so cleanth brooks and robert penn warren right? they write this book called understanding poetry. this book changes the way english classes work forevaaaa. because suddenly class isn’t just about what the poem says but you can use 50 minutes to talk about how it’s said and make your own connections. birth of close reading. and the phrases “the intentional fallacy” and “the affective fallacy”

structuralism: levi-strauss takes saussure’s ideas and applies them to a bunch of myths and finds that their underlying structures are all the same. then applies it to culture as a whole and says they all operate on constructed binaries. lots of things to do with the centre.

deconstruction: derrida starts off this speech at this conference to glorify levi-strauss and then makes a career out of dragging him. the centre does not hold. there is no centre. as barthes writes, there was this guy named guy de maupassant who always ate in the restaurant on the eiffel tower because that was the only place he didn’t have to see the damn thing. basically that, but in theory.

new historicism: born out of the guilt complex of isolating the text from its author. focuses on historical context. greenblatt writes entire books about historical contexts of plays (like hamlet in purgatory). foucault is a huge influence and intertextuality (coined by julia kristeva) is a thing

marxist theory: the superstructures like culture are determined by the economic base. all the bourgeoisie and proletariat things. zizek (use the correct accent things please) and terry eagleton. my professor thinks literary critics are in a privileged position and hence feel the need to contribute to the world hence use marxist criticism to make themselves feel better and * sigh * i gotta write that on the exam

feminist theory: started all the way back with wollstonecraft and woolf. intertwined with political feminism. revisionary reading that exposes biases. judith butler!!!!!

queer theory: began as liberation movement. undo the idea that heterosexuality is the norm. identify and reclaim non heterosexual authors. michel foucault wrote a lot of things. yes, shakespeare was bi.

postcolonial studies: deals with hegemony of texts and cultural imperialism. analysis of history and culture of formerly colonised countries. expand literary canon to include colonial and postcolonial authors. achebe and rushdie all the way!

freudian psychoanalysis: IT’S NOT FUCKING REAL! everything that came out of freud’s mouth along with some carl jung stuff about collective consciousness and archetypes and whatever it was that lacan said about mirrors. maybe mention harold bloom’s anxiety of influence thing.