#literature
I just made a playlist with songs that remind me of my dark forest bookstagram aesthetic. If you want to recommend a song to add it, go for it!.
- Never Let Me Go — Florence + The Machine
- all the good girls go to hell — Billie Eilish
- i love you — Billie Eilish
- Lithium — Evanescence
- The Other Side — Evanescence
- I Don’t Love You — My Chemical Romance
- The Ghost Of You — My Chemical Romance
- Edge Of Seventeen — Stevie Nicks
- Dreams — Fleetwood Mac
- Crystal — Stevie Nicks
- Sorcerer — Stevie Nicks
- Like a Stone — Audioslave
- I Am a Highway — Audioslave
- Heather — Conan Gray
- The Story — Conan Gray
- Comfort Crowd — Conan Gray
- Checkmate — Conan Gray
- Die For You — Justin bieber ft. Dominic Fike
- willow — Taylor Swift
- cardigan — Taylor Swift
- no body, no crime — Taylor Swift ft. HAIM
- evermore — Taylor Swift ft. Bon Iver
- Met Him Last Night — Demi Lovato ft. Ariana Grande
- Mad World — Ariana Grande
- deja vu — Olivia Rodrigo
- favorite crime — Olivia Rodrigo
- traitor — Olivia Rodrigo
- jealousy, jealousy — Olivia Rodrigo
- I’m so tired… — Lauv ft. Troye Sivan
- Mean it — Lauv ft. LANY
- Fake — Lauv ft. Conan Gray
- There’s No Way — Lauv ft. Julia Michaels
- Modern Loveliness — Lauv
- crash — EDEN
- drugs — EDEN
- Dynasty — MIIA
Happy Netherfield Ball Day, everyone!
by Jeffery Skinner
You would expect an uncountable number,
Acres and acres of books in rows
Like wheat or gold bullion. Or that the words just
Appear in the mind, like banner headlines.
In fact there is one shelf
Holding a modest number, ten or twelve volumes.
No dust jackets, because — no dust.
Covers made of gold or skin
Or golden skin, or creosote or rain-
Soaked macadam, or some
Mix of salt & glass. You turn a page
& mountains rise, clouds drawn by children
Bubble in the sky, you are twenty
Again, trying to read a map
Dissolving in your hands. I say You & mean
Me, say God & mean Librarian — who after long research
Offers you a glass of water and an apple —
You, grateful to discover your name,
A footnote in that book.
I almost recited this poem at a school event last year, but unfortunately I never got the opportunity, so I decided to share it here! I’d never heard of it before, but the language is beautiful.
1. “Raven” was an occasionally-encountered name for a girl in the contemporary period, and “Ebony” would be at least recognizable as a name. The other elements of this name are flatly atypical.
2. During this part of the War Period, this character’s hairstyle would not be considered shocking, but it would be viewed as garish and nonconformist.
3. A contemporary music performer known for a melancholy style of music and a gothic and dramatic aesthetic. The title of the work probably comes from one of her songs. However, her aesthetic and attitude has little in common with that in this work, being much more conventional and less garish.
4. A member of the contemporary band “My Chemical Romance”, also notable for a “gothic”, melancholy, and macabre aesthetic
5. i.e. the speaker considers him to be handsome and attractive; despite the pornographic material later in this work, the word “f_______” is here used only as an expletive.
6. Vampires as romantic figures had been increasing in popularity over this period, with a trend away from malicious monsters towards seductive but more benevolent figures, romanticized by their capability of being terrible.
7. Strangely, despite the characterization of this character as a Satanist, “witch” should here be characterized as having meaning similar to “wizard” and not “idolater”, “sorceress”, “maleficar”, or other practitioner of what we today recognize as “witchcraft”. The background material to this work constantly faced accusations of being satanic by an uneducated reactionary public to whom the difference between technology, wizardry and witchcraft was not meaningful (”witch” was sometimes even considered a female equivalent to “wizard”!), which completely failed to diminish its popularity.
8. It is important to understand that “goth” as an aesthetic, counterculture or subculture had a completely different meaning in the contemporary period than it does today – what remains similar is the love of the melancholy, the macabre, the dramatic, the romantic, and contempt for conventionalism. In the mid-to-early-late War Period, “Gothic” people were associated with contempt for morality, certain types of sexual display (usually of a shocking and sometimes fetishistic type), various forms of concupiscence, and a fairly significant connection to the occult and even to outright Satanism, though the latter was all but universally an affectation (this is true of most Mid War Period satanism). See contrast on p 321, The Gothic Movement In the Catholic Church. Moreover, the “gothic” aesthetic as described by this character is a stunted and over-the-top form that has also been corrupted by the counterculture-commericalism that was universal in the Late War Period.
9. A clothing store mostly specializing in counterculture-commercialized and faddist apparel. Critics accused it of being a mercantile vulture that fed by turning more honest and vivacious countercultures into fads.
10. It was almost unheard-of for women in the Mid or Late War Period to wear corsets, but they appeared in the Gothic subculture (which itself heavily borrowed from sources such as Victorian-era clothing, including mourning dress). However, what Enoby is describing is probably not actually a true corset, but a “corset top”, which is essentially a laced bodice. Either would be worn with neither chemise nor overblouse.
11. Probably a nondraped skirt that barely passes her wrist.
12. Hose, stockings, or tights in the form of a wide-open mesh
13. Probably not actually military issue boots; these were tall, heavy black leather boots with lacing all the way up.
14. This character’s outfit would be considered inappropriate for school in the Late War Period, but not shocking to Late War Period mores except by its garishness.
15. Originally meant students at a university-preparatory school; with the extremely high percentage of students seeking to attend university in the Late War Period, this came to mean a subculture of young people who adopted a highly conventionalistic and professionalistic attitude and sought admission to the prestigious and traditionalistic universities in the Eastern United States, often without academics being their true passion. Such people were often viewed as social climbers and sometimes attracted contempt from both their less-professionally-oriented peers and from those who were true intellectuals.
16. Also known as “giving the finger”; a very rude gesture in the War Period as it is in ours.
18. This phrase went through considerable popular memetic mutation (as did the entire tract): “It was _______ <weather> so I felt ________. A lot of _______ stared at me. I ________ them.” See extra material 34c.
17. I.E. “How are you today?”, “how are you feeling?” as a greeting.
do you think the writer of My Immortal lives in quiet pleasure knowing what they’ve brought into the world cannot be killed nor can they be held accountable
The slow horror of this post, of realizing:
1. First, that this is about My Immortal, fairly obvious from the start. Okay, meme time.
2. Second, that this is characterized as a future English literature class’s textbook footnotes a la our time period’s school texts of Shakespeare works, which, haha, seeing that framed as if this future literature class would be so far removed from our understanding of culture as to need these notes and yet would still be in a literature class formatted similarly to ours, especially combined with the idea that My Immortal would be considered typical “literature,” that’s funny, right?
3. Third, that by “the War Period/the Late War Period” they mean us, and the implications of that name for the time period added to the idea that so much culture from this time period has been wiped out and would be totally unfamiliar to the students of this class, and oh. Oh, that’s not… that’s not funny anymore.
tumblr what the hell
This is a MASTERPIECE.
The best post eva.
Well, this is it. It’s happening.
1308 pages.
Five languages.
Around 600 characters, including roughly 160 historical figures.
What adds up to a separate volume’s worth of material on the author’s philosophy of history.
I’ve officially started reading War and Peace.
BRING IT ON.
[sees a dog] [gentle gasp]