(Source: dontbeswag, via thebooker)

awritersruminations:

Draft of “Sheep in Fog” by Sylvia Plath

A Royal Affair (2012)

“Certainly we want to protect our children from new and painful experiences that are beyond their emotional comprehension and that intensify anxiety; and to a point we can prevent premature exposure to such experiences. That is obvious. But what is just as obvious — and what is too often overlooked — is the fact that from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.” — Maurice Sendak, Caldecott Medal acceptance speech for Where the Wild Things Are, 1964 (via honey-ham)

johnnthornton:

History meme | nine woman: Jane Austen.

“I could no more write a romance than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No, I must keep to my own style and go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other”.

— Jane Austen, Letter to Mr. Clarke. [x]

(Source: flawlessphotosets, via literaryescapist)

volchitza:

literature meme | [1/3] genres: Gothic fiction

“The Gothic hero becomes a sort of archetype as we find that there is a pattern to their characterization. There is always the protagonist, usually isolated either voluntarily or involuntarily. Then there is the villain, who is the epitome of evil, either by his (usually a man) own fall from grace, or by some implicit malevolence. The Wanderer, found in many Gothic tales, is the epitome of isolation as he wanders the earth in perpetual exile, usually a form of divine punishment.”

Gothic fiction is a literary style popular during the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, but still alive today. This style usually portrayed fantastic tales dealing with horror, despair, the grotesque and other “dark” subjects. The name Gothic refers to the (pseudo)-medieval buildings in which many of these tales take place. Other times, these stories may occur in a more everyday setting, such as the quaint house where the man goes mad from the “beating” of his guilt in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.”In essence, these stories were romances, largely due to their love of the imaginary over the logical; they focused on the “weird” aspects of life. This movement began to slowly open may people’s eyes to the possible uses of the supernatural in literature. This genre gave birth to many other forms, such as suspense, ghost stories, horror, mystery, Poe’s detective stories, and also led to new novel types such as the German Schauerroman and the French roman noir.

[La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats; Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë on (Girlebooks) (Project Gutenberg); Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen on (Girlebooks) (Project Gutenberg); Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë on (Girlebooks) (Project Gutenberg); Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote (epub); The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (Project Gutenberg); other notable examples include Edgar Allan Poe’s works, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, as well as Donna Tartt’s The Secret History (epub) +more]

aseaofquotes:

Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park

(via veronicaecholls)

literature meme; second of seven characters; mary lennox.
One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one’s head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one’s heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun—which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in some one’s eyes. [more]
[reading list]

“She hated the namelessness of women in stories, as if they lived and died so that men could have metaphysical insights.” — Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding