Showing posts with label Reading (recreational). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reading (recreational). Show all posts

Friday, May 13, 2011

When Sorrows Come

From William Shakespeare's Hamlet

O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,
When sorrows come, they come not single spies
But in battalions. First, her father slain:
Next, your son gone; and he most violent author
Of his own just remove: the people muddied,
Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers,
For good Polonius' death; and we have done but greenly,
In hugger-mugger to inter him: poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts:
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France;
Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father's death;
Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering-piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death.


[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Image via Wikipedia"]Probable photograph of William Shakespeare, ci...[/caption]

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Bright Star



[caption id="" align="alignright" width="299" caption="Image via Wikipedia"]Bright Star (film)[/caption]


Picked up a John Keats book. Unfortunately, they were out of his poetry books so I went with Bright Star. It includes letters that he sent to Fanny Brawne during their over 2 year love affair. For those of you unfamiliar with Keats, he unfortunately died of tuberculosis age the age of 25. Before he died, he gave Fanny a ring that belong to his mother and she ended up wearing it the rest of her life. She was 18 and he was 23 when they met and like a truly devoted person, she mourned him after he died for over 6 years. She did eventually marry at 33 years of age and had three children, but she never took off the ring. Ever.

His letters were meant for her eyes only, but they obviously still ended up being published 15 years after her death. While at the time, some of the letters were viewed as obscene, the feelings he exhibited via his writings still show truth and promise, and utter devotion even today. There was a movie made of their romance which has a lot of his writing in it as well.