Tag Archives: Marriage

The Black Honey of Summer

By Robin Bates | Published: August 2, 2011

My son’s marriage proposal to his Trinidadian girlfriend has become bound up in my mind with a Mary Oliver poem about blackberries.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , | Comments closed

Poetry to Read at a Hippy Wedding

By Robin Bates | Published: June 8, 2011

Today is my wedding anniversary so you get to hear how I wove poetry into the ceremony. W. B. Yeats, Archibald MacLeish, D.H. Lawrence, and the Song of Solomon all made appearances. Get ready for time travel back to a very different era.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , , , , | Comments closed

This Is the Golden Morning of Love

By Robin Bates | Published: June 5, 2011

A wedding poem seems appropriate for June. Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s lovely “Marriage Morning” draws me, maybe because it captures some of the anxieties of the wedding day and not just the joys.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , | Comments closed

The Bard’s Defense of Midsummer Marriage

By Robin Bates | Published: September 9, 2010

Teaching a course in British Fantasy has given me a new perspective on Midsummer Night’s Dream, our first work. The course could be called (borrowing from Bruno Bettelheim) “the uses of enchantment” because our focus is on how and why people turn to fantasy. In our class discussion, we decided that Shakespeare uses his green […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , | Comments closed

How to Film Austen Heroines Saying Yes

By Robin Bates | Published: August 20, 2010

Amanda Root as Anne Elliott  Film Friday One must show a great deal of sensitivity in how one films a Jane Austen heroine accepting a marriage proposal. That’s because the author never shows us the acceptances directly. Although I am generally not a great fan of filmed versions of Jane Austen novels, I have to […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments closed

Gripped by a Tyrannical Love

By Robin Bates | Published: July 28, 2010

Since I am vacationing in Maine and spent time yesterday with my favorite cousin, who is a huge Edward Arlington Robinson fan, I devote a post to the state’s greatest poet.  Whenever I visit Dan Bates in Gardiner, we have to visit Robinson’s grave and look at his house. My favorite Robinson poem is “Eros […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , | Comments closed

Blaming Loved Ones in the Face of Death

By Robin Bates | Published: July 26, 2010

Edvard Munch, The Sick Child  Imagine the following situation. A couple has been married for decades but now he has contracted a terminal illness and is dying. His wife has always prided herself on being there for him when he needed her, but now she feels helpless. Meanwhile he is scared and angry and is […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , , | Comments closed

Managing Midsummer Madness (i.e., Sex)

By Robin Bates | Published: June 29, 2010

Midsummer Night’s Dream provides good instruction for the parents of teenagers. First of all, don’t think that you can tyrannically dictate your children’s choices (say, by threatening them with execution). On the other hand, they need guidelines and guidance. There’s no telling how they’ll behave once they are set loose in the forest of their […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , | Comments closed

June Weddings, Elizabethan Style

By Robin Bates | Published: June 28, 2010

Francois Boucher, mid 18th-century  As June is the month for weddings (Julia and I were married June 8), I will be looking at a wedding poem and a wedding play this week: Edmund Spenser’s gorgeous Epithalamion and Shakespeare’s magical Midsummer Night’s Dream. Writing about his own upcoming wedding, Spenser is so exuberant that he could […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , | Comments closed