A student distraught when her fiance dropped her used Jane Austen’s ironic wit in “Sense and Sensibility” to regain perspective and reenter the world.
Tag Archives: Relationships
Dear Frustrated in Love: Read a Classic
Literature is better than any self help book for relationship guidance.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aeneid, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jane Austen, love, Love in the Time of Cholera, Sense and Sensibility, Virgil Comments closed
If Jane Austen Used Facebook . . .
To update Jane Austen, my class took eight of her characters from “Sense and Sensibility” and put them in Facebook conversation with each other.
Reading Too Much into a Lover’s Words
A friend scrutinizing the language used in a conversation with her not-quite-boyfriend reminded me of the hypersensitive Faulkland in Richard Sheridan’s play “The Rivals.”
Forgive Me for Eating Your Plums
In my experience, no two people respond to William Carlos Williams’s “This Is Just to Say” in the same way. More than most short poems, it seems to function as a Rorschach test, with reactions telling us more about the reader than the poem itself.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "This Is Just to Say", analysis, Food, Plums, Sigmund Freud, William Carlos Williams Comments closed
The Sexual Politics of Dexter
Film Friday Last Friday I wrote about my deep distress over the season 4 finale of Dexter. (Read no further if you want don’t want the suspense ruined for you.) My friend Rachel Kranz, who introduced me to the show, wrote me the following response examining why people, men especially, find the show so captivating. […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Dexter, Film, Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000, Sexual Politics, Television Comments closed
Ask Jane: Expert Relationship Advice
“My idea of good company,” says Anne Elliot in Jane Austen’s Persuasion, “is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation.” To which her cousin replies, “That is not good company, that is the best.” I feel that I have emerged from the best of company as my Jane Austen […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Education, Emma, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility Comments closed
Gripped by a Tyrannical Love
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 Abuse, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Eros Turannos, love, Marriage Comments closed
Managing Midsummer Madness (i.e., Sex)
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 adolescence, Marriage, Midsummer Night's Dream, sex, William Shakespeare Comments closed
