Shakespeare Sonnet a Day

I randomly stumbled upon this website, which allows users to subscribe to their sonnet-a-day e-mail list.

There's nothing like waking up in the morning to fourteen lines of iambic pentameter!

http://sonnetaday.com/

*Reminder: Shakespeare did not write in the 19th century, but his work was well studied!

"My idea of good company..." quote

"My idea of good company... is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company."

- Anne Elliot, Persuasion
(Jane Austen)

The best part of this quote is that it is followed by the line, "You are mistaken... that is not good company, that is the best."

Masterpiece Classic on PBS

This winter/spring, PBS began its first season of Masterpiece Classic, a branch of what used to be known as Masterpiece Theater (now there are seasons of Classic, Mystery, and Contemporary). Ten period dramas were aired during the Classic season, including six movie versions of Jane Austen's novels and a mini-series of Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford. Both Cranford and Sense and Sensibility have been nominated for Emmy Awards (ten altogether), and the prime-time awards show is scheduled for Sunday, September 21st. Be sure to watch it!

If you were unable to see the movies when they aired earlier this year, I highly recommend you watch them! You can find the complete list below, and the dates they were aired:

January 13, 2008 - Persuasion

January 20, 2008 -Northanger Abbey

January 27, 2008 -Mansfield Park

February 3, 2008 -Miss Austen Regrets

February 10, 17 and 24, 2008 - Pride and Prejudice

March 23, 2008 - Emma

March 30 and April 6, 2008 - Sense and Sensibility

May 4, 11 and 18, 2008 - Cranford

(Also aired were A Room with a View and My Boy Jack, none of which are set in the 19th century.)


Next season proves to be an exciting one, as Oliver Twist and The Old Curiosity Shop are scheduled to air. Charles Dickens theme, anyone?

Personally, I cannot wait!

Brush Up Your Shakespeare

In honor of the movie version of Sense and Sensibility, which features Marianne and Willoughby quoting sonnet 116, I think it fitting to provide you with the poem, in full, for you to enjoy.

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

-- William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Note: William Shakespeare did not write during the 19th century, but his work was vastly appreciated then!

Sense and Sensibility (1995)

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, this version stars Emma Thompson as Elinor Dashwood and Kate Winslet as her younger sister, Marianne. It is now available for viewing at hulu.com!

Defy her with love

The story of North & South, by Elizabeth Gaskell, has gotten some noted attention after the 2004 BBC mini-series with Richard Armitage. Admittedly, I had never heard of the story before the mini-series, which I only saw earlier this year (thanks to a friend who recommended it to me). Instantly, I fell in love.

A lot of people draw parallels between this story and that of Pride and Prejudice, mostly because of the disputes and hostility among the lovers (Mr. Thornton and Margaret Hale; Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet).

I read the book after watching the mini-series, and immediately it became my second-favorite novel. My favorite passage occurs right at the beginning of Volume II. Mr. Thornton is dealing with his feelings for Miss Hale and her refusal:

He had positive bodily pain,--a violent headache, and a throbbing intermittent pulse.... He said to himself, that he hated Margaret, but a wild, sharp sensation of love cleft his dull, thunderous feeling like lightning, even as he shaped the words expressive of hatred. His greatest comfort was in hugging his torment; and in feeling, as he had indeed said to her, that though she might despise him, contemn him, treat him with her proud sovereign indifference, he did not change one whit. She could not make him change. He loved her, and would love her; and defy her, and this miserable bodily pain.

This is what defines Mr. Thornton and Mr. Darcy as men. They love their women despite their refusals, despite what objections others (family/society/obligations) demand of them. And, even being scorned, they love the ladies still. What a torment it must have been, to love with that constancy, never knowing if their love would ever be returned. That is one of the greatest attractions I find in the novels Pride and Prejudice (1813) and North and South (1855).

Both novels are highly recommended!

Side note: I'm reminded of Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens... and Pip's poor admiration for Estella. In particular, I think of this quote:

Love her, love her, love her! If she favors you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces--and as it gets older and stronger, it will tear deeper--love her, love her, love her!

And so he does... despite her mistreatment of him.

It gets me to thinking, do we love with the same feeling as those who loved back then? It sounds like the recovery for them is harder to come by. (Of course, all this information is obtained from fiction, but still....) In a society that focused mainly on the obtaining of marriages, imagine what unrequited love could do to one's disposition.

Making sport of neighbors...

In the time when organized (team) sports were virtually nonexistent, and personal entertainment did not center around movies and gaming consoles, this quote provides an honest account of how British society amused themselves:

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?

I find it amusing myself.

(The quote was delivered by Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice.)