Isa
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Post by Isa on Sept 28, 2007 19:00:24 GMT -5
Anyways, to comment on what you were really talking about Austen, I do think it's amazing how she tied in the real life of her time along with making the readers understand that some people really would've preferred to marry for love but just couldn't. So, at the same time she represents historic fact (to an extent) and also the way she wished it would've been different. I agree, Kristie, and I think that's probably why a lot of people (myself included) see Jane Austen as a feminist writer. For a woman to write about marrying for love (and rejecting not one but two proposals) back then was probably on par with burning your bra in the 70s I dug up my copy of Carol Shields's biography of Jane Austen and here's what she says about Austen's relationship with Tom Lefroy: "He was young, pleasant, good-looking, and had already taken a degree in Dublin. (All the heroes of Jane Austen's mature novels are reading men, and clever Tom Lefroy is no exception.) He and Jane met only a few times, but they seemed to enjoy the same high spirits and sens of irony." So I guess it doesn't quite fit the portrait of Mr. Darcy, although she could very well have based the character of Captain Wentworth on Tom Lefroy - Lefroy was taken back to Ireland because his family did not want him to get involved with a penniless clergyman's daughter, a bit like Ann Elliot was taken away from Wentworth because he didn't have any money. Perhaps Austen found out that Lefroy ended up with a suitable income when he got older and that's how she got the idea for her novel "Persuasion"? Too bad Jane's story didn't end like Ann's...
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Isa
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Post by Isa on Sept 28, 2007 19:01:59 GMT -5
And that reminds me that I have this English teacher from Boston and she speaks in a funny way - now I know why! She doesn't pronounce all kind of letters, lol. Yes, a seafood chowder tends to become something like "seafood chowdah" ;D
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oureternity
Collection of short stories bought by Random House
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Post by oureternity on Sept 29, 2007 1:01:52 GMT -5
Perhaps Austen found out that Lefroy ended up with a suitable income when he got older and that's how she got the idea for her novel "Persuasion"? Too bad Jane's story didn't end like Ann's... I guess that makes much more sense. The story of Ann Elliot and Captain Wentworth is a much beter description of Lefroy and Austen's relationship. Although I can't recall her family was dissatisfied with her choice - did she decide to leave him for his poverty or did her family pursue her?
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Isa
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Post by Isa on Sept 29, 2007 8:25:50 GMT -5
Well I guess it'd be sort of a reversal of the roles - In Persuasion, Ann's family persuades her (hence the title of the novel) not to marry Wentworth. In real life, it was Tom Lefroy's family who didn't want him to get involved with Jane...
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Lu
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Post by Lu on Sept 30, 2007 10:04:30 GMT -5
I love all this discussion about Jane Austen Anyways, to comment on what you were really talking about Austen, I do think it's amazing how she tied in the real life of her time along with making the readers understand that some people really would've preferred to marry for love but just couldn't. So, at the same time she represents historic fact (to an extent) and also the way she wished it would've been different. I agree, Kristie, and I think that's probably why a lot of people (myself included) see Jane Austen as a feminist writer. For a woman to write about marrying for love (and rejecting not one but two proposals) back then was probably on par with burning your bra in the 70s I dug up my copy of Carol Shields's biography of Jane Austen and here's what she says about Austen's relationship with Tom Lefroy: "He was young, pleasant, good-looking, and had already taken a degree in Dublin. (All the heroes of Jane Austen's mature novels are reading men, and clever Tom Lefroy is no exception.) He and Jane met only a few times, but they seemed to enjoy the same high spirits and sens of irony." So I guess it doesn't quite fit the portrait of Mr. Darcy, although she could very well have based the character of Captain Wentworth on Tom Lefroy - Lefroy was taken back to Ireland because his family did not want him to get involved with a penniless clergyman's daughter, a bit like Ann Elliot was taken away from Wentworth because he didn't have any money. Perhaps Austen found out that Lefroy ended up with a suitable income when he got older and that's how she got the idea for her novel "Persuasion"? Too bad Jane's story didn't end like Ann's... I totally agree with you Jefie! I think she's a feminist writer too. Speaking of Persuasion, I've read that she changed the ending because she wanted to give Anne a basic role in her reunion with Captain Wentworth, if it's true, isn't it a little sign feminism? I think it's impressive that she wrote in such a good way about the simple world and life sourronding her and whithout having a very extraordinary life, this last fact especially is kind of encouraging. I'd like to read Austen's biography by Carol Shields, it sounds really good.
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sagedautumn
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Post by sagedautumn on Sept 30, 2007 20:30:30 GMT -5
i am not sure about this one but someone was telling me that Lewis Carroll was on LCD at the time he was writing Alice's Adventures to Wonderland
.......There goes my childhood LOL
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oureternity
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Post by oureternity on Oct 1, 2007 2:05:25 GMT -5
i am not sure about this one but someone was telling me that Lewis Carroll was on LCD at the time he was writing Alice's Adventures to Wonderland .......There goes my childhood LOL Do you want to know how my childhood has gone wasted? Someone told me that Little Red Riding Hood is actually a story about a teenage girl who her mother warns her about strangers and the wolf is trying to rape her! (It was told to girls who got their first period). And Snow White was told to kids from the highest society levels - Snow White represented them and the dwarfs were poor other kids. In the originial version, they weren't as nice! So she got locked up in this coffin until she "grew up" and stopped hanging out with these poor other kids. THERE goes your childhood wasted.
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Lu
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Post by Lu on Oct 1, 2007 4:37:20 GMT -5
i am not sure about this one but someone was telling me that Lewis Carroll was on LCD at the time he was writing Alice's Adventures to Wonderland .......There goes my childhood LOL Do you want to know how my childhood has gone wasted? Someone told me that Little Red Riding Hood is actually a story about a teenage girl who her mother warns her about strangers and the wolf is trying to rape her! (It was told to girls who got their first period). And Snow White was told to kids from the highest society levels - Snow White represented them and the dwarfs were poor other kids. In the originial version, they weren't as nice! So she got locked up in this coffin until she "grew up" and stopped hanging out with these poor other kids. THERE goes your childhood wasted. argh..my childhood... I think I've heard of Lewis Carrol, or it was someone else...I can't remember now.
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Isa
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Post by Isa on Oct 1, 2007 7:47:07 GMT -5
Lewis Carroll's relationship with Alice Liddell, the little girl who probably was the inspiration for the main character in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, has often been put into question. It doesn't help that the little girl's parents forbade him to see her after a while because they were growing concerned and that Carroll's favorite hobby was to take pictures of children (sometimes naked). When his diaries were published, several pages dating back to the Alice Liddell period had been torn up and this led people to believe that the missing pages were removed by his family in an effort to conceal certain things... ahhh, nothing quite like a bit of literary gossip to start the week!
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sagedautumn
Collection of short stories bought by Random House
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Post by sagedautumn on Oct 1, 2007 10:49:33 GMT -5
Haha!!!
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neh
Collection of short stories published by an independent editor
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Post by neh on Oct 2, 2007 23:52:45 GMT -5
This is a great idea for a thread guys! And if we're going to delve into the questionable tendancies of great fantasy authors.... shall we perhaps speak of some lingering questions regarding J M Barrie???
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Post by Carma on Oct 3, 2007 7:02:02 GMT -5
Do you want to know how my childhood has gone wasted? Someone told me that Little Red Riding Hood is actually a story about a teenage girl who her mother warns her about strangers and the wolf is trying to rape her! (It was told to girls who got their first period). And Snow White was told to kids from the highest society levels - Snow White represented them and the dwarfs were poor other kids. In the originial version, they weren't as nice! So she got locked up in this coffin until she "grew up" and stopped hanging out with these poor other kids. THERE goes your childhood wasted. This is a coincidence, Our teacher just told us about that thing with Little Red Riding Hood, on monday I think... But he said it was just some study.. they don't know if it's true! (trying to save your childhood..) JM Barrie... well, there was a little discussion going on when Finding Neverland was made...
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neh
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"I live in two worlds; one is a world of books"
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Post by neh on Oct 3, 2007 7:34:08 GMT -5
Well, i studied RRH as my main text when we did Fairy Tales in Year 11 and i came to understand that at least as far as Perrault was concerned, the narrative contained a very important moral message for young ladies - as given in his little epilogue: "From this story one learns that children, especially young lasses, pretty, courteous and well-bred, do very wrong to listen to strangers, And it is not an unheard thing if the Wolf is thereby provided with his dinner. I say Wolf, for all wolves are not of the same sort; there is one kind with an amenable disposition — neither noisy, nor hateful, nor angry, but tame, obliging and gentle, following the young maids in the streets, even into their homes. Alas! Who does not know that these gentle wolves are of all such creatures the most dangerous!" And if you look to Sondheim's musical "Into the Woods" or even the very disturbing (though unfortunately, it wasn't intended to be, hehe) TV movie of a few years ago, you'll see that others have also hit upon the idea of Red's sexual development through her encounter with Mr Wolf. Wikipedia (woohoo!) says this: Sexual awakening Red Riding Hood has also been seen as a parable of sexual maturity. In this interpretation, the red cloak symbolizes the blood of the menstrual cycle and the entry into puberty, braving the "dark forest" of womanhood. Or the cloak could symbolize the hymen (earlier versions of the tale generally do not state that the cloak is red--the word "red" in the title may refer to the girl's hair color or a nickname). In this case, the wolf threatens the girl's virginity. The anthropomorphic wolf symbolizes a man, who could be a lover, seducer or sexual predator. This differs from the ritual explanation in that the entry into adulthood is biologically, not socially, determined. The red hood has often been given great importance in many interpretations, with a signficiance from the dawn to blood. However, the oral version prior to Perrault did not include such a red hood; Perrault introduced it.[24]
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oureternity
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Post by oureternity on Oct 3, 2007 17:03:27 GMT -5
So it's semi-true?
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Post by Carma on Oct 4, 2007 13:50:35 GMT -5
I guess...
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