Waking into Winter: Regret and Ruin in Rossetti’s A Daughter of Eve

Christina Rossetti’s A Daughter of Eve is a lamentation in miniature, a bitter draught distilled into three stanzas, each drop heavy with regret. It is the wail of one who has slept too long beneath a summer sun and awoken to find the warmth fled, the landscape altered beyond retrieval. The speaker’s grief is not loud but … Continue reading Waking into Winter: Regret and Ruin in Rossetti’s A Daughter of Eve

Spread Too Thin: The Sticky Truth About Butter and Blunders

The proverb 'He who has butter on his head should not go out in the sun' originates from a French saying: 'Qui a de la tête au beurre ne doit pas aller au soleil.' It means that someone who has a weakness or vulnerability should avoid situations that would expose or exacerbate it. Essentially, it’s a warning against hypocrisy … Continue reading Spread Too Thin: The Sticky Truth About Butter and Blunders

Mild Indifference and Arse-Breathing: A Reflection on Peter Høeg’s Observations

The following quote is from Peter Høeg’s short story Reflection of a Young Man in Balance, which is part of his collection, Tales of the Night (“Fortællinger om Natten” in Danish). The collection explores themes of love, identity, and existential reflection, often with a lyrical and philosophical style. However, as I’m using this quote in … Continue reading Mild Indifference and Arse-Breathing: A Reflection on Peter Høeg’s Observations

The Profound Communion of Souls in George Eliot’s Words

George Eliot’s assertion - "What greater thing is there, for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined to strengthen each other, and to be at one with each other, in silent unspeakable memories?" Adam Bede (1859) - is not merely a reflection on love, but a profound meditation on the nature of human … Continue reading The Profound Communion of Souls in George Eliot’s Words

Shards of a Broken Mind: A Critique of The Life of a Stupid Man

The Life of a Stupid Man was published posthumously in 1927, the same year Ryūnosuke Akutagawa took his own life. That makes this work seem like a literary suicide note - one final, unfiltered outpouring of his disillusionment and despair. It wasn’t crafted for an audience so much as exhaled, a last gasp of a man … Continue reading Shards of a Broken Mind: A Critique of The Life of a Stupid Man