I had to write an essay because I was taught too well not to.
A Birkbeck Story
My Journey To Breakfast At Tiffany’s
My first encounter with Breakfast At Tiffany’s was Audrey Hepburn in Givenchy and rhinestones. Like a lot of little girls, I had the calendar and the costume jewellery and a battery-powered vintage-looking alarm clock that had the Robert McGinnis poster emblazoned on it in technicolour - one that I kept long after it stopped functioning... Continue Reading →
Classical music: how to get into something difficult
Thank god for teens on Spotify. Their knowledge on so many topics is as lacking as mine, whether we’re talking about classic 80s hip-hop they weren't there for or Romantic classical music when they're not sure if romantic is an era or a mood. The beautiful thing about the teens, though, is that even if... Continue Reading →
Takeaways of Tolstoy: How Are We Compelled to Live A Certain Way?
In Tolstoy's work we see a kernel of ourselves reflected back; by reading his books we can develop an understanding of what it means to make choices when we 'live in a society' or have made incorrect choices in the past. Now as much as ever the lessons in his books are something we can turn to for relief from choices we ourselves are compelled to make.
The ‘Bright Young Things’ Cinematic Universe
In the novels of Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford, the same characters crop up over and over again - whether it’s Bridey (the priggish elder brother from Brideshead Revisited) falling for Adam Symes’ faux fashion hacks in Vile Bodies or Linda Radlett being a minor character in Polly Hampton’s book, the British scene of the... Continue Reading →
Whose Career Do I Want?
What is a role model? The message I hope to take away from assessing ‘establishment’ careers and how people got there is a direction; I hope that by admiring aspects of others’ journies I can replicate the pieces admire on my own journey, and push myself to a place I am happy to be in through conscious effort and wilful striving. I hope you, too, can figure out what shape you want your future career to take from the example of those you admire.
The Joy in Something You Weren’t Seeking
Do you ever find yourself researching something so strange that you stop and wonder what brought you here? I find that it’s almost a daily occurrence for me: whether it’s finding a stack of books on the history of various astrologies (what’s more surprising, that I needed it or that it’s a surprisingly well-covered field?)... Continue Reading →
‘Gilded Glamour’: A Met Gala Digest
Another instalment in my annual review of the Met Gala looks.
15 reads for people who love the idea of the Romantics but find Wordsworth boring.
My top picks for engaging with Romanticism for somebody who has previously been bored by it. These texts are weird, in different genres, or written for modern audiences about Romanticism - in short, they’re not really the kind of thing you’d come across in school, or even university, really. I picked these to represent much of what there is to love about this style of writing and relating to art, so hopefully everybody will find something to enjoy among these suggestions.
Why Am I Rewriting Phantom of the Opera?
In re-writing Phantom of the Opera, I am trying to connect with a Sensibility that I found in the original, marrying modern writing practices with the emotion and tension of the original, and expanding Leroux’s seminal work into something a modern reader might enjoy more, but which also connects to the Romantic ideals of a past conception of literature.
Late Romantic 