#i Want To Believe it's pickpockets but somehow every time it's montparnasse in a different fit#he eventually stops being sassy in his replies and is just like 'jesus christ dude please go to therapy'

Hugo keeps telling us that Valjean has told people something , or said something Often, or was Often Heard to Say X . Given that Valjean is a pretty isolated person who barely speaks about the past even to Cosette, who does he keep talking to??

If you like the word “queer” reblog.

okay so this post is wrong but what the heck it’s a Tumblr post, right, it’s mostly a joke, only it’s so perfectly echoing an idea I’ve seen elsewhere too, from actual paid critics and academic critiques, that Hugo “wasn’t writing for emotional teenagers”, that he’d be horrified by fandom, that he was too High and Erudite for the likes of  screaming theater kids and emotional teenagers

y’all. Y’all. 

Victor Hugo knew what fandom was.  And he absolutely LOVED it. 

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It's all the fake deaths.

For some reason, I feel like I never fully processed the fact that Jean Valjean straight up died. Like he’s dead. I think I kinda assumed he’s immortal or something.

Happy deathday, Lord Byron !!

You may have been a great poet, but for me, a geek fan of horror, your biggest accomplishments will be being the source to three huge figures of horror movies AND computers.

To elaborate, here are my mixtape of Lord Byron's greatest hits :

Launching the writing session that saw Mary Shelley write "Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus",

Inspiring John Polidori to write "The Vampyre" which in turn inspired Bram Stoker to write "Dracula",

Inspiring (through his poems and Byronic heroes) Robert Louis Stevenson to write "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde"

Being such a slut and spending all his money that his wife Anne Isabella Mildrake decided to push her daughter Ada Lovelace to study math instead. Ada Lovelace then became the first person to write a program for Charles Babbage's calculator and paving the ways for computers to come (and then losing all her money anyway.)

So it's thanks to Lord Byron that I now have horror movies to watch AND a computer to tell stupid things about them ! Thank you, Lord Byron !

Making a PowerPoint presentation about the life and works of Paul Gavarni to get more people to appreciate him, but every third slide is just this picture of him captioned HE WAS WICKED HOT

Making a PowerPoint presentation about the life and works of Paul Gavarni to get more people to appreciate him, but every third slide is just this picture of him captioned HE WAS WICKED HOT

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, Caspar David Friedrich.

Rating: NOT CUTE.

To many uneducated people, this is the Romantic "ideal"—but this early 19th century man is dangerously stressed, seeking out a novel perspective because he hasn't been provided with adequate enrichment!

Although he has a walking stick (good), this isn't the proper environment for walking. Instead of letting your early 19th century man wander all the way to the precipice of a cliff (in the fog, no less), try giving him some novels from the circulating library, and appropriate bijouterie!

Much better! The gloves protect his hands (unclear if the "wanderer" has any), and the quizzing glass provides hours of unique visual stimulation. You can see from the neat coiffure that he's well cared for.

Today's Mary Shelley's birthday, also known as Frankenstein Day.

Here's one of my favorites from the archives.

A secret letter written by 19-year-old Percy Shelley to his 12-year-old sister Hellen after he was expelled from Oxford and disowned by his family for his radical beliefs, including atheism. Shelley’s father found the letter before Hellen could ever receive it.

TO HELLEN SHELLEY

Field Place [Dec. 16, 1811.] Summer House—Evening.

MY DEAR HELLEN,

Shew this letter to no one. You remember that you once told me that you loved me.... If you really love me, shew this letter to no one, but answer it as you can. Remember this is the only proof I can now have that you do love me.

We are now at a great distance from each other, or at least we shall be: but that is no reason that I should forget that I am your brother, or you should forget that you are my sister. Everybody near you says that I have behaved very ill, and that I can love no one.

But how do you know that everything that is told you is true? A great many people tell a great many lies, and believe them, but that is no reason that you are to believe them. Because everybody else hates me, that is no reason that you should. Think for yourself, my dear girl, and write to me to tell me what you think.

Where you are now, you cannot do as you please—you are obliged to submit to other people. They will not let you walk and read and think (if they knew your thoughts) just as you like, though you have as good a right to do it as they. But if you were with me, you would be with someone who loved you; you might run and skip, read, write, think just as you liked. Then, though you cannot now be with me you can write, you can tell me what you think, and how you get on, on paper. Perhaps you cannot get a pen and ink, but you can get pencil, and this will do; and as nobody can suspect you, you may easily write, and put your letter into the Summer House, where I shall be sure to get it. I watch over you, though you do not think I am near.

I need not tell you how I love you. I know all that is said of me, but do not you believe it. You will perhaps think I'm the Devil, but, no, I am only your brother, who is obliged to be put to these shifts to get a letter from you.

How do you get on with your poetry, and what books do you read, for you know how anxious I am that you should improve in every way, though I don't think music or dancing of much consequence? Thinking, and thinking without letting anything but reason influence your mind, is the great thing. Some people would tell you that it would be wrong to write to me; but how do you know it is? They do not tell you why it is wrong. They would scold you for it, but this would not make it wrong. Let no one find out that I have written to you. Read this letter when no one sees you, and with attention. I have not written to Mary, because I know that she is not firm and determined like you; but if you think that she would not tell, give my love to her, and tell her to write to me.

I shall not say any more now. Write, and leave your letter in the Summer House. I shall be sure to get it if you go there alone and leave it. —Your very affectionate and true brother,

P. B. SHELLEY.

source: The Letters of Percy Shelley vol. VIII 1803-1812 ed. Roger Ingpen.

Notes: here he refers to his sister Mary, not Mary Shelley. He would later change his opinion on music, coming to admire it greatly and encouraging his roommates/companions Claire Clairmont and Jane Williams to pursue their musical talents, which inspired some of his best poetry.

your average 1830 classicist be like:

Thinking about him (Lord Byron)...

From his poetics to his superstition to his pet bear, certainly a figure to look into.

Bust of Lord Byron. 1830–70. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

the reason enjolras doesnt know how to talk to gavroche is bc he was never a child himself like he just spontaneously appeared as a 17-year-old revolutionary in paris the day fantine died and then his appearance never changed ever

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! [×]

Looking to send a romantic valentine to your suitor? The Lake Geneva gang has you covered.

Your doting

Miss A

Lord Byron writing about book-burning, queer representation, and the value of poetry . . . in 1821:

“Let us hear no more of this trash about ‘licentiousness.’ Is not ‘Anacreon’ taught in our schools? translated, praised, and edited? Are not his Odes the amatory praises of a boy? Is not Sappho's Ode on a girl? Is not this sublime and (according to Longinus) fierce love for one of her own sex? And is not Phillips's translation of it in the mouths of all your women? And are the English schools or the English women the more corrupt for all this? When you have thrown the ancients into the fire it will be time to denounce the moderns. ‘Licentiousness!’ — there is more real mischief and sapping licentiousness in a single French prose novel, in a Moravian hymn, or a German comedy, than in all the actual poetry that ever was penned, or poured forth, since the rhapsodies of Orpheus. The sentimental anatomy of Rousseau and Madame de Staël are far more formidable than any quantity of verse. They are so, because they sap the principles, by reasoning upon the passions; whereas poetry is in itself passion, and does not systematise. It assails, but does not argue; it may be wrong, but it does not assume pretensions to Optimism.”

Context: this letter was written during the Bowles-Pope Controversy, a seven-year long public debate in the English literary scene primarily between the priest, poet, and critic William Lisle Bowles and the poet, peer, and politician Lord Byron. The debate began in 1807 when Bowles published an edition of the famous writer Alexander Pope’s work which included an essay he wrote criticizing the writer’s character, morals, and how he should be remembered. Today, we would say that Bowles tried to “cancel” Alexander Pope, who had affairs without marrying, and whose works had sexual themes. Lord Byron defended Pope, who was one of his all-time favorite writers. Pope had been dead since 1744, so he was not personally involved. This debate shows that while moral standards have changed throughout the centuries, the ways people have debated about morality have remained similar.

Source of the excerpt: — Moore’s Life of Byron in one volume, 1873, p. 708 - https://books.google.com/books?id=Q3zPkPC8ECEC&pg=PA708&lpg=PA708&dq=%22Are+not+his+Odes+the+amatory+praises

Sources on the Bowles-Pope Controversy: — Chandler, James. “The Pope Controversy: Romantic Poetics and the English Canon.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 10, no. 3, 1984, pp. 481–509. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343304. — https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pope-Bowles-controversy — Bowles, Byron and the Pope-controversy by Jacob Johan van Rennes, Ardent Media, 1927.

Valentines for you and the gang