Wilde, Women, and Today’s World | A Commentary

“It is the usual history of a man and a woman as it usually happens, as it always happens. And the ending is the ordinary ending. The woman suffers. The man goes free.”

So says Mrs Arbuthnot to son Gerald in Wilde’s ‘A Woman of No Importance’, as she begins to explain her discord with a proposition he puts forward about the future. Her sentiment stems from personal experience, carrying with her as she does years of untold secrets, and a fate condemning of her alone. But in this day and age, with a shifting social landscape, and battles for equality being waged (and won) across many fronts, to what extent do her words still ring true?

(Spoilers within.)

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Poetry’s Echo

“I love life; I love each day, // I love when sunlight starts to stray // Through swaying trees, then pirouettes // Enhancing dancing silhouettes.”

I first encountered JM Robertson’s poetry a little over ten years ago, when I found myself in possession of his book ‘Words of an Edinburgh Lad’. It was, amongst others, and in particular, his poem entitled ‘I Love Life’ that somehow made a home amongst the clutter of a teenage mind, vivid imagery determined to remain unforgotten despite the years that went by.

What was it about Robertson’s poetry that made it more arresting than its prosaic counterpart?

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Fitzgerald, Technology, and Writing Decline | A Commentary

“All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.”

In a letter to his daughter “Scottie”, writer of American classic ‘The Great Gatsby’, F Scott Fitzgerald offered this curious insight. Though the letter was undated, what is clear from both his own accounts, and those of him from the time, is he did not see himself as the literary great the world does today.

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