#Thomas Warton

[babel2001]

In the sixteenth century and for a long time afterwards, in short, the Middle Ages was never simply a chronological concept, never simply a past time firmly fixed in the past. It was an ideological state of being, a state of historical development that might return and in fact could be re-entered much more easily than it could be left behind. Sermons of the period repeatedly warn against precisely this possibility: John Jewel, bishop of Salisbury under Elizabeth, was one who preached vigilance against Catholics who might bring back darkness, concerned that those who “rauine and spoyle the house of God” and by means of whom “forraine power, of which this realme by the mercie of God is happely delyuered, shall agayne be brought in vpon vs,” and warning that “Suche thinges shalbe done vnto vs, as we before suffered: the truth of God shalbe taken away, the holy scriptures burnt and consumed in fire.” The overall mode here might be an admonitory subjunctive, but the simple future tenses rhetorically propose something that will happen.

Later, when interest in the medieval period was revived in the second half of the eighteenth century, the original threat of a Middle Ages that might return had greatly diminished. In the eighteenth century, as Linda Colley has argued, Great Britain was consolidating itself as a protestant nation and a British Empire was being founded in the 1760s on the gains made in the Seven Years War. If Britain still demonised Catholicism, it nevertheless did so without quite the same sense, as in Elizabethan England, that Catholicism was always set to pounce on an unwary nation. It was then possible for such ministers of the Church of England as Thomas Percy to revive interest in the Middle Ages without provoking fears of an immediate lapse into Catholic superstition. It was possible for people to construct around themselves renewed medieval spaces – as Horace Walpole did with his house at Strawberry Hill – without threatening the immediate return of the medieval repressed. Hence the foundations were laid for a more scholarly approach to the Middle Ages in the 1760s, the period known as the Medieval or Romantic revival.

The initial impulses of the revival grew out of antiquarianism. In the eighteenth century all kinds of antiquities became the focus of interest – neolithic and Iron Age remains, coins, ballads and early poetry, folklore – as part of a general turn to the primitive. There was then a discovery of the past, in some cases quite literally a dis-covering as artefacts were unearthed, manuscripts retrieved, old tombs broken open. Out of disparate antiquarian impulses arose, in the medievalist sphere, such classic works as Richard Hurd’s Letters on Chivalry and Romance (1762); Thomas Percy’s ballad collection, The Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765); Horace Walpole’s novel, The Castle of Otranto (1764), Thomas Tyrwhitt’s edition of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1775), and the three-volume scholarly work by Thomas Warton, History of English Poetry (1774–81).

[...]

Even as artefacts were dug out of the ground, oral ballads transcribed, and manuscripts retrieved from oblivion, the condition of this so-called revival was that nothing would actually come back to life. The Medieval Revival, by transforming the Middle Ages into a new object of study, in fact revived nothing, but rather secured the period as part of the dead past. This was History. At least implicit in this antiquarianism was the underlying eighteenth-century sense of historical progress; nothing had ever reached such a state of improvement as it now enjoyed. Correspondingly, there was little threat that the past might return. Medieval studies, which grew out of the amateur efforts of Percy, Scott, and others, would eventually deliver the Middle Ages as a historical period, fixed in the past.

And yet, acceptable as an interest in the Middle Ages became in the course of the nineteenth century, a strange temporality, as I want to show here, has persisted in all eras in ideas of the Middle Ages. “Historical linearity,” Bettina Bildhauer and Anke Bernau write, “quickly proves an unsatisfactory model when seeking to understand contemporary investments in the medieval past.” And while they refer specifically to films about the Middle Ages, the remark is more generally true. We might think of the vision of a discontinuous history that results as a queer one. Carolyn Dinshaw, thinking in particular of mystical experience and Margery Kempe, writes: “in my view a history that reckons in the most expansive way possible with how people exist in time, with what it feels like to be a body in time, or in multiple times, or out of time, is a queer history – whatever else it might be.”

Matthews, David. “‘Welcome to the Current Middle Ages’: Asynchronous Medievalism.” In Medievalism: A Critical History. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt6wpbdd.9

[elisaenglish]

-Thomas Warton, The Pleasures of Melancholy, A Poem (1745)-

O lead me, queen sublime, to solemn glooms...

[alrederedmixedmedia]

Alredered Remembers English poet and author of the first history of English poetry, Thomas Warton, on his birthday.

O! what's a table richly spread

Without a woman at its head!

"The Progress of Discontent"

[tudorqueen6]

Lawrence Washington of Sulgrave Manor

I found that the ancestor of US President George Washington, Lawrence Washington (c.1500-1584), father to Robert (c.1554-1619), on 26 July 1529, was a bailiff at Warton (in the Barony of Kendal) to Sir William Parr, Baron Parr of Horton, uncle to Queen Catherine. Lawrence was the son of John and Margaret Washington. By his mother, he was a nephew of Sir Thomas Kytson of Hengrave, son of Robert of…

[leanstooneside]

To each his own (LIFESAVER)

◊ DANDY HOLL FOURTH O

◊ DANDY PRESIDENT POLK'S

◊ DANDY THOMAS WARTON

◊ DANDY FORTIN

◊ DANDY UNCLE SAM

◊ DANDY MASON

◊ DANDY SEZ JOHN C. CALHOUN

◊ DANDY ARNOLD

◊ DANDY KING TO

◊ DANDY HONORABLE MR. BAGOWIND

◊ DANDY PENELOPE

◊ DANDY SIR GAWAINS

◊ DANDY EARNEST

◊ DANDY GREEN MAN

[winterhopeinferorose]

[whatsoeverislovelyandpure]

An hour spent reading is one stolen from Paradise. — Thomas Warton.

[i-never-knew-keats]

Let others love soft summer’s ev’ning smiles... I choose the pale December’s foggy glooms.

‘The Pleasure of Melacholy’ by Thomas Warton

[travelermarcy]

Marcy: who ate my fries? Carly?

Carly: I don’t like fries

Marcy: Mac?

Mac: I don’t like food

Marcy: Philip?

Philip: ... it was Trevor!

Trevor: yeah it was!

[serafino-finasero]

Portrait of Sir Thomas Wharton, 1639 | Anthony van Dyck (Flemish, 1599--1641)

[breezingby]

THE PLEASURES OF MELANCHOLY. A POEM.

(Long ago, I used to have more interest in Poetry than I do at present time. But, in the wee hours of last night, I finished reading a short story having to do with ancient graveyards and it brought this poem back to my mind. It Is Long)...

THE PLEASURES OF MELANCHOLY by Thomas Warton

“Mother of Musings, Contemplation sage, Whose mansion is upon the topmost cliff Of cloud-capt Teneriff, in secret bow'r; Where ever wrapt in meditation high, Thou hear'st unmov'd, in dark tempestuous night, The loud winds howl around, the beating rain And the big hail in mingling storm descend Upon his horrid brow. But when the skies Unclouded shine, and thro' the blue serene Pale Cynthia rolls her silver-axled car, Then ever looking on the spangled vault Raptur'd thou sit'st, while murmurs indistinct Of distant billows sooth thy pensive ear With hoarse and hollow sounds; secure, self-blest, Oft too thou listen'st to the wild uproar Of fleets encount'ring, that in whispers low Ascends the rocky summit, where thou dwell'st Remote from man, conversing with the spheres. O lead me, black-brow'd Queen, to solemn glooms Cogenial with my soul, to chearless shades, To ruin'd seats, to twilight cells and bow'rs, Where thoughtful Melancholy loves to muse, Her fav'rite midnight haunts. The laughing scenes Of purple Spring, where all the wanton train Of Smiles and Graces seem to lead the dance In sportive round, while from their hands they show'r Ambrosial blooms and flow'rs, no longer charm; Tempe, no more I court thy balmy breeze, Adieu green vales! embroider'd meads adieu!

Beneath yon' ruin'd Abbey's moss-grown piles Oft let me sit, at twilight hour of Eve, Where thro' some western window the pale moon Pours her long-levell'd rule of streaming light; While sullen sacred silence reigns around, Save the lone Screech-owl's note, whose bow'r is built Amid the mould'ring caverns dark and damp, And the calm breeze, that rustles in the leaves Of flaunting Ivy, that with mantle green Invests some sacred tow'r. Or let me tread It's neighb'ring walk of pines, where stray'd of old The cloyster'd brothers: thro' the gloomy void That far extends beneath their ample arch As on I tread, religious horror wraps My soul in dread repose. But when the world Is clad in Midnight's raven-colour'd robe, In hollow charnel let me watch the flame Of taper dim, while airy voices talk Along the glimm'ring walls, or ghostly shape At distance seen, invites with beck'ning hand My lonesome steps, thro' the far-winding vaults. Nor undelightful is the solemn noon Of night, when haply wakeful from my couch I start: lo, all is motionless around! Roars not the rushing wind, the sons of men And every beast in mute oblivion lie; All Nature's hush'd in silence and in sleep. O then how fearful is it to reflect, That thro' the solitude of the still globe No Being wakes but me! 'till stealing sleep My drooping temples baths in opiate dews. Nor then let dreams, of wanton Folly born, My senses lead thro' flowery paths of joy; But let the sacred Genius of the night Such mystic visions send, as SPENSER saw, When thro' bewild'ring Fancy's magic maze, To the bright regions of the fairy world Soar'd his creative mind: or MILTON knew, When in abstracted thought he first conceiv'd All heav'n in tumult, and the Seraphim Come tow'ring, arm'd in adamant and gold.

Let others love the Summer-ev'ning's smiles, As list'ning to some distant water-fall They mark the blushes of the streaky west: I choose the pale December's foggy glooms; Then, when the sullen shades of Ev'ning close, Where thro' the room a blindly-glimm'ring gleam The dying embers scatter, far remote From Mirth's mad shouts, that thro' the lighted roof Resound with festive echo, let me sit, Blest with the lowly cricket's drowsy dirge. Then let my contemplative thought explore This fleeting state of things, the vain delights, The fruitless toils, that still elude our search, As thro' the wilderness of life we rove. This sober hour of silence will unmask False Folly's smiles, that like the dazling spells Of wily Comus, cheat th' unweeting eye With blear illusion, and persuade to drink The charmed cup, that Reason's mintage fair Unmoulds, and stamps the monster on the man. Eager we taste, but in the luscious draught Forget the pois'nous dregs that lurk beneath.

Few know that Elegance of soul refin'd, Whose soft sensation feels a quicker joy From Melancholy's scenes, than the dull pride Of tasteless splendor and magnificence Can e'er afford. Thus Eloise, whose mind Had languish'd to the pangs of melting love, More secret transport found, as on some tomb Reclin'd she watch'd the tapers of the dead, Or thro' the pillar'd isles, amid the shrines Of imag'd saints, and intermingled graves, Which scarce the story'd windows dim disclos'd, Musing she wander'd; than Cosmelia finds, As thro' the Mall in silken pomp array'd, She floats amid the gilded sons of dress, And shines the fairest of th' assembled Belles.

When azure noon-tide chears the daedal globe, And the glad regent of the golden day Rejoices in his bright meridian bow'r, How oft my wishes ask the night's return, That best befriends the melancholy mind! Hail, sacred Night! to thee my song I raise! Sister of ebon-scepter'd Hecat, hail! Whether in congregated clouds thou wrap'st Thy viewless chariot, or with silver crown Thy beaming head encirclest, ever hail! What tho' beneath thy gloom the Lapland witch Oft celebrates her moon-eclipsing rites; Tho' Murther wan, beneath thy shrouding shade Oft calls her silent vot'ries to devise Of blood and slaughter, while by one blue lamp In secret conf'rence sits the list'ning band, And start at each low wind, or wakeful sound: What tho' thy stay the Pilgrim curses oft, As all benighted in Arabian wastes He hears the howling wilderness resound With roaming monsters, while on his hoar head The black-descending tempest ceaseless beats; Yet more delightful to my pensive mind Is thy return, than bloomy Morn's approach, When from the portals of the saffron East She sheds fresh roses and ambrosial dews. Yet not ungrateful is the Morn's approach, When dropping wet she comes, and clad in clouds, While thro' the damp air scowls the peevish South, And the dusk landschape rises dim to view. Th' afflicted songsters of the sadden'd groves Hail not the sullen gloom, but silent droop; The waving elms, that rang'd in thick array, Enclose with stately row some rural hall, Are mute, nor echo with the clamors hoarse Of rooks rejoicing on their hoary boughs: While to the shed the dripping poultry croud, A mournful train: secure the village-hind Hangs o'er the crackling blaze, nor tempts the storm; Rings not the high wood with enliv'ning shouts Of early hunter: all is silence drear; And deepest sadness wraps the face of things.

Thro' POPE's soft song tho' all the Graces breath, And happiest art adorn his Attic page; Yet does my mind with sweeter transport glow, As at the foot of some hoar oak reclin'd, In magic SPENSER's wildly-warbled song I see deserted Una wander wide Thro' wasteful solitudes, and lurid heaths, Weary, forlorn, than when the † fated Fair, Upon the bosom bright of silver Thames, Launches in all the lustre of Brocade, Amid the splendors of the laughing Sun. The gay description palls upon the sense, And coldly strikes the mind with feeble bliss.

O wrap me then in shades of darksom pine, Bear me to caves by desolation brown, To dusky vales, and hermit-haunted rocks! And hark, methinks resounding from the gloom The voice of Melancholy strikes mine ear; "Come, leave the busy trifles of vain life, "And let these twilight mansions teach thy mind "The Joys of Musing, and of solemn Thought."

Ye youths of Albion's beauty-blooming isle, Whose brows have worn the wreath of luckless love, Is there a pleasure like the pensive mood, Whose magic wont to sooth your soften'd souls? O tell how rapt'rous is the deep-felt bliss To melt to Melody's assuasive voice, Careless to stray the midnight mead along, And pour your sorrows to the pitying moon, Oft interrupted by the Bird of Woe! To muse by margin of romantic stream, To fly to solitudes, and there forget The solemn dulness of the tedious world, 'Till in abstracted dreams of fancy lost, Eager you snatch the visionary fair, And on the phantom feast your cheated gaze! Sudden you start—th' imagin'd joys recede, The same sad prospect opens on your sense; And nought is seen but deep-extended trees In hollow rows, and your awaken'd ear Again attends the neighb'ring fountain's sound. These are delights that absence drear has made Familiar to my soul, er'e since the form Of young Sapphira, beauteous as the Spring, When from her vi'let-woven couch awak'd By frolic Zephyr's hand, her tender cheek Graceful she lifts, and blushing from her bow'r, Issues to cloath in gladsome-glist'ring green The genial globe, first met my dazled sight. These are delights unknown to minds profane, And which alone the pensive soul can taste.

The taper'd choir, at midnight hour of Pray'r, Oft let me tread, while to th' according voice The many-sounding organ peals on high, In full-voic'd chorus thro' th' embowed roof; 'Till all my soul is bath'd in ecstasies, And lap'd in Paradise. Or let me sit Far in some distant isle of the deep dome, There lonesome listen to the solemn sounds, Which, as they lengthen thro' the Gothic vaults, In hollow murmurs reach my ravish'd ear.

Nor let me fail to cultivate my mind With the soft thrillings of the tragic Muse, Divine Melpomene, sweet Pity's nurse, Queen of the stately step, and flowing pall. Now let Monimia mourn with streaming eyes Her joys incestuous, and polluted love: Now let Calista dye the desperate steel Within her bosom, for lost innocence, Unable to behold a father weep. Or Jaffeir kneel for one forgiving look; Nor seldom let the Moor on Desdemone Pour the misguided threats of jealous rage. By soft degrees the manly torrent steals From my swoln eyes, and at a brother's woe My big heart melts in sympathizing tears.

What are the splendors of the gaudy court, It's tinsel trappings, and it's pageant pomps? To me far happier seems the banish'd Lord Amid Siberia's unrejoycing wilds Who pines all lonesome, in the chambers hoar Of some high castle shut, whose windows dim In distant ken discover trackless plains, Where Winter ever drives his icy car; While still repeated objects of his view, The gloomy battlements, and ivied tow'rs That crown the solitary dome, arise; While from the topmost turret the slow clock Far heard along th' inhospitable wastes With sad-returning chime, awakes new grief; Than is the Satrap whom he left behind In Moscow's regal palaces, to drown In ease and luxury the laughing hours.

Illustrious objects strike the gazer's mind With feeble bliss, and but allure the sight, Nor rouze with impulse quick the feeling heart. Thus seen by shepherd from Hymettus' brow, What painted landschapes spread their charms beneath? Here palmy groves, amid whose umbrage green Th' unfading olive lifts her silver head, Resounding once with Plato's voice, arise: Here vine-clad hills unfold their purple stores, Here fertile vales their level lap expand, Amid whose beauties glistering Athens tow'rs. Tho' thro' the graceful seats Ilissus roll His sage-inspiring flood, whose fabled banks The spreading laurel shades, tho' roseate Morn Pour all her splendors on th' empurpled scene, Yet feels the musing Hermit truer joys, As from the cliff that o'er his cavern hangs, He views the piles of fall'n Persepolis In deep arrangement hide the darksome plain. Unbounded waste! the mould'ring Obelisc Here, like a blasted oak, ascends the clouds; Here Parian domes their vaulted halls disclose Horrid with thorn, where lurks the secret thief, Whence flits the twilight-loving bat at eve, And the deaf adder wreaths her spotted train, The dwellings once of Elegance and Art. Here temples rise, amid whose hallow'd bounds Spires the black pine, while thro' the naked street, Haunt of the tradeful merchant, springs the grass: Here columns heap'd on prostrate columns, torn From their firm base, encrease the mould'ring mass. Far as the sight can pierce, appear the spoils Of sunk magnificence: a blended scene Of moles, fanes, arches, domes, and palaces, Where, with his brother horror, ruin sits.

O come then, Melancholy, queen of thought, O come with saintly look and stedfast step, From forth thy cave embower'd with mournful yew, Where ever to the curfew's solemn sound List'ning thou sitt'st, and with thy cypress bind Thy votary's hair, and seal him for thy son. But never let Euphrosyne beguile With toys of wanton mirth my fixed mind, Nor with her primrose garlands strew my paths. What tho' with her the dimpled Hebe dwells, With young-ey'd Pleasure, and the loose-rob'd Joy; Tho' Venus, mother of the Smiles and Loves, And Bacchus, ivy-crown'd, in myrtle bow'r With her in dance fantastic beat the ground: What tho' 'tis her's to calm the blue serene, And at her presence mild the low'ring clouds Disperse in air, and o'er the face of heav'n New day diffusive glows at her approach; Yet are these joys that Melancholy gives, By Contemplation taught, her sister sage, Than all her witless revels happier far.

Then ever, beauteous Contemplation, hail! From thee began, auspicious maid, my song, With thee shall end: for thou art fairer far Than are the nymphs of Cirrha's mossy grot; To loftier rapture thou canst wake the thought, Than all the fabling Poet's boasted pow'rs. Hail, queen divine! whom, as tradition tells, Once in his ev'ning-walk a Druid found Far in a hollow glade of Mona's woods, And piteous bore with hospitable hand To the close shelter of his oaken bow'r. There soon the Sage admiring mark'd the dawn Of solemn Musing in thy pensive thought; For when a smiling babe, you lov'd to lie Oft deeply list'ning to the rapid roar Of wood-hung Meinai, stream of Druids old, That lav'd his hallow'd haunt with dashing wave.”

-------------------- The Pleasures of Melancholy was begun in 1745 when the Thomas Warton was 17, published two years later, and subsequently modified and refined in later editions

[forsoothsayer]

Written At Stonehenge by Thomas Warton

Thou noblest monument of Albion's isle! Whether by Merlin's aid, from Scythia's shore, To Amber's fatal plain Pendragon bore, Huge frame of giant-hands, the mighty pile T' entomb his Britons slain by Hengist's guile: Or Druid priests, sprinkled with human gore, Taught 'mid thy massy maze their mystic lore: Or Danish chiefs, enrich'd with savage spoil, To Victory's idol vast, an unhewn shrine, Rear'd the rude heap: or, in thy hallow'd round, Repose the kings of Brutus' genuine line; Or here those kings in solemn state were crown'd: Studious to trace thy wondrous origine, We muse on many an ancient tale renown'd.

[pintoras]

Joan Carlile (English, c. 1606-1679): Portrait of Anne, Philadelphia and Thomas Wharton, later 5th Lord Warton (via Dreweatts)

[fideidefenswhore]

On 16 June [1556], Giovanni Micheli, the Venetian ambassador, wrote to the Doge to say that Sir Thomas Pope, 'a rich and grave man of good name', had been appointed [Elizabeth's] governor. He was an urbane and scholarly man, much preoccupied at this time by his new foundation at Oxford, about which Elizabeth asked lively and intelligent questions. It was in Micheli's opinion that she might be said to be 'in ward and custody though in such decorous and honourable form', as was becoming to her position as heiress to the throne. He records that Pope's custody lasted from June to October 1556, but Pope's biographer, Thomas Warton, suggests he was at Hatfield for a longer period, mentioning that on Shrove Tuesday 1556 he arranged a masque at his own expense to amuse Elizabeth. She was serenaded by twelve minstrels, while forty-six lords and ladies dressed in crimson satin embroidered with gold and pearls took part. There was a tournament, a banquet of seventy dishes and a play about Holofernes; but the Queen objected, requiring Sir Thomas to take his duties more seriously.

The Word of a Prince: A Life of Elizabeth I from Contemporary Documents [Perry, Maria]

[queenmarytudor]

The motto she adopted as queen 'Veritas Temporis Filia' (truth, the daughter of time) was not then more applicable to her than now, and there is no reason why prejudice should prevent our doing justice at present to her character. "Her merits," says [18th century historian Thomas] Warton, "seem to have been overlooked in her misfortunes; and as the latter were aggravated so the former were obliterated by the blaze of prosperity which surrounded the succeeding reign". There have been brighter characters in history, but few would bear so strict an examination in regard to the irreproachable and unblemished  tenor of private life. Mary, in this view, must be ranked amongst the best although not the greatest of our sovereigns.

Introductory Memoir in the Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary, Daughter of King Henry the Eighth, Afterwards Queen, by Frederick Madden, 1831

[therealprincesszeanah]

My Decade in Books

I was tagged by @the-forest-library to outline my decade in books! It will be rough because I have been very hit or miss in tracking my reading throughout the years, but I will do my best. I can't remember how to make this a read more, so I apologize in advace for mobile users. If anyone reads through this bless you.

2010: A year of great highs and some serious lows. I was still in high school so I was plagued by the books from required reading lists, such as The Alchemist, Of Mice and Men, and Lord of the Flies. I also read The Lovely Bones at the behest of a friend, which I still regret because it was so awful and weird. But 2010 was also the year I read A Thousand Splendid Suns, and Pride and Prejudice for the first time! If I recall though, I did not actually finish Pride and Prejudice at this time because I was reading it for a book report and there wasn't time to read the last 40 pages or so and get the assignment done. I still loved it though. A Thousand Splendid Suns was an instant favorite and if I recall was my go-to response to "What's your favorite book" for the next couple of years. I also spent a summer reading Sarah Dessen books which is an eternal mood.

2011: Still in high school and still being required to read books that just Aren't Good, like The Scarlett Letter and The Dante Club. BUT this year the required reading had some great treasures! I read To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time, as well as Night by Elie Wiesel. In the summer I picked up one of the more "popular" books that came out that year from the library called Heart of the Matter by Emily Griffith and it was so dumb that I was pretty much turned off of contemporary adult lit for a good bit. I read a couple more duds that summer at the recommendation of a friend (The Penny by Joyce Meyer and Love Walked In by Maria Des Los Santos). This was also the year I read The Epic of Gilgamesh out loud to my brother (his choice 🤷🏼‍♀️) on our annual roadtrip to North Carolina.

2012: The year I devoured the entirety of The Hunger Games. I remeber borrowing them all from various friends at school and reading them late into the night each time, taking like 2 or 3 days total on each. The required high school reading list this year was still terrible, with The Awakening and As I Lay Dying making an appearance. This was the year I read Macbeth though and to this day that is still my favorite Shakespeare play. We also read The Posionwood Bible which I remember having a love-hate relationship with. It's one of the few books I want to go back to and see if I'll like it more now that I'm not being forced to read it. This summer was the summer me and two of my best friends at the time read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society aloud to each other. To this day we still call one of my friends Clovis, after one the characters in that book. Another instant favorite. That summer my brother also attempted to start a book club, so we all read Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (his choice again) which I shockingly remember enjoying. Another book I surprisingly liked that year was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which I had to read for a group project.

2013: This was a GREAT year of reading. The required reading list had some duds as always (The Master Buidler by Henrik Isben and Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett), but this year we read The Crucible which I LOVED. We also read Heda Gabler (Isben) which I actually did NOT like, but for the associated project my friends and I wrote a song about the play, then filmed and edited an entire music video in the span of like three days. So that was definitely a highlight. That summer I read a couple more duds, The Graceling by Kristin Cashore and Go Ask Alice, which I had picked up at a garage sale for a quarter. I also read Hosseini's newest book that came out the previous year, and while it wasn't on par with A Thousand Splendid Suns, it was still good. After that I really started LIVING. I read The Help (and cried), I read Anne of Green Gables for the first time (and cried), I read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, and then ended the year with the most beautiful book, The Book Thief. I got it for Christmas and read it every second I had on our annual trip to North Carolina. I finished it in the car ride home and sobbed, much to the concern of my dad and brother.

2014: This is where my reading takes a serious nose dive as this spans the semesters in college where I was transitioning from majoring in pre-vet science into majoring in English. I read Twelfth Night in my first English Lit class in college, as well as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, some Chaucer, and 2/3 of Evelina by Frances Burney, which I absolutely loved but time didn't permit me to finish this one until years later. That spring break I borrowed and read The Fault In Our Stars. That summer I borrowed and read The Kite Runner (still think A Thousand Splendid Suns is Hosseini's best work). I vaguely remember being in a World Literature class the fall semester of this year and reading The Tempest, and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (which I LOVED), but I don't remember much else from that class. I thiiink this is also the year I reread Harry Potter during the summer, but I don't remember. I know I reread the series in college, it's just all such a blur now 🤷🏼‍♀️

2015: The Fault In Our Stars the previous year put me on a serious John Green kick in the start of 2015. I read Papertowns on my flight home from my spring break trip to NY. Later that year I borrowed An Abundance of Katherines from a friend and which pretty much turned me off of John Green forever. I took my first American Lit class in college this year and realized I just don't like much American Lit. We read Fight Club, A Streetcar Named Desire, Summer by Edith Warton, Tender is the Night and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and I liked approximately zero of them. This year was the BEST year though because it was also the year I took a class just about the Brontë sisters. We read Jane Eyre (my third time at this point, I think. Always a favorite), Wuthering Heights (hated it) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (an absolute DELIGHT. Became one of my all-time favorites and my go-to recommendation for a couple of years). I ended the year reading a couple of quick, fun, cozy books during the holidays: Where'd You Go Bernadette and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (my first time and I absolutely loved it).

2016: This year had a BUNCH of lows, but there were a few standout stars. After a much needed schedule change at the beginning of the year, I ended up in another American Lit class which further my disdain for the subject. We read Typee by Hermamn Melville (snoozefest), My Ántonia by Willa Cather, half of some book by Keruac I think (so boring and uninspiring I don't even remember anything besides that I hated it and it had a red cover) and Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin. We did also read a collection of short stories by Flannery O'Connor and that was actually enjoyable, so there's hope for me and American authors yet. This was the year I also had my absolute FAVORITE professor for a Victorian Lit class. The theme was Scandal and Outrage or something like that so we read Alice and Wonderland, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and (most unfortunately) Tess of the D'ubervilles by Thomas Hardy. To be fair, at this time I actually probably only read like half of it due to all my other course work this semester, but it just was Not Good. The only high point from my lit classes this year was The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. An absolute treasure. That summer was a summer of duds. I read Harry Potter and The Cursed Child (truly cursed), Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell (just didn't really connect with the characters), and the absolure WORST BOOK Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. I'm not sure a book had ever made me as upset, or rage induced as this book did, but to this day I am still so mad I wasted time with it. I spent a lot of the year sloughing through a book I borrowed from the family I babysit for called The Myserious Benedict Society. I didn't finish it until the next year, but it took me forever to get through. The only other highlight of this year was reading Ender's Game aloud to my husband. That book took me by surprise in a great way. I did not expect to love it as much as I did. We also read the sequel this year, Speaker For the Dead, which although very different from Ender's Game was still good in its own rite.

2017: This year is when things really start picking up for me again. Toward the end of college, I was feeling very burnt out and uninspried by reading (probably because all of the lows the previous year). I rounded out my degree in one last lit class (another American Lit class of ALL classes), but since it was early American Lit, I actually did enjoy it a bit more. We read Native creation myths, Lousia May Alcott short stories, some Whitman and other authors from that movement and then rounded out the semester with Uncle Tom's Cabin. That summer after graduation was when I decided to work my through every book on my bookshelf, which was a pivotal turning point for me because I began to be excited about reading again. That summer I reread Little Women for the first time in years and absolutely LOVED it. I spent the rest of the year with Jane Austen, reading Persausion, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. This was also the year I started reading Harry Potter to my husband (his first time reading the series!).

2018: My bookshelf goal still continues. This year I revisited the Brontë sisters, finally read Evelina in it's entirety (LOVED IT), revisted Sarah Dessen in the summer (for the first time since high school), and revisted some childhood classics (The Tale of Despereaux and The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo, as well as the BFG by Rold Dahl). I reread the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society in preparation for the Netflix movie and finished two Harry Potter books with my husband. I ended the year with Little Men (so sweet 😭) and A Christmas Carol.

2019: I finally finished the first shelf (of three) of my bookcase. I spent almost half of my year in The Count of Monte Cristo and what a wondeful half year that was. Such a great story! I gave two haunts from required read past another chance: Scarlett Letter and Tess of the D'ubervilles. I was not a fan. I read three books by a local author from my childhood and The Outsiders. I finished the year returning to A Thousand Splendid Suns and was again taken away by how moving and beautiful it was. Also finished The Goblet of Fire with my husband during our annual trip to North Carolina.

Something I really enjoyed about this was not only seeing the ebbs and flows of my reading throughout the years, but seeing the common threads throughout the last decade. Road trips, certain books that kept coming up, friends and family I shared books with. This was a really fun thing to do for me so thank you Mable for tagging me! I don't have any one else to tag, but I highly encourage you to do it! It's so fun to see how books shaped the past 10 years. Tag me if you do. 💓