Drunk on Goblin Fruit

I made my visit to Strange Horizons a bit late this week, but as always found a superb short story and a new poem. This week's poem by J. C. Runolfson is not to be missed, especially for writers. Runolfson's author bio led me to a link I had to share: Goblin Fruit .
The site states they publish "poetry that treats mythic, surreal, fantasy and folkloric themes, or approaches other themes in a fantastical way," and they deliver.
This is a site that begs to be devoured. I spent at least an hour there drinking in the amazing poetry in the current and back issues. As the hapless Laura says in Rossetti's Goblin Market, "I ate and ate my fill/ Yet my mouth waters still"(166-165). I'll be going back again and again, but unlike poor Laura my thirst for the Goblin Fruit won't be denied (at least as long as their website remains).
By the way, if you would like to read the original text, from which I assume the website gained its name, the poem Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti can be found here: Goblin Market .

Emily Dickinson Poetry Online

So much of the world's greatest literature is only a Google search away, especially if the work is old enough to have fallen into the public domain.
I love Emily Dickinson's poetry. It is often ambiguous and sometimes even confusing, but I like that. Her poetry sparked fun debates in English class. Is she speaking metaphorically or literally or both? What is she talking about really? I suppose only the poet herself could have told us.

You can find a list of her complete works by clicking here:

Bartleby.com

I chose this poem because I like what she has to say about the lure of conformity and how the non-conformists among us may be the bravest of all.


Part One: Life

XI

MUCH madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
’T is the majority
In this, as all, prevails. 5
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur,—you ’re straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.

When Ideas Fail, Post a Cat Pic!

This just cracks me up every time I look at it.

More from "What's the Message?"

The positive response I received from the first post about women's periodicals from the eighteenth century, along with a request for more from the essay, prompts today's post.



From the Essay:
Now, we didn’t simply make up a few attention-grabbing headlines and stick them on a copy of an engraving. These headlines are inspired by actual stories from some of the
eighteenth-century conduct books.

This mock-up feature headlines drawn from actual Female Spectator issues. (This one is in color, which would have been difficult to do in the eighteenth century, to say the least, but just play along here.)
From the Female Spectator Volume Three we find a long sermon against gossip. It begins: “Nothing more plainly shews a weak and degenerate Mind, than taking a Delight in whispering about every idle Story we are told, to the Prejudice of our Neighbors” (2).
Volume One of The Female Spectator ran a lengthy essay on the vital importance of young women choosing the right husband. It says “to be well convinced of the Sincerity of the Man they are about to marry is a Maxim, with great Justice, always recommended to a young lady” (13). The story goes on to describe a young woman who made a foolish, hasty choice of marriage partner with, of course disastrous consequences. Martesia, the young woman, ends up married to a man of dubious character, they drift apart and even begin to sleep in separate beds. Martesia has an affair and becomes pregnant. She attempts to conceal the pregnancy and delivers a still-born baby in secret. But the whispering began and she, in the end, had to flee England. With a sum of support from her husband, she went into “voluntary Banishment from Friends and Country, and roaming round the World in fruitless Search of that Tranquility she could not have failed enjoying at home in the Bosom of a Comfort equally beloved as loving” (Female Spectator 23).
Taking a cue from an actual essay in the Female Spectator Volume Two, we find the writer saying from the beginning “there is no one Thing more generally talked of, and so little understood, as the sin of ingratitude. All complain of it in others, but none acknowledge it in themselves” (2). The essay runs for several pages and gives many examples of how to avoid this particular sin.
Our last and perhaps most interesting headline come from Volume three of The Female Spectator. In it the writer tells a story of a woman named “Constantia” who though the seeming epitome of virtue finds that her husband is cheating on her. How does she defeat her rival and regain her husband’s affections? Easy! She retains “the most tender affection for her husband, but while the guilty pair imagined her easy and resign’d to her fate, she was continually laying Schemes to change it” (Female Spectator 33). Her scheme we find is to pretend to be sick and take to her bed. Also, luckily, it seems “heaven was pleased that she should prove with Child, which, together with her continued Sweetness of Behaviour, turn’d his Heart” (Female Spectator 41). So the remedy it appears is to be nice to your cheating husband, continue sleeping with him, pretend to be near death and eventually he’ll come around.
Women’s magazines are still blatantly telling women how to act, how to talk, how to get or keep a man and how to dress, though the most numerous items have to do with men, sex and relationships. In the November 2005 issue of Cosmopolitan we find these articles; “Boost His Body Confidence,” “Get the Affection You Desire”, “A Dinner He’ll Die For”, “How to Turn Him On Without Touching” and introduces a new sex position, naturally to keep a man interested.
Though they take a friendly tone, these women’s magazines, just like the examples we’ve seen from the eighteenth-century, still play on a woman’s insecurities and self doubts. They still seek to teach women (though admittedly the some of the lessons have changed). We didn’t find any eighteenth-century articles about how to be great in bed.
However, today’s magazines hold up near-impossible-to-achieve standards of beauty as the womanly ideal. The main focus is still about attracting, holding on to and pleasing men. These magazines tell a woman “you can’t possibly get along in the world without our advice. Listen to us. We are the modern sages. Behave as we tell you. Look like this girl. We’ll tell you how to behave in any situation. Style your hair like so and wear these clothes. It’s the only way you’ll ever be happy.”
Today’s magazines, just like the periodicals from the eighteenth century, still assume a woman needs instruction from self-styled experts in all areas of her life. That’s the message and, judging by the continuing popularity of women’s periodicals, its one women are still buying.

Works Cited:
Cosmopolitan 239.5. Dec. 2005

Female Spectator 1. The Spectator Project. CETH. 10 Nov. 2005.
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Female Spectator 2. The Spectator Project . CETH. 10 Nov. 2005.
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Female Spectator 3. The Spectator Project CETH. 10 Nov. 2005.
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The New Lady's Magazine

This was a Power Point slide that was part of a group presentation for one of my college English classes. We compared the ladies' magazines of the Eighteenth Century with modern day women's mags.
The slide is a satiric representation of what the cover of an Eighteenth Century magazine might look like if the teasers for the publication were written in the breathless, urgent style of today's women's magazines.
From the Essay:

Peter Miller notes that the women’s periodicals of the eighteenth-century show “not the slightest interest … in the important social and political issues of the day” (283). Their concerns were mostly of fashion, comportment and how to attract the right kind of man and how to keep him interested. Does any of this sound familiar? Miller sums it up for us. He says “The similarity of these early ladies’ magazines to women’s periodicals today is striking” (283).

I have to chuckle every time I think about this picture, especially when I'm standing in front of the magazine racks at the local bookstore or supermarket. Who says we've come a long way, baby?

***And because I'm still an obessive-compulsive English Major at heart, here's the work cited:
Miller, Peter John. “Eighteenth-Century Periodicals for Women.” History of Education Quarterly 11.3 (1971): 279-286. JSTOR 3 Nov. 2005. .

Pictures and 1000 Words

When the story idea font is seemingly running dry, I often go web-surfing for inspiring artwork. Then I try to see if I can come up with one thousand words about the picture, putting the old proverb to the test. Sometimes it works!



I found this lovely lady and her baby at photobucket.com. Now I may or may not write a story about a mermaid. Despite the title, mermaids are not really the focus of this blog.
All that aside, I love the magical and powerful, but also dream-like feeling of this piece. And those are the kinds of feelings that put me in the mood to write.

Flash Fiction Online

I really love flash fiction. It's fun and fast to read. It's also incredibly difficult to write.
Flash Fiction Online publishes four terrific short, shorts every month, including "classic" flash stories. This month's edition features H.P. Lovecraft.
Check it out when you have fifteen minutes to spare.