Fun Facts

To celebrate this week's all-nighter for my English 363 take-home midterm... and my enjoyment of a literature conference on campus, my amazing Writing Center friends, and my English-infused life in general... I just thought I'd take a break to share some English-nerdy Fun Facts/Observations.

1 Ezra Pound, the iconically elitist High Modernist poet, looks like a douchier version of Joseph Gordon-Levitt.









2 Fire!!, the black literary journal of the Harlem Renaissance that was started by major players in the movement like Wallace Thurman, Zora Neal Hurston, and Langston Hughes, only lasted one issue. Sales were terrible, and the stacks and stacks of unwanted copies were stored in a basement. These copies were all burned in a fire (allegedly).

















3 Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning were the Beyonce and Jay-Z of Victorian poets.






XIV.
If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
'I love her for her smile---her look---her way
Of speaking gently,---for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'---
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee,---and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,---
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.
--from Sonnets from the Portuguese, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1850


Hit me like a ray of sun
Burning through my darkest night
You're the only one that I want
Think I'm addicted to your light
I swore I'd never fall again
But this don't even feel like falling
Gravity can't begin to pull me back to the ground again

It's like I've been awakened
Every rule I had you breakin'
It's the risk that I'm taking
I'm never gonna shut you out

Everywhere I'm looking now
I'm surrounded by your embrace
Baby, I can see your halo
You know you're my saving grace
You're everything I need and more
It's written all over your face
Baby, I can feel your halo
I pray it won't fade away
-from "Halo," Beyonce, 2008