Category Archives: Love

May 14

Oona O’Neill Chaplin. Behind Every Great Man…

… There is a Great Woman. One such woman, Oona O’Neill, was born on the 14 of May 1925,  in Warwick Parish, Bermuda, to talented parents, the prize-winning playwright Eugene O’Neill and writer Agnes Boulton. We can only assume that this saying must have been true in Oona’s case, as her true character remained an […]

March 18

Male Narcissism vs. Female Desire in M-me Fayette’s Princesse de Clèves

On the 18th of March 1634, French writer Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, comtesse de La Fayette, was born (or according to some records) baptized in Paris. She was the author of La Princesse de Clèves, France’s first documented historical novel. Published anonymously in March 1678, the story is considered rather modern for its penchant […]

March 07

Alice B. Toklas and Her Famous Pot Fudge

On the 7th of March 1967, Alice Babette Toklas, a longtime lover, secretary, editor, cook, and companion of the writer Gertrude Stein, died in Paris, France. An American of Polish descent, Toklas met Stein in Paris on the 8th of September 1907, and fell in love with her. The feeling was mutual, and so the […]

December 29

The Awakening of Joyce’s Lust for Beauty

For those soul-searching, here is an excerpt from  A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the first novel of Irish writer James Joyce (1882 – 1941). This autobiographical Künstlerroman is unprecedented in literature for its use of free indirect speech prefiguring Joyce’s stream of consciousness technique. American modernist poet Ezra Pound had the novel published in book format […]

December 09

Troublesome Love of Edith Sitwell

On the 9th of December 1964, Dame Edith Sitwell, a British poet and critic, died in London. Both as an artist and as a public personality, she was a provocative and controversial figure. Her poetry, influenced significantly by the French symbolist movement, was often experimental and multidimensional. In her early career she focused mainly on […]