How To Save Your Own Life, Erica Jong

““Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.””

— Lisa See

A romantic is a person who believes in romanticism, which is like a philosophy on life. 

Romantics love nature, old things like castles and churches, love poetry and beauty, and have a tendency to get carried away by ideas. This can be both bad and good, as most of the original romantics stood up for their beliefs and greatly helped England, but also went to help people in revolutions and got killed. 

They also tend to get randomly depressed, but this is because the weather and colors and beatiful things make them act differently than others.

Thoreau said, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Don’t be resigned to that. Break out! Break out! Now is the time!

DEAD POETS SOCIETY 1989 | Peter Weir

Classic literature

listen bro. u gotta have frivolities or else life is meaningless

When all else fails, trust in the art that is always there for centuries witnessing the rise and fall of mankind. And here to witness you lift your chin to the aether once more.

ig: fourthepigram

types of dark academia

classic academia: beige trench coats, wool sweaters. plaid skirts. think femme fatale, but educated. sobbing in bed late at night over the secret history or dead poets society. tea with milk and sugar. subsequent tea stains.

darkest academia: running through the rain, dimly lit by streetlights. brown tweed jackets, dress shoes. cold fingers and colder gazes. french-pressed black coffee, piping hot. dark, candlelit rooms with ancient wood floors/walls. 

light academia: white cable-knit sweaters, sparkly eyes and foggy glasses. going to art museums and falling in love with every portrait, every sculpture. caressing the petals of a rose, hearing the crinkle of leaves underfoot.

witchy academia: burning candles while reading or doing homework. black turtlenecks, velvet skirts. walking through the forest in autumn. passing a graveyard and feeling a greyish presence. waiting anxiously for samhain.

romantic academia: writing flowery poetry about someone you’ll never speak to (guilty oops). a cozy alizarin sweater, pleated skirts. slow dancing around your room to the beatles. curling up with warm, pallid cups of tea and a book.

scholarly academia: impeccable notes in class. leather bound bags crammed with textbooks and pens. lots of coffee with scones, and even more late nights. a wide vocabulary (that people constantly comment on). lives in the library.

theatre academia: shakespeare, all the time - quoting, reading, praying for a school production of a midsummer nights dream. or the crucible. memorizing lines in the wings. taking on your character’s traits, even outside the theater.

This, this is the key!

idk who needs to hear this but when your english teacher asks you to explain why an author chose to use a specific metaphor or literary device, it’s not because you won’t be able to function in real-world society without the essential knowledge of gatsby’s green light or whatever, it’s because that process develops your abilities to parse a text for meaning and fill in gaps in information by yourself, and if you’re wondering what happens when you DON’T develop an adult level of reading comprehension, look no further than the dizzying array of examples right here on tumblr dot com

“it is a marvel that those red rose-leaf lips of yours should be made no less for the madness of music and song than for the madness of kissing. Your slim gilt soul walks between passion and poetry. I know Hyacinthus, whom Apollo loved so madly, was you in Greek days.”

Oscar Wilde to lover Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas, January 1893