How To Feel Dark Academic

i often feel like one of the many reasons why we are so passionate about the whole dark academia thing is because it gives us the opportunity to live in a fantasy where our passion, whether that’s literature, art, theater, science, feels valid.

we live in a world where we are constantly stimulated, constantly finding new things, constantly pressured into liking more and more stuff because the world keeps going on at such a fast pace and it never stops and it’s so hard to keep up with it and it makes your breath short your mind tired your fears bigger and.

it almost feels like we are trapped because even though we would like to slow down for a bit, we know the world won’t stop with us, for us.

if we turn our phones off it’s unnatural and people start worrying, if we don’t check our social medias during our study breaks we get anxious – no matter how much we want it not to be that way, no matter how badly we would like to dedicate ourselves completely to these passions of ours, we can’t do it entirely, slaves of times so flourishing but so scary. the world has a crushing weight and most of the times we soccombe to it.

therefore, thinking about the dark academia concept is a way of finding comfort not only in our own minds but even on this tiny corner of the internet.

in a certain way the concept softens me, although it can often be extreme.

gathering in the common room at three in the morning, a circle of eager friends with the same thirst for knowledge; the sound of a pen scribbling ideas on a thin sheet of paper; round glasses slipping down the tip of our noses always hidden by the pages of novels and poetry collections; dim lights caressing our backs curved from studying for so many hours those same subjects that make our heart race increase; our stray black cats resting on our bellies as we curl up in bed, notes spread out all around us – on the floor, glued to a wall, in between the pages of big tomes; the rain gently tapping against the window of our dorm rooms as we sit with our backs against the wooden wall, completely lost in between crinkled words with no cellphone, no distraction other than the characters and philosophers speaking to us in ancient languages, voices sweet as honey; our minds getting poisoned as we start to believe in those revolutions so badly we’re willing to lose our sanity after them; having lessons with just a bunch of other people, tea burning our tongues as it runs hot down our throats; and then, when the line between reality and fiction blurs completely, we might lose ourselves – but we wouldn’t feel guilty in the comfort we find when our love for knowledge becomes so warm it eventually starts to burn our skin. God, how sweet it feels to become ashes for these passions of us.

spring is not gentle

trembling towards tomorrow

trepidation of love now renewed;

it is a scab scraped over winter

and its bloody, weeping wounds.

Bonjour maman! I hope you are doing well. I am an avid reader and lover of poetry and I have wanted to read French poetry for a long, long time. Could you please suggest some poems/collections (B1 - B2) for me?

Hello dear,

It would be hard to make a universal list for this because B1/B2 can look many different ways, the best advice I have is to check out famous authors and see at first glance if their stuff looks too hard for you or not. Here are the basics and an example:

B1/B2 with a good dictionary:

Correspondance by Charles Baudelaire

Dans les bois by Paul Verlaine

La demoiselle by Théophile Gautier

Les malheureux by Louise Ackermann ♀

Crépuscule by Guillaume Apollinaire

Les yeux d'Elsa by Louis Aragon (which I would claim to be the most beautiful love poem in the world)

L'hirondelle by Sophie d'Arbouville ♀

Chanson à boire by Nicolas Boileau

La nuit de printemps by Théodore de Banville

L'ennui de Léonore by Victoire Babois ♀

Les feuilles mortes by Jacques Prévert

Regrets d'amour by Pierre Corneille

Des vivants et des morts - Andrée Chedid ♀

Le désir by Anatole France

À Aurore by George Sand ♀

Par un mauvais temps by Alfred de Musset

Melancholia by Victor Hugo

Le bonheur est mélancolique by Cécile Sauvage ♀

C1/C2 but give it a try anyway:

Première soirée by Arthur Rimbaud

Luth compagnon de ma calamité by Louise Labé ♀

La sagesse by Alphonse de Lamartine

Prière de Socrate by Gérard de Nerval

Le temps de vivre by Anna de Noailles ♀

Le songe by Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve

Ce que dit l'homme de peine by Paul Éluard

Élégie du printemps by Pierre de Ronsard

La grande douleur que je porte by Christine de Pisan ♀

Poème à Uranie - Voltaire

La prison by Alfred de Vigny

L'amour et la folie by Jean de la Fontaine

Ô qu'une sagesse profonde by François de Malherbe

L'âme errante by Marceline Desbordes-Valmore ♀

Les fleurs by Stéphane Mallarmé

Le lundi à Vêpres by Jean Racine

C'était novembre by Vénus Khoury-Ghata (1937-) ♀

Holy shit:

Escargots by Francis Ponge (XX, surrealism)

Nous ne sommes fâchés by Joachim Du Bellay (XVI)

Ballade des dames du temps jadis by François Villon (XV)

Lai du Frêne by Marie de France ♀ (XII)

Je brûle avec mon coeur by Théodore Aggripa d'Aubigné (XVI)

Plus:

Entire anthology about female poetry

Hope this helps! x

sometimes i can’t believe how dreamy this city is! ✨🌙

I recommend constructing a detailed image of who you want to be and how you want your life to be, down to all the details (love-life, work, money, your home, day to day life, etc). Flesh it out fully and let your heart and desires govern the whole thing, don’t hold back at all, create your ideal life. And everyday think about it - and feel it. Feel it as if your life is already that way. And make all your decisions according to its ultimate fulfillment. Get in touch with your values, what’s really important to you, and let them guide you.

I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.

Dark Academia Procrastination 

‣ watching the clouds pass by your window 

‣ completely changing your spotify playlists 

‣ reading up on long-dead philosophers and some new ones 

‣ boiling the kettle three separate times because you keep forgetting that you put it on already 

‣ painting your nails 

‣ listening to the trees and the birds within them 

‣ flipping through unread books hoping one will catch your attention 

‣ reading poetry and tasting it on the back of your tongue 

‣ dabbling in witchcraft 

‣ thinking about Oscar Wilde 

‣ experiencing intense nostalgia but letting it consume you instead of pushing it away like you usually do 

‣ getting too involved in the classical music you’re listening to and feeling the crescendo in your soul  

‣ fantasizing

living in the old small town, wandering around with my dogs, having big house, wearing dark dresses, drinking lots of coffee, reading historical novels and collecting works of art

as imperceptibly as grief - emily dickinson / picnic at hanging rock dir. peter weir / a summer wasting - belle & sebastian / jordan tiberio / nervous young inhumans - car seat headrest / little women dir. greta gerwig / francis forever - mitski / 4 aventures de reinette et mirabelle dir. éric rohmer / aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe - benjamin alire sáenz