More on Bright Star

Excellent posts, all! Please weigh in if you haven’t already.

I mentioned that I loved the clothes. I thought the costume director did an outstanding job of using clothing to fit the characters. Fanny’s costumes were gorgeous, of course. Did you notice in the scene near the beginning, where she first goes to call on the family living near the poets, that she’s gowned in very bright white? White was a statement of privilege in the nineteenth century—as Marissa has noted, at the very least you need money to keep it clean! Then again the odious Mr. Brown wears plaid trousers and frumpy coats—small wonder Fanny held him in such distain!

I loved the little touches as well, such as when Keats climbs the tree and lays in the branches after describing such a dream to Fanny, and where Keats and Fanny are walking back with Toots just ahead and they keep freezing every time she looks back at them. The way Samuel and Toots played “chaperone” was perfection.

Keats’ situation made me said, though. “He has no living and no money,” one of the adult women warns Fanny. That was the plight of gentlemen with no inheritance. “No living” meant no one had bequeathed him a position such as at a church or given him a small estate. “No money” meant his family hadn’t seen fit to offer him his own fortune. Gentlemen weren’t supposed to work—as in any kind of labor with their hands. So what do you do? Become a personal assistant to a wealthier relative, paint a picture, become a poet.

Aren’t we all glad he chose the last?

The Young Bluestockings Go to the Cinema: Bright Star

Well, what did you all think?

I suppose that I should warn you that I’m not a film buff and don’t really have the know-how to discuss film as art with any degree of critical know-how. But I am a history geek and a writer of fiction, so I’m going to talk about history and story. If any of you are more versed in film critique, I would LOVE to hear from you!

So…starting from the beginning, I really enjoyed this film, even though, of course, I knew there wouldn’t be a Happily Ever After kind of ending. I like the fact that the actors looked like real people rather than, well, actors—not that they weren’t attractive people, but they also weren’t Hollywoodish, if that makes sense. It made it much easier for me to think about the characters they played instead of them. Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw brought Fanny and John to luminous life, but I admired the supporting cast hugely, especially Fanny's little sister Toots and the painfully jealous Brown.

Jane Campion (both writer and director) based the story of the relationship between John Keats and the girl next door, Fanny Brawne, on a biography by Andrew Motion. Fanny had long gotten short shrift from earlier biographers, who saw her as a destructive force and a weight dragging Keats back from his art; Motion restored her as a human being and as a source of inspiration for the poet.

In fact, beyond the catharsis of a romance of doomed love and the glorious poetry (and how it's used so very, very well in this movie), what I think draws me most about Bright Star is that it is about Fanny rather than about Keats.

Fanny loves to sew. And the act of sewing as well as clothing is used in beautiful and meaningful ways throughout the movie: Fanny first touches Keats by stitching a pillow slip for his dead brother, she flirts through discussion of her wardrobe early on; she tells Keats that a coat of blue velvet is what a poet should wear. And oh, her wardrobe! That pink pelisse she wears when calling to bring dainties to Keats’ brother, and the double-breasted striped linen dress in the picnic scene, and the melancholy blue pelisse she wears when seeing him off to Italy…exquisite! Earlier Keats biographers saw Fanny's love of sewing and beautiful clothes as a sign of her shallowness...I see it as the creative outlet of a person who also loved beauty.

The sets were also wonderful…the house lovely (and wasn't the bluebell wood amazing?) and furnishings appropriate. I must say that I felt more drawn into this world than the world of Young Victoria (despite all its gorgeousness) because it felt so much more real.

To let you know what happened later, Fanny mourned Keats’ death for years, avoiding society (though she and Keats’ younger sister, also called Fanny, became close friends after his death) and wearing mourning. Her brother and mother both died in the late 1820s, and she and her younger sister Margaret (Toots) moved to France to live with family. It was here that Fanny met Louis Lindon, whom she married in 1833 (the picture of her above is from about that time). She had three children, to whom she left her carefully preserved letters from Keats on her death in 1865.

Okay, Young Bluestockings, the floor is open. What did you like or dislike about this film? Did you get teary at the end, even though you knew how it would end? (Yes, I did. So there.) Are you inspired to read Keats now, or to pick up a needle? Discuss!

There's Tea, and Then There's Tea

Boy, has it been hot! We love unsweetened ice tea with mint in my house, and brew our own from loose tea because it tastes better (especially with mint from the garden)...and have been consuming nearly two gallons every day among us! So I thought a little background on tea, both the beverage and the meal, might be fun. This post first ran in April 2009.

Don't forget that next week the Young Bluestockings will be visiting the cinema (preferably air-conditioned!) and discussing the movie Bright Star. Have you had a chance to watch it yet?

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Ah, tea…that most English of meals...but which meal is it?

Well, that kind of depends.

Tea was introduced in England as early as 1635, but didn’t become fashionable until the 1660s, when King Charles II married the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza. Tea drinking was already established in Portugal, and Catherine brought tea and her beautiful porcelain tea services to enjoy in her new home…and soon, drinking tea was the height of fashion. It remained an extremely expensive luxury item for several decades, but by 1725 a quarter of a million pounds was being imported annually, and tea shops had begun to make their appearance. Tea also began to replace beer and ale as the usual drink of the poor; the abolition of import duties helped this, so that by the beginning of the 19th century, tea was well on its way to becoming the national beverage.

In the 18th and early 19th centuries among the upper classes, tea was often drunk in the evening after dinner, around 9 pm, and served with light refreshments like cakes and sandwiches. When you were eating your dinner at 4 pm, this made some sense…but as hours changed for meals and dinner moved later and later, this habit made a switch…and at some point around the 1830s or so, it started to become fashionable to have tea and light refreshments in the afternoon instead, to sustain one between luncheon at one or two and dinner at 8:30 or 9. At first it was simply something one did as a quick, informal pick-me-up, but gradually sociable ladies figured out that drinking tea and nibbling delicate cakes with friends in the late afternoon was the perfect opportunity for reviewing the gossip of the day and preparing for the gossip of whatever party or ball would be taking place that night. And thus was born the afternoon tea.

That’s one kind of tea…but there is another—namely, high tea. Most Americans hear this term and assume it means an especially fancy, formal kind of afternoon tea, perhaps with extra-elaborate munchies, but in fact it means the exact opposite. High tea was and is more or less a supper-ish kind of meal consumed by working class families. Tea was certainly drunk, but the food was of a hearty, filling nature like toasted bread and cheese, or kippered herrings, or bacon and eggs, or sausages, all served with copious amounts of bread and butter—no tiny delicate pastries here!

So if you were a young lady in London for the season, your tea would probably be drunk at a friend's house some time around four, while you nibbled seed cake and planned the evening's fun...and if you were an apprentice seamstress, you'd have your tea when you got home from work at around six, while you rested your tired feet and enjoying something warm and nourishing.

And that's tea!

Upcoming for Summer

Sometimes even history geeks have to take a bit of a vacation.

Nineteenteen will be operating under a slightly reduced schedule over the summer months: though Regina and I plan what we hope will be a lively Young Bluestockings meeting in mid-July (more on that below) and are looking forward to our annual get-together and live blogging from the Romance Writers of America National Conference at the end of July, we’re also planning on taking a bit of a breather from new posts on occasion and will be re-posting some of our favorite entries from past years (yes, years—we’ve been at this for nearly three now!) We’ll still be around to answer comments, but we both have books to write and could just use a little extra time to write them in July and August.

Now, about that lively Young Bluestockings meeting I mentioned above…please update your Netflix queue and get ready to watch and comment on July 19 when we’ll be discussing the 2009 film Bright Star, written and directed by Jane Campion and starring Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw.

Bright Star is the story of the love affair between poet John Keats and literally the girl next door, Fanny Brawne, which ended with his death from tuberculosis in 1821. It's a visually gorgeous film, winning acclaim in particular for its costuming (appropriately enough as Fanny had a keen eye for fashion). It's lush and beautiful and romantic--not that I'm opinionated or anything--and we thought it would be fun to discuss.

So mark your calendars...and enjoy the summer!