White Rose of Avalon

Literature

  • The Difference Between Romantic, Dark Romantic, and Gothic

    All three of these literary movements are connected and entwined.   They have small differences among them, and that is what this blog post will discuss.   The Romantic literary movement had its roots in a rebellion against the industrial revolution.    Romantic literature and art desired to focus on feeling instead of on rational…

  • Immortality: Gift or Curse?

    Poe, Dickinson, Polidori, Stoker, Shelley, and Le Fanu.    All of these authors have written about immortality, both as a gift and as a curse.   The nineteenth century was a big time for supernatural tales, as a reaction to all of the technological advancements. The curse of immortality has been used in literature featuring…

  • Idealizing Mortality: Doomed Women in Gothic Fiction

    Women in Gothic fiction in the nineteenth century are known for being doomed.   Poe himself said that nothing was as poetic as a dying woman.   It is a very interesting concept of the romanticism of death.   Death and beauty are linked, and this is shown in the Death and the Maiden motif…

  • Who Really Wrote the Plays and Poems of Shakespeare?

    Have you ever heard the terms “Anti-Stratfordian” or “Oxfordian”?   Both of these terms refer to the belief held by a group of people that contend that there is evidence that the man from Stratford did not write the plays and poems attributed to him!   There are many people that could possibly be the…

  • The Green Ribbon

    For today’s post I would like to discuss the short story The Green Ribbon, which is found in the children’s story collection In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories.   The Green Ribbon is the only truly scary tale in the whole collection, which was written by the same author of the Scary…

  • The Phantom of the Opera

    Gaston Leroux’s tale of a deformed man, named Erik, haunting a beautiful young woman at an opera house in Paris is one that has become iconic.    This is likely due to the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that has been a Broadway smash since the 1980s!   This happens to be my all time favorite…

  • My Top Five Edgar Allan Poe Inspired Films

    Today I will be counting down my top five films inspired by either the life or the works of Edgar Allan Poe!    As a huge Poe fan I had to do some thinking to narrow it down, and to pick an order. Number 5: Twixt (2011) ~This mystery ghost film starred Val Kilmer and…

  • Ligeia: Poe’s Masterpiece

    Today I would like to focus on my absolute favorite tale by Edgar Allan Poe.    Ligeia is a beautiful, romantic, and dark tale!   Poe actually invented the name Ligeia for this tale.   If you are curious the name is pronounced Lie-G-a, but is sometimes pronounced Ledge-E-a.   Personally I prefer the first…

  • The White Goddess

    The book The White Goddess by Robert Graves is considered one of the most influential books in modern Goddess worship.   It was even influential to men who created modern forms of paganism.    The book got its day in the sun in the 1960s among the counterculture.    It is also a very controversial…

  • Reincarnation

    Note: I just want to start off this post by saying that this is officially my 100th post here on White Rose of Avalon!     I cannot believe I have already reached this milestone.    I would like to thank all of my returning readers, and welcome all my new readers!    I also…