https://padlet.com/raghavraj88/r8kjvozxhg85qegm My Top Four British Literature Stories en-us 2020-12-10 00:33:48 UTC 2025-11-15 14:09:41 UTC hello@padlet.com raghavraj88 https://padlet.com/raghavraj88/r8kjvozxhg85qegm/wish/1004559187 Sylvia Plath's seminal work from the Modern period is a profoundly somber work (made even more so by Plath's eventual suicide), and of all the British Literature works we learned, it's the only one I've read in full. Below, a scene from one of my favorite TV shows, 'Master of None', structured around Plath's infamous fig tree allegory.]]> 2020-12-10 00:44:43 UTC https://padlet.com/raghavraj88/r8kjvozxhg85qegm/wish/1004559187 raghavraj88 https://padlet.com/raghavraj88/r8kjvozxhg85qegm/wish/1004571995 Jane Austen, one of the most distinctly famous writers to emerge from the Romantic period, wrote a lot of the most beloved works from the era. One of these is 'Pride and Prejudice' (1813), her timeless tale of Elizabeth Bennet as she learns her way through the gentry of the English Regency. Another work Austen's worth mentioning: her 1815 novel 'Emma', which Alicia Silverstone's 1995 film 'Clueless' takes inspiration from. Below, some highlights from a film filled with them.]]> 2020-12-10 00:50:34 UTC https://padlet.com/raghavraj88/r8kjvozxhg85qegm/wish/1004571995 raghavraj88 https://padlet.com/raghavraj88/r8kjvozxhg85qegm/wish/1004585755 The most essential work from William Blake, the unsung Romantic-era poet largely unrecognized in his lifetime, 'Innocence' & 'Experience' probe the modes of perception behind those two words, looking at the societal roots behind these corruptions in the world that strip away the innocence that Blake discusses. The musical references are numerous: U2 has a series of albums based on the two works (the first of which was forcibly downloaded on millions upon millions of unsuspecting Apple devices back in 2014!), but I starkly prefer David Axelrod's dual-length projects on the two works: they're seminal jazz-fusion excursions on their own, but through sampling, they've been woven into the very fabric of hip-hop music as a whole, sampled famously by DJ Shadow and less famously by producers like Black Moon, Pete Rock, and Swizz Beats. Also? Bob Dylan drops a little reference to Blake on the very first song of his 2020 record 'Rough and Rowdy Ways', one of the finest songs released this year and the one mentioned below.]]> 2020-12-10 00:57:12 UTC https://padlet.com/raghavraj88/r8kjvozxhg85qegm/wish/1004585755 raghavraj88 https://padlet.com/raghavraj88/r8kjvozxhg85qegm/wish/1004611294 Surprise! It's another pick from the Romantic era. Evidently, I have a literary type. Either way, Coleridge's poem recounting the experience of a sailor narrating a story at a wedding is remarkable. In it, a mariner is forced to bear a slain albatross on his neck, a mark of the burden he suffers from having killed it. This "albatross" has, in the long run, served as a metaphor for psychological burden. For an example of this, we turn to the punk-rocker John Lydon, better known in the 70's as Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols. When that band exploded, Lydon looked to cast off the persona of Johnny Rotten, and used the very first song from his second album, 'Metal Box', as the frontman of post-punk band Public Image Ltd. to do it. Aptly, after the Coleridge poem, he titled the song "Albatross," a dissonant, punishingly relentless no-wave death march that sees Lydon escaping the enclosures placed on him by Pistols fans over ten excruciating minutes. The song is harrowing, driven by Jah Wobble's utterly relentless percussion and tight bass anchoring the song to the earth. It's shown below.]]> 2020-12-10 01:09:34 UTC https://padlet.com/raghavraj88/r8kjvozxhg85qegm/wish/1004611294