A literary love sampler

Poetry, wisdom, quotes, musings — we need more love by any means possible

With Valentine’s Day coming up this week, thoughts run to love and chocolate. It’s admittedly a frivolous holiday, and yet it’s a reminder that has got to be more love put out into the world. For today’s Literary Ladies Lite Sunday edition, let’s take a break from — well, everything — and muse on various aspects and expression of love.

So today I’m presenting a smorgasbord of posts from the Literary Ladies Guide website that address love in several compelling ways — wise quotes by the incomparable bell hooks, love poetry (sincere and cynical) by Edna St. Vincent Millay, conjecture about Jane Austen’s love life, the obsessive love of Heathcliff and Cathy in Wuthering Heights, the lasting (literary) love of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning, and last but not least, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s loving, poetic tribute to her spaniel, Flush. Sample them here and link through to the full posts.

Speaking of chocolate, I sent out this easy recipe for 5-ingredient Vegan Chocolate Mousse Pie to the subscribers of The Vegan Atlas, my other newsletter. You can access it as well (and consider subscribing for weekly plant-based deliciousness).

(**Did you know that if you hit the heart at the top or bottom of this post, it helps others discover this publication? Thank you in advance!)

Love, Resistance & Hope: Quotes by bell hooks

The selection of wise quotes by bell hooks presented here (organized by Literary Ladies contributor Nancy Snyder) are arranged by her favored themes that make up a new vision of love. The intersection of race, patriarchy, feminism, and capitalism demonstrate how these elements determine lives and the hope that comes with resistance.

When the extraordinarily prolific and brilliant writer bell hooks passed away in December 2021, she left behind a tremendous gift for her countless readers: a legacy of thirty adult non-fiction works that will satisfy every reader of this deep thinker and cultural commentator.

In examining the life of bell hooks, there is much to discover about the wisdom in her work. It provides the potential to change every reader’s life and perspective.

“The wounded heart learns self-love by first overcoming low self-esteem.”

“The word ‘love’ is most often defined as a noun, yet all the more astute theorists of love acknowledge that we would all love better if we used it as a verb.” Find more wisdom from bell hooks here.

Jane Austen’s Love Life: Conjectures, Theories & Evidence

Sincere attempts have been made to sort fact from fiction when it comes to Jane Austen’s purported romances, and the following excerpt from Jane Austen by Sarah Fanny Malden (1889) is an excellent endeavor.