“Poetry,” one of my literature professors had said long ago in class, “is about mixed emotions.” She was talking about Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz,” a short poem loaded with both positive and negative imagery and invoking both happy and frightening emotions. But she could’ve been talking about any great poem, and not just...
In 1968, the Cinémathèque Française in Paris stood as one of the few government-funded and operated tributes to cinema in the world. Henri Langlois, who cofounded the organization in the 1930s, still ran it. During the 30s, he built up a large film library, and during World War II, as Germany occupied Paris, he...
Published in 1748 under the title Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, Fanny Hill tells the story about a young woman, orphaned at 15, who travels to London to make her way. She intended to find employment as a domestic servant, but instead she fell in with madams, prostitutes, and pleasure seekers, who steered...
After finding and losing eleven jobs in two years, Célestine, a domestic maid, took a new position in the country. In an effort to understand her failure to find stability, as she began working for Isidore and Euphrasie Lanlaire, she purchased a diary to record her daily life and reflections of her personal history....
