Tea at Trianon: The Plight of the Emos

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

The Plight of the Emos

Charles Coulombe muses about the weirdness of pop culture. I am not "with it," either. I never was, and don't regret it. Share

2 comments:

Enbrethiliel said...: +JMJ+

Hahahaha! I never thought I'd read the word "emo" on your 'blog, Elena!

Though I've also never been "with it," I always managed at least to "get it"--until the whole emo movement rolled around. I needed my younger siblings (and their friends!) to explain the concept to me. Now that emo is mainstream, it can mean no more than growing your bangs long so that they fall into your eyes, listening to angsty pop music, and maybe reading Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. Yet Coloumbe is right that it started with self-cutters reacting against their unstable family lives. For a long time, even the safest aspects of pop culture have been coming to us compromised by darkness.; March 10, 2009 at 2:21:00 AM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Yes, that is so true.; March 10, 2009 at 5:15:00 PM EDT