An Incoherent Smattering of Dark Academic Things

Cassiopeia is a constellation consisting of 5 stars, named after the Queen Cassiopeia found in Greek mythology. In the myth she becomes too vain and the Greek gods don't like competition. Poseidon sent Cetus a sea monster to attack her kingdom. Cassiopeia somehow discovers that her only chance to stop this attack on her kingdom is to chain her daughter, the Princess Andromeda, to a rock outside the kingdom and next to the ocean.

I've been doing a highschool Literary Studies Course and some of the biographical sketches are just too good not to share. So for each main star of Cassiopeia, I'm going to add either a brief biographical sketch, fact, or poem. Something I've been coming to realize is that sometimes we as people take people of the past way too seriously. At least I usually do.

 What do constellations have to do with authors and poets specifically? I have no idea other than I have a few things I'm throwing together in the name of a Dark Academic aesthetic. There's no particular reason why I've paired things the way that they are.

 

(Starting from the top star and going down)

Star #1  

Name: Caph

Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771) 

Aside from a three-year tour of continental Europe, Gray lived in seclusion for the rest of his life at Cambridge University where he was a professor. To illustrate how uneventful his existence was, one need only point to the most dramatic event that befell him: someone played a practical joke on him. This nearly shattered his nerves and prompted him to move to another of Cambridge’s colleges. Needless to say, Gray never married. Although he is the author of a large number of poems, we remember him today primarily for his “Elegy written in a Country Churchyard”, truly a masterpiece in world literature.

Star #2

Name: Schedar 

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) 

Hardy’s reputation as a man of letters was tremendous, and his death was an occasion for international mourning. His ashes were buried in Westminster Abbey, but in accordance with his wishes his heart was removed in buried in his parish churchyard in Dorsetshire. Significantly, on the day of his death he asked his wife to read him one of the darkest quatrains of The Rubaiyat: “Oh Thou, who Man of Baser Earth didst make, And ev’n with Paradise devise the Snake, For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man Is blackened – Mans’s forgiveness give – and take!”

Star #3

Name: Navi

This is a sad one, but honestly Dark Academia is usually full of some sort of sadness combined with it's obsession.

John Keats (1795-1821)

(He died when he was 25)

When I Have Fears 

When I have fears that I may cease to be 

Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, 

Before high-piled books, in charactery, 

Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain; 

When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, 

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, 

And think that I may never live to trace 

Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; 

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour, 

That I shall never look upon thee more, 

Never have relish in the fairy power 

Of unreflecting love; – then on the shore 

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think 

Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Star #4

Name: Ruchbah

Another sad one, but I thought it was kind of inspirational too. 

John Milton

(He became blind at age 43)

Sonnet 19

(On His Blindness)

When I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide

And that one Talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning Chide;

'Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"

I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need

Either man's works or his own gifts; who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is kingly. Thousands, at his bidding speed

And post o'er land and ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and wait."

Star #5

Name: Segin

Jonathan Swift

This one came as a complete surprise while doing the homework and my family didn't understand why I was laughing about it. You always expect authors/poets of the past to be completely stodgy, boring and way too serious. 

After several attempts to instigate policies with parliament, Irish writer Jonathan Swift channeled his ire into A Modest Proposal, a satirical pamphlet that posited child-eating as the only viable solution to the country's famine.

I promise it's funny in context of how he wrote it. If you have a bit of a dark sense of humour anyway. The entire thing is completely ironic and satirical.

Hopefully this was a fun post. 

It was sort of a last minute, patch-work type of project.