What Are Your Favourite Pieces Of Classical Music?

IMAGE: Khayal Gatha, The Saga of Khayal (Kumar Shahani | 1989)

TEXT: Ruth Vanita – “MARRIED AMONG THEIR COMPANIONS: Female Homoerotic Relations in Nineteenth-Century Urdu Rekhti Poetry in India” in Journal of Women’s History, Vol 16, no. 1 (2004): 

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The new move that Rekhti makes in Indian poetry is to sexualize explicitly the Sakhi (woman’s intimate woman friend). Rekhti inherits this important poetic figure not from the Perso-Urdu ghazal but from Sanskrit and Sanskritic literatures. 

[…] Female-female sexual relations are mentioned in the Kamasutra as well as in Arabic erotic texts such as the Thousand and One Nights, but they do not seem to be explicitly represented in Riti poetry. However, a suggestive female homoeroticism does appear in Riti poetry. In part, it arises from the ambiguity of the speaker’s gender. Commentators and translators ascribe gender to the speakers, and often do so on the heterosexist presumption that a speaker who praises the heroine’s beauty may be male or female, but when the praise is more eroticized, the speaker must be male. Thus, Krishna P. Bahadur, the modern English translator of Bihari, invents titles for every verse, which gender the speaker: “What he said to her companion,” or “What her companion told him.” 

The verses in the manuscripts have no titles—while the speaker is sometimes gendered, in many others she or he is not, and this allows for a playful ambivalence. Even the verses that commentators do attribute to female speakers often express an ardent admiration that has an erotic tinge. In one example, the narrator comments: “Heavens! / How much beauty has god given her! / Even I am bewitched by it, dear lad, / how much more / you!” The translator here has inserted the words “how much more, you.” The original says simply: “Looking at that unique girl, I am entranced. How much sweetness god has given to her beautiful form.”

Gianlorenzo Bernini, 1619 Sleeping Hermaphroditos details

I´m impressed. That contrast between the beautiful art and hideous topic is gorgeous *-*

*Permission from the artist*

artist and colorful version -> https://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=3311012

– list of historical films –

– 1500s–1600s –

1. the other boleyn girl (2008)

2. elizabeth (1998)

3. elizabeth: the golden age (2007)

4. anonymous (2011)

5. shakespeare in love (1998)

6. the libertine (2004)

7. the three musketeers (1948)

8. lady jane (1985)

9. stage beauty (2004)

– 1700s –

1. the duchess (2008)

2. marie antoinette (2005)

3. pride and prejudice (tv, 1995)

4. sense and sensibility (1995)

5. becoming jane (2006)

6. the madness of king george (1994)

7. perfume: story of a murderer (2006)

8. a little chaos (2014)

9. girl with a pearl earring (2003)

10. belle (2013)

– 1800s –

1. young victoria (2009)

2. mrs brown (1997)

3. victoria and abdul (2017)

4. jane eyre (2011)

5. mr. turner (2014)

6. wilde (1997)

7. dorian gray (2009)

8. the woman in black (2012)

9. anna karenina (1948)

10. the importance of being earnest (2002)

11. bright star (2009)

12. viceroys house (2017)

13. miss potter (2006)

14. creation (2009)

15. the invisible woman (2012)

16. from hell (2011)

17. the limehouse golem (2016)

18. hysteria (2010)

19. effie gray (2014)

20. great expectations (2012)

21. far from the madding crowd (2015)

– 1900s –

1. maurice (1987)

2. brideshead revisited (tv, 1981)

4. suffragette (2015)

5. the englishman who went up a hill but came down a mountain (1995)

6. enid (tv, 2009)

7. sunset song (2015)

8. finding neverland (2004)

9. war horse (2011)

10. a dangerous method (2011)

11. another country (1984)

12. jimmy’s hall (2014)

13. the edge of love (2008)

14. their finest (2017)

15. gosford park (2001)

16. glorious 39 (2009)

17. easy virtue (2008)

18. dunkirk (2017)

19. the danish girl (2015)

20. atonement (2007)

21. queen & country (2014)

22. private peaceful (2012)

23. the book thief (2013)

24. testament of youth (2014)

25. boy in striped pyjamas (2008)

26. the others (2001)

27. anthropoid (2016)

28. zoo keepers wife (2017)

29. the royal night out (2015)

30. a united kingdom (2016)

31. another mother’s son (2017)

32. the woman in gold (2015)

33. the king’s speech (2010)

34. the monuments men (2014)

35. the wind that shakes the barley (2006)

36. the man who knew infinity (2015)

37. suite française (2014)

38. the theory of everything (2014)

39. the imitation game (2014)

40. the railway man (2013)

41. the magdalene sisters (2002)

♀ God is a Woman ♀ 

     ➳ Capitoline Wolf (11th-12th centuries)

     ➳ Secluded Mountain (late 19th century), Yan Borun

     ➳ Creation of Adam (1508-12), Michelangelo

     ➳ The Thinker (1904), Auguste Rodin

Fav Period Dramas <3

Well, @nightmaredaisy asked me about this and so I made a little list :D these are some of my favorite period dramas. Be aware that some of these are biographical films and/or short television serials, mostly produced by BBC and thus can be quite long XD

Andersen, Life Without Love (2006) [biographical fiction film based on the life of H.C Andersen]

Jane Eyre (2006)

Chéri (2009) [My personal fave <3]

Les Miserables (1998)

Mary Reilly (1996)

A Little Chaos (2015)

The Piano (1993)

Bright Star (2009) [biographical fiction film based on the life of John Keats]

Modigliani (2004) [biographical fiction film based on the life of Amedeo Modigliani]

Creation (2009) [biographical fiction film based on the life of Charles Darwin]

North & South (2004) - [My mom’s favorite :3]

Neverland (2004) [biographical fiction film based on the life of James Barrie]

Amadeus (1984) [biographical fiction film based on the life of W.A.Mozart]

Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003)

The Scarlet Letter (2015)

The English Patient (1996)

Far from the Madding Crowd (2015)

The Great Gatsby (1974) [I like the Robert Redford movie better than the Di Caprio one.]

The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982)

Elisabeth the Golden Age (2007) [biographical fiction film based on the life of Queen Elisabeth I]

Goya’s Ghosts (2006) [biographical fiction film -partially- based on the life of Francisco Goya]

Special mentions even if these aren’t ‘real’ period dramas:

Midnight in Paris (2011)

The Theory of Everything (2014) [biographical fiction film based on the life of Stephen Hawking]

The Native Cinema Renaissance: Films

《Mad Hatter》

A story about little hatter I drew last year.

Costume Appreciation: Aslaug + Jewelry/Accessories (Vikings)