Recent updates & new additions on Guggums
Here’s what’s been newly added or freshly updated around the site:
| Ophelia in Culture, a guide to her artistic, literary, and modern afterlives. If you ever want one place to wander through all things Ophelia that Guggums has to offer (without having to hunt), this is your path. Two new Ophelia essays: Ophelia as a Symbol of Emotional Depth in the 21st Century A look at the way Ophelia has been reclaimed, not only as tragedy, but as a language for tenderness, overwhelm, and the brave act of feeling deeply in a fast world. The Ophelia Aesthetic: Why She Haunts Us Water, flowers, softness, sorrow, and the strange beauty of being undone. This is about the moodboard version of Ophelia, yes, but also what it’s really trying to say underneath the surface. I also added a digital color palette pulled from Edward Burne-Jones’ Music: garnet velvet, warm violin browns, misty stone grays, mossy greens, and midnight blue. For parents and anyone meeting Shakespeare for the first time And if you’re sharing Shakespeare at home (or simply revisiting him with a softer approach), I added two guides :How To Introduce Your Kids to Hamlet How to Talk to Kids About Ophelia No pressure, no perfection. Just practical, kind ways to help young readers meet big stories without fear. |
If it’s been a while, here are a few gentle ways back in:
- Start with the Pre-Raphaelites if you want the big picture, the story, the movement. And here’s why I can’t stop writing about them!
- Start with Elizabeth Siddal if you want the fascinating life of a female Victorian painter.
- Start with Ophelia if you want symbolism, beauty, tragedy, and the modern cultural echo. Plus visuals you can practically step into.
A Christmas Day ghost story is coming
Because it’s December. And because some part of me will always believe Victorian winter is the best season for a shiver.
Following an age old British tradition of a ghost story for Christmas:
Christmas Day, I’ll share a ghost story about Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal. The setting? The first Christmas of their married life.
It’s called:
“The Laugh in the Stairwell”
A Christmas Day visit. A small dog with excellent instincts, a poet who brings laughter with him. And something not quite friendly that lingers in the passage.
Thank you for reading (and for being here)
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Guggums is growing in the way I love best: not louder, but deeper. More connecting threads. rooms to wander into, posts that feel like a lamp left on in a window.
If you’re subscribed to the newsletter, thank you for letting me show up in your inbox. If you’re new here, welcome! Pull up a chair.
And on Christmas Day: mind the stairwell.
Merry Christmas from Guggums!
xo
Stephanie Chatfield
