It's St. Patrick's Day tomorrow. At first glance, it doesn't appear to be the most literary of days... But, we still have an excuse to look at books. After all, we have the man after which the day was named... And, we have a wealth of wonderful Irish myth, legend and the rest of literature.

Amidst the legend of St. Patrick--with him driving out the snakes from Ireland--there's the religious aspect of his story. He converted all of Ireland to Christianity, using the shamrock. But, his arrival was foretold by Druid priests: "With a head like an adze and a curved stick he will come, / Chanting his evil songs in his house with a hole, / From the table in the front of the house, / And his people will say, "So be it, so be it."

In St. Patrick of Ireland, Philip Freeman sifts through the fragments of myths, legends, and time-worn manuscripts to re-create the story of Patrick. Freeman quickly reads between the lines of Patrick's letters to get at the real drama of his life and works. Along the way, he focuses on the man behind the legend, although we really have very little historical evidence to draw from... As Freeman says, "This lack of knowledge about the real Patrick is truly regrettable, because he has such an amazing story to tell: a tale of slavery and brutality, pain and self-doubt, sorrow and constant struggle, but ultimately of perseverance, hope, and faith."

So, what are your thoughts on St. Patrick, Irish literature, and this day we are celebrating?

Cover Art © Simon & Schuster.

I used to think I knew what a library was. It's that place down the street that's full of books. It's quiet with a librarian at the desk--and I've always loved walking through the stacks. I glance around, survey my place; because it really does feel like home.

I understand that economic troubles are hitting us all hard. We all must make sacrifices; many of us have lost jobs, homes--a sense of hope and dignity. Many of us are afraid. But I also think there are some things worth saving, and libraries are one of them! And, I'm not talking about some pseudo-place called a library that only houses a myriad of digital books on CD or DVD or accessed via a row of computers along the wall. I'm talking about a place where books live, where we can go see them, read, and get to know what it's like to co-exist in the company of a mass of volumes.

Creativity is great; and we should encourage reading in every form we can. In his article for The Guardian, Stuart Jeffries lays out many of the conundrums involved in the library debates: budget cuts, unemployment, libraries falling apart, lack of interest, the age of the internet, and so much more. Am I being too old-fashioned, naive and/or idealistic to hope that my son will continue know the comfort and friendliness of a library? I hope that we will all continue to know what it's like to spend a day in a library--surrounded by books

But, then... Why have libraries survived as long as they have? Because there are still readers who believe it's important. Isaac Asimov famously said: "I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library. For an impoverished child whose family could not afford to buy books, the library was the open door to wonder and achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I had the wit to charge through that door and make the most of it. Now, when I read constantly about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that the door is closing and that American society has found one more way to destroy itself." Here are just a few reasons to visit a library...

The extraordinary tale of Jekyll and Hyde is rather unforgettable--all that psychological angst, violence, identity switching. It's the stuff that movies were built upon, so it's not really surprising when we see another Jekyll adaptation every few years.

The backstory of the Jekyll original is fraught with some bit of mystery, frustration and violence. As history tells it, Robert Louis Stevenson woke from a horrible nightmare, and immediately wrote Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde based on his vivid recollections. When his wife read it, and didn't like it, he threw it into the fire, and then proceeded to re-write the work for the next three days. Given the enduring popularity of the work, we can only be thankful that the work evolved as it did. Could it have come to life in any other way--almost like a Frankenstein monster (from the ashes)...?

Stevenson writes: "I am painfully situated... my position is a very strange--a very strange one. It is one of those affairs that cannot be mended by talking." Perhaps, we can mend it by writing... What do you think of the infamous Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde?

Cover Art © W.W. Norton & Co.

So much of literary history is linked with women and mothers--even when there's a notable absence, that's something! Memorable moments can often be traced to moments of reading or storytelling on a mother's lap. Women have peopled the famous plays, novels and stories. They are the stuff of our favorite myths and legends--dancing along with the rest men and other fanciful creatures, making their indelible mark upon our imaginations. They were all there, beautiful.

So, for March, we re-imagine women in literature and history. It's Women's History Month. So, who should we think of? Jane Austen, who supposedly covered up her writing whenever visitors arrived? Charlotte Bronte (or one of her sisters: Emily or Anne)? Kate Chopin, who never wrote another novel when The Awakening was banned? What of Aphra Behn, the famous spy and plagiarist? Or Mary Shelley, who ran off with Percy, told ghost stories, and created one of the greatest monsters in literary history? Or Virginia Woolf, who eloquently described the plight of Shakespeare's fictional sister (but also encouraged us to re-imagine/re-think the history of women writers)? These women (and more) have gone before--it's upon their graves (and the body of their works) that we continue to build our literature--full of passion, drama, intrigue. It's what we're made of... Beautiful imagination...


Here are a few quotes:

• "I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naïve or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman." - Anaïs Nin
  
  
• "Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men." - Joseph Conrad
  
  
• "I do not wish them to have power over men, but over themselves." - Mary Wollstonecraft
  
  
• "And the crazy part of it was even if you were clever, even if you spent your adolescence reading John Donne and Shaw, even if you studied history or zoology or physics and hoped to spend your life pursuing some difficult and challenging career, you still had a mind full of all the soupy longings that every high-school girl was awash in... underneath it, all you longed to be was annihilated by love..." Erica Jong

Discover more resources for the month of March (Women's History Month... and beyond)!

• Women's History - Jone Johnson Lewis
• A Woman Young and Old - William Butler Yeats
• The Rights of Women - Anna Laetitia Aikin (Barbauld)
• Vindication on the Rights of Women - Mary Wollstonecraft
• On the Education of Women - Daniel Defoe
• We As Women - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• Herland - Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Read more about the characters and writers in literary history.