"I'm in love with your grandmother"

21 July 2022: Doing the research for my entry on The Awakening and really enjoyed Emily Toth's essay (cited below) where she includes this little story: When Per Seyersted--the scholar who played a huge role in the Chopin revival--reached out to Chopin's grandson, he confessed to him, "I am in love with your grandmother" (Toth 19). Of course, this makes sense--loving and studying literature can feel like falling in love. It seems especially relatable with a figure like Chopin.

That anecdote, charming as it is, is only some of what Toth's essay does so well, as she recreates that time when young scholars had to fight and fight to even study women writers--and did so in the midst of great social upheaval and change. It's a great piece.

Work Cited

Toth, Emily. "My Part in Reviving Kate Chopin." Awakenings: The Story of the Kate Chopin Revival, edited by Bernard Koloski, Louisiana UP, 2009, pp. 15-31.