Milan Kundera was born on April 1st, 1929. He is a writer that has lived most of his life in the shadows, preferring anonymity to public life. He is a naturalized French citizen, his Czech citizenship being revoked in 1979 and only recently (as in last year) restored. On his 91st birthday, we’d like to ask ourselves “what actually is the unbearable lightness of being?”
Kundera’s most famous work is only one of many titles by the author, and its philosophical nature sparks eternal debating in his readers. The novel centers around three young people trying to navigate their lives in Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring of 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union. Political commentary aside (as that itself deserves its own blog), the story is quite simple. The novel follows Tomáš, Tereza, Sabina and Franz as they fall in and out of love and ponder the eternal meaning of life. Easy, right?
The idea of the “unbearable lightness of being” is the question of whether life is, at its core, light or heavy. Kundera uses Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence to ponder this question. Eternal recurrence, or a lack thereof can mean one of two things. If every part of life were to eternally recur, over and over again, life might feel unbearably heavy to us. If it were to never recur, then perhaps it would feel too light – too fleeting – and nothing we do would have any meaning or significance. However, you cannot put one idea above the other, for as Kundera states, “the heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But … the heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes a man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.” So… which is best?
The difficulty in this question is that these two options give us end-of-spectrum outcomes of either too much weight or pure meaninglessness. Most of Kundera’s characters eventually learn to live for beauty, pleasure and love. They find that the lighter life is, the more enjoyment they feel; and despite beauty, pleasure and love’s transitory natures, they are able to sustain Tomáš, Tereza and Sabina. However, there is still the ability, and probability, of finding the insignificance of living for such ephemeral things alone unbearable… hence, “the unbearable lightness of being.” As Dr. John Messerly states in his well written article “Perhaps the best we can do is to consider life significant, but not too significant; light but not too light.” I could not have said it better myself! To take life seriously, but not so serious that it becomes heavy or miserable… that is the line we need to find (each ourselves, as it will look different for us all) and tiptoe along. Happy Birthday to Milan Kundera! (And thank you for giving us a philosophical debate to ponder from our own homes. And we are all home, right? Just checking!)
A young illness affecting her spine and movement led to Elizabeth being given (and then continuously taking) laudanum, morphine and opium as a child for pain. Being addicted to these somewhat serious drugs and taking them throughout her lifetime is generally acknowledged to both have helped and hindered her in life. Her constant frail health was negatively affected by these chemicals, but they also may have contributed to her originality and imagination when writing her poetry.
In 1841 Elizabeth’s life seemed to begin to turn itself around. She was struck with a few years of intense creativity, which led to the publication of several of her greatest works. Her 1842 poem “The Cry of the Children” published in a Blackwoods magazine helped bring about child labor law reform. In 1844 she published not one but two volumes of poetry, which were immediate successes. She was suddenly a household name. It was her poetry that inspired one Robert Browning to write to her and tell her of his love for her writing. They met and instantly became ardent devotees of the other. Both Browning and Barrett’s works improved (despite their work already being popular with the public). After meeting Browning, Barrett published her most famous works Aurora Leigh and Sonnets from the Portuguese. The marriage between Browning and Barrett was carried out in secrecy, and once found out Barretts father disinherited her (as he funnily enough did to all his children who married). They made their permanent residence in Italy, where they raised their son, Pen, and befriended many influential writers and artists of the day.
The two attended the University of Marburg together, where they tried to study law. I say “tried”, because here the brothers once again met adversity due to their reduced social status. Treated as outcasts, without the benefit of receiving financial aid or stipends as some of the wealthier students received (explain THAT one, if you can), the brothers once again turned to each other for comfort and worked hard in their studies. It was at the University of Marburg that the pair first became interested in medieval German literature and more simplistic, romantic ways of writing that the modern day seemed to have forgotten. This interest in folklore and poetry and traditional “German” culture influenced the brothers for the rest of their lives. They wished to see the unification of the over 200 principalities into a single, unified state, and spent much of their time with their inspiring law professor Friedrich von Savigny and his friends. It was through these romantics that the Grimm brothers were introduced to the literary beliefs of Johann Gottfried Herder – a German philosopher who felt that literature of the area should revert back to simplicity, and focus more on nature, humanity and beauty. The boys credited their devotion to their studies in Germanic literature and culture as a saving grace in a dark time – outcasts amongst their peers. Wilhelm himself wrote, “the ardor with which we studied Old German helped us overcome the spiritual depression of those days.”
The brothers did not immediately turn to transcribing Germanic folklore for the masses. As they were solely responsible, as the oldest boys (primarily Jacob) of the family, for their sibling and mother’s livelihood (because that’s what they needed… more stress), Jacob accepted a job in Paris as assistant to his once-professor (von Savigny). On his return to Marburg he gave this post up to take a job with the Hessian War Commission. Their circumstances remained dire – as it seemed almost impossible for Jacob to support them all on his own. Food was often scarce and the brothers suffered emotionally. In 1808, Jacob found a more appropriate (to his interests) job as the librarian to the King of Westphalia, and soon after went on to become the librarian in Kassel, where the two boys had attended their gymnasium (high school, for all intents and purposes). Jacob supported his siblings once their mother passed away, and he even paid for Wilhelm to receive medical attention that year to seek treatment for respiratory problems. After Wilhelm’s recovery, he joined his brother as a librarian in Kassel. 
After being slighted for a job promotion, the brothers eventually moved to Göttingen where they became professors of German studies at the University (Jacob also as head librarian), and continued to write and publish works on Germanic folklore, mythology and country tales for a few years. The brothers moved to Berlin in their later years, working at the University of Berlin and also editing their German Dictionary, which would become one of their most prominent works. 