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Neworld Books Podcast

Neworld Books Podcast

By: Stephanie Poppins
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 Neworld Books is your place for well-crafted and well-performed poetry, literature and literary discussion.

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Episodes
  • A Stoic Letter from Jane Eyre to Mr Rochester

    A Stoic Letter from Jane Eyre to Mr Rochester
    Jun 28 2025

    My Dear Edward,

    I write to you not in the fever of passion, but in the clarity that comes with acceptance of what is, and what must be. Love, I have learned, is not the wild tempest that poets would have us believe, but rather a steady flame that burns regardless of circumstance—neither dimmed by absence nor brightened by proximity.

    You have asked me to speak of my feelings, and I shall do so with the same directness that has always marked our discourse. I love you. This is a fact as immutable as the rising of the sun, as certain as the turning of the seasons. But I love you not because you complete some lacking part of myself, for I am whole in my own right. I love you because in you I recognize a kindred spirit—one who has known suffering and emerged neither broken nor hardened, but tempered.

    We are equals, you and I, though the world would deny it. My station may be humble, my fortune modest, but my soul stands level with yours. In this recognition lies the foundation of any love worth having. I will not be made less by loving you, nor will I require you to be other than what you are to earn that love.

    I have observed how love oft makes fools of the wise and slaves of the free. I refuse such diminishment. My affection for you is freely given, not extracted by pretty words or grand gestures. It requires nothing of you save honesty, and offers nothing save the same in return.

    Should circumstances keep us apart, I shall not rail against fate like some tragic heroine. I shall carry this love as I carry all meaningful things—with dignity and without complaint. Should they bring us together, I shall meet that joy with the same steady spirit. For love, true love, exists independent of its object’s proximity or response.

    I am not yours, Edward, for I belong first and always to myself. Nor are you mine, for no person can possess another. But I am with you in spirit, in purpose, in the deep understanding that passes between souls who have chosen to walk honestly through this difficult world.

    The heart that loves with reason loves longest. Remember this, should you doubt the constancy of one who speaks so plainly of such tender matters.

    Jane



    To hear more, visit stephaniepoppins.substack.com
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    10 mins
  • In Bed with Brontë podcast JANE EYRE (SHORT)

    In Bed with Brontë podcast JANE EYRE (SHORT)
    Jan 20 2025
    Hello!It’s lovely to see youI’m going to be talking about Jane Eyre todayIf you’ve been listening to my tracks, you will know we are in the last quarter of the book and we’ve been on quite a journey with Jane. We are coming to the point now where she has suffered her worst and she’s coming back from it (we hope). Obviously, it will end happily because that’s what Victorian novels tend to do.We’re going to talk about the Gothic theme to start with, and every week as you know we delve a little bit into the psyche of Jane. Stoicism is the school of thought whereby we say virtue is sufficient for happiness, so maintaining that level of virtue in your life where you’re not necessarily looking for external validation, and not looking to surround yourself with false idols. And the belief that the world is ordered by an external force, but one that can also come from within.If we practise Stoicism, we focus on the world as it is, and think about what we can control rather than what we can’t.And we can see this with Jane – a character who was very resilient and clear about who she was – I can’t change this, she says, but I am clear on what I am willing to accept, and therefore I’m going to leave if this is not what I want it to be. Many times, this was very difficult for her to do.We see this character go through massive transitions within this Gothic theme, this dark backdrop of misery, contempt: the lies the deceit that she faced, the isolation that she had right from the beginning when she was at Gateshead with John Reed bullying her and being sent to the Red Room where she had Supernatural experiences, which in the Victorian era there was a massive mistrust of and fear of.She was a frightened character and isolated character, yet she kept those stoic beliefs and she remained true to who she was. And the strongest message I take from Jane Eyre is that.And I appreciate that, because life is very difficult at times, it can be very dark at times, but it is enough for us to have that core foundation deep within us that is saying, you know what? You’ve still got me. And Jane had Jane throughout her experience, even when she’d left Thornfield Hall, when she was sleeping in a ditch, before she came to Moor House, because she could not make peace with being somebody’s mistress. I have to be true to myself, no matter the cost, she said, which is very virtuous.And because this was written in Victorian times, it went against every assumption people made about women and their place in society. Women are people and they have a core set of values and that should be enough, believed Bronte. Perhaps their path isn’t to be a wife and a mother, and perhaps we should talk about that.This was why the book was ground breaking.One feature of Stoicism is to keep your head when everything around you is going crazy, and of course at Thornfield Hall when everything around her is going crazy, we meet the character Grace Poole, and we see the love of Jane’s life: Mr Rochester, has deceived her with this mysterious, crazy woman who is living somewhere in the house – a juxtaposition between pious and virtuous Jane, and this supernatural energy (the Gothic coming through), which serves to highlight just who Jane is, because if you place the dark against the light, it’s just going to make the light even brighter.The book can be depressing at times, because when you read of isolation and deprivation and hardship, especially for a woman who is on her own in a Victorian Society in a period of time where if you wanted to escape and you had no financial means, you walked.But the saving grace for Jane, is nature. Every building she lived in actually was owned by a man, but when she was submerged in nature, that belonged to her. She could make peace with that she could be safe there. So even if at one point she was sleeping in ditches and when she first meets Mr Rochester walking in the dark to embrace Mother Nature, she has a sense of ownership of who she is. And that’s a valid lesson for us all.So let’s compare that Stoicism with the reward system we have in the Twenty First Century, which is frightening and damaging. The financial reward system is the ‘big play’ the thing everyone is talking about. But in fact you get little internal reward at all from that. And I think what we can do from reading Classic Literature, is understand that even though we may think differently, and feel isolated from that, there were people the way we think before – kindred spirits –souls we can connect with, and I am very comforted by that because if you feel detached from the norm (perhaps this is heightened sensitivity, perhaps you just cannot tap into this aggressive financial push, push, push), maybe open a book and have a look at somebody else’s thoughts on that, and make a new friend!So, to go back to Jane as a character with her own mind, she shows love when she wants to show love, she’s driven by her ...
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    10 mins
  • Careful...

    Careful...
    Jan 19 2025

    Be mean with your shares

    Be cautious with your likes

    Mustn’t seem too keen

    Must retain your rights

    To the thoughts that haunt you

    To your own special brand

    Then return for the insults

    they left behind

    Such divine intervention

    to me, was handed

    Such sweet victory earned

    with that wit I landed

    As I ruled the comments

    on the internet that day

    Be mean with your likes

    I’m not going away…

    ©stephanie poppins



    To hear more, visit stephaniepoppins.substack.com
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    1 min
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