Valentine's Day
Literary laments for Valentine’s Day outcasts
Literary society at King’s honours Valentine’s Day with the “literary laments of famous hearts broken”
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Zack Russell and Emily Johnson read a scene from the play The Real Thing. Photo: Sydnee Bryant
The Haliburton Society, a literary appreciation group at the University of King's College, held an "evening of broken heartedness" in honour of Valentine's Day.
About 25 students gathered in the university's Senior Common Room Wednesday night to listen to readings of bitter love poems, Dear John letters and plays about the trials and tribulations of monogamous relationships.
"I just love hearing people read literature aloud, because it's so much more interesting and expressive because you get to hear their interpretation [of it]," said Kristen Flood, a first-year student at King's.
The works of the famous Irish poet and dramatist William Butler Yeats, including his well-known poem "When You are Old," proved to be a popular choice for the evening.
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A group of students listen to literary laments of love and broken hearts. Photo: Sydnee Bryant
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Julia Brown, one of the main organizers of the Haliburton literary evenings, read a section of Martin Amis' novel "The Rachel Papers," detailing the letter the main character writes to his lover to break up with her.
Zack Russell, a second-year student at King's, read a scene from the play The Real Thing by Tom Stoppard. Russell discovered the play after he had been dumped by a girl and was "very, very depressed."
Russell attends the Haliburton literary evenings on a regular basis. He considers the Haliburton's tribute to Valentine's Day a "catharsis for the broken-hearted."
At the same time, hearing about different authors' failed love affairs didn't exactly cheer him up. He still dreads the upcoming holiday.
"It kind of makes me depressed. I'm getting drunk, I'm lonely, I'm hitting on women I don't really enjoy. [Valentine's Day] is a depressing day, yeah."
The Haliburton Society meets once or twice a month to read literary works, such as poems or excerpts from plays. The Haliburton Society was founded in 1884 and is the oldest literary society on a college campus in North America.
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