"Let all your things be done in Love." (1 Corinthians 16:14)
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Introduction:

My photo
Current: Danbury, CT, United States
Welcome! A few years ago, I discovered an application that artists employ in their works to bring cultural awareness to their audiences. Having discerned this semiotic theory that applies to literature, music, art, film, and the media, I have devoted the blog,Theory of Iconic Realism to explore this theory. The link to the publisher of my book is below. If you or your university would like a copy of this book for your library or if you would like to review it for a scholarly journal, please contact the Edwin Mellen Press at the link listed below. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Announcements

I will present or have presented research on Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan) or my semiotic theory of iconic realism at the following location(s):

2023-2025: I will be researching and writing my third book on iconic realism.

April 2022: American Conference for Irish Studies, virtual event: (This paper did not discuss Sydney Owenson.) "It’s in the Air: James Joyce’s Demonstration of Cognitive Dissonance through Iconic Realism in His Novel, Ulysses"

October, 2021: Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, CT: "Sydney Owenson’s use of sociolinguistics and iconic realism to defend marginalized communities in 19th century Ireland"

March, 2021: Lenoir-Rhyne University, Hickory, North Carolina: "Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan): A Nineteenth Century Advocate for Positive Change through Creative Vision"

October, 2019: Elms College, Chicopee, Massachusetts: "A Declaration of Independence: Dissolving Sociolinguistic Borders in the Literature of Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan)"

14 July, 2025

When in France...

                                         The view from a hotel room in Reims, France, taken some years ago.

A few years ago, I presented a paper at the annual Association of Franco-Irish Studies conference in Reims, France. Ever since I spoke that first French word in my ninth grade French class, I've longed to go to that country. Finally, decades later, my dreams came true but not without the unfortunate realization that there were no washcloths at my hotel. So.....


When in France

In a French hotel in la cité de Reims,
an American searches for a washcloth. 
Alas, she finds none in this room,
so she must make do. 
This is France after all.
Sparkling white tub beckons her.
“Okay, Okay!”
She turns the water handle to HOT
and gently pours shampoo into the steady stream,
splashing the rising water to create more bubbles.
Then, smiling, she steps into the steaming water,
now filled with mounds of fluffy, fragrant bubbles,
closes her eyes and whispers to the 13-year-old girl
sitting in a French class, south of Detroit, decades ago.
“Oui, Jeanne ... tu seras en France un jour.”

© Jeanne I. Lakatos

To hear me read this verse, please click HERE.

13 July, 2025

Ekphrasis: My poem, "Haven" and the Church of St. Stephen the Martyr

Below is a photo of the Church of St. Stephen the Martyr in Opotiki, New Zealand. This picture brought to mind the introduction to a collection of short stories that I will complete... one day. The poem accompanying this photo is a conversion of a portion of my prose introduction to poetic form.

Church of St Stephen the Martyr, Opotiki, ca 1910-1930
"I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God."
~ St. Stephen’s words at his theophany

Haven

They beckon 
the weary-hearted and calloused,
“Come and sit with me.”
Rows of empty pews
moor at a small altar,
each one anchored with a kneeler. 

Her candle lit,
she takes her usual seat
in the second row,
hoists the kneeler, 
then quietly moves it
to the wood floor,
genuflects in the Holy Presence, 
and blesses herself.

With eyes lowered,
she steers her troubled vessel
on an ethereal air,
through prayerful sighs
to the Haven of hope,
His almighty promise.

© Jeanne I. Lakatos


(My reading of this poem is on Pod-omatic at the bottom of this page.)

12 July, 2025

Goal: Inspiration


Me, on my side deck, years ago,
reading Sydney Owenson's (Lady Morgan's) Book of Memoirs

Goal: Inspiration

With each cleansing breath 
she inhales 
the aroma of the glow, 
releases 
toxic confusion,
breathes 
purity of heart and mind,
feels
the respiration 
moving through her body.

Through her brain,
each thought
dances
to effervescent stirrings 
as her dream
evolves
from ache to inspiration.

© Jeanne I. Lakatos


To hear my reading of this poem, please click HERE .

11 July, 2025

From my operetta, Luminescence, Advice from Anne Bradstreet (Represented as the Passion Flower)

Passion Flower from Google Images

In my operetta, Luminescence, a re-write of the 13th century French narrative poem, Roman de la Rose, the spirit of the poet, Anne Bradstreet, as represented by the passionflower, gives the following advice to Rose. I wrote this with Bradstreet's poetic style in mind:

My name was Anne Bradstreet,
and I have a story of devotion to tell. 
My life was dedicated to the sacrifice 
of one who gave His life, that I might have mine. 
I saw the need for all people, men and women, 
to be mindful of the importance of their individual spirits. 

My passion for the love of my life 
is ever-growing even as I speak from the spirit. 
The seeds one plants in life 
are carried forth to benefit future generations, 
bringing into view the truth of love and devotion 
in a physical manifestation of Divine Ordinance. 

One needs to remember always 
that humility of thought begins 
with the acceptance of the challenge 
within one’s heart. 
Each individual must fulfill that desire 
in order to fulfill the Will of the Almighty. 

Attention to this desire will bring 
happiness and contentment 
as a central focus of one’s life, 
and there will be calm 
in the heart 
of any troubled soul. 

© Jeanne I. Lakatos


Anne Bradstreet

Note: 
Anne Bradstreet was an English-American poet who was born in Northampton, England in 1612 and died in North Andover, Massachusetts in 1672. 

(To hear my reading of this poem on Pod-omatic, click HERE.)

10 July, 2025

Out of the Fog




I took this photo in Dublin, Ireland...after being lost in Dun Laoghaire for hours.
I thought it was amazing that a small white cloud seemed to surround the light on the lamp post.

Head 
out of the fog,
and soon, 
distortion dissipates. 
Recognition of a flawed distinction 
leads to a Renaissance.

© Jeanne I. Lakatos

09 July, 2025

Inception of a Storm




 

 Inception of a Storm

A silver disc
floats high
in the azure palette.
When suddenly,
stretching its darkening appendix,
a rolling, feathery mass
covers the spherical gaze, 
and soon,
Blessed droplets
fill the soil
with Rich Nutrients
of the Diviner's Supper. 
Ah! What a Feast!
So loud ~ so silent ~
So swift ~ So enduring
So absolutely essential
to reach the Heavenly gold.

© Jeanne I. Lakatos

To hear me recite this verse, please click HERE.

08 July, 2025

Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan) and Disparate Characterizations in The Missionary

Cover of Sydney Owenson's novel, The Missionary

From my book, pp. 33-34: 

In her 1811 novel, The Missionary, Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan) uses realism in conjunction with an icon to illustrate her views on cultural adaptation. In the following passage, she describes the realistic nature of Hilarion as a young, conflicted priest, who sacrifices earthly pleasures to honor his faith:

All that could touch in the saint, or impose in the man breathed around him: the sublimity of religion, and the splendour of beauty, the purity of faith, and the dignity of manhood; grace and majesty, holiness and simplicity, diffusing their combined influence over his form and motions, his look and air. (The Missionary, p. 82)
In contrast, Luxima, the Hindu Priestess, embodies beauty with spirituality as she interacts with the Missionary through her “dovelike eyes and innocent hands…raised in same direction, for gazing on the glories of the firmament, a feeling of rapturous devotion, awakened and exalted by the enthusiasm of the Missionary, filled her soul.” (The Missionary, p. 121) Not only do her characters contain realistic qualities that independently represent their iconic associations, but her setting this tale in India, provides the other realistic aspect of Owenson’s novel, for in the seventeenth century, India is the focus of European nations, who are seeking new economic and political territories to whet their imperial appetites. Moreover, the Catholic Church, having made so many dissenters from its powerful stance, needed to expand its philosophical territories, so the emergence of missionaries became a reality in India during the early seventeenth century. Portuguese missionaries do travel to India for the purpose of religious conversion of the non-Christian Hindus. Owenson draws upon observations from the historical documentations of Francois Bernier (1625-1688) to provide anthropological references as a means to create realistic characterizations, as she brings two people together in a Garden of Eden to form the genesis of a consciousness that alerts her audience to the possibilities of overzealous proselytizing of any stalwart community.

Owenson represents iconic realism with the placement of Hilarion, the Franciscan Priest, an icon of Jesus Christ and European philosophy, physically and spiritually immersed with Indian culture through his interaction with an Indian Priestess, the icon of 17th century Hindu community and victimized follower of a faith and culture that is targeted for conversion. As Thomas Kavanagh points out:

The signified meanings, instead of being accepted as such, instead of taking us outside the text as text, become themselves the signifiers of the iconic signs, of a continuing movement, of a second temporality definable only within the parameters of the text.” [1]
Hilarion is a Catholic Missionary because he is the nephew to the Archbishop of Lisbon. Although her description of his qualities is quite flattering, under his cloak of religiosity, his true nature is simply that of an ordinary man. As a true follower of Jesus Christ, he transfigures into a real person with real emotions and real anxieties regarding the bureaucracy of his organized religion. In Owenson’s portrayal of him as an icon set within the realism of seventeenth century India, he signifies two elements: the Catholic Church of the Inquisition period and imperialistic England, whose dogmatic government maintains its own mission to convert the Irish to the British consciousness. John Locke, in his essay on the “Powers of the Commonwealth” refers to this form of bureaucracy in government and religion:

For no man or society of men having a power to deliver up their preservation, or consequently the means of it, to the absolute will and arbitrary dominion of another, whenever anyone shall go about to bring them into such a slavish condition, they will always have a right to preserve what they have not a power to part with, and to rid themselves of those who invade this fundamental, sacred, and unalterable law of self-preservation for which they entered society. And thus the community may be said in this respect to be always the supreme power, but not as considered under any form of government, because this power of the people can never take place till the government be dissolved. [2]
Thus, the hierarchy of authority within human society creates significant conflict of interest for those whose mindset differs from the status quo. Owenson demonstrates this conflict through her disparate characterizations.

________________________________________________________________________
[1] Thomas Kavanagh, “Time and Narration: Indexical and Iconic Models” in Comparative Literature, MLN, 86. 6 (1971), p. 832.
[2] John Locke, in Howard R. Penniman (ed.), John Locke: On Politics and Education (Roslyn, New York:  Walter J. Black, Inc., 1947), p. 152. 

07 July, 2025

"Clair de Lune" by Claude Debussy, A Deleted Segment of Walt Disney's 1940 film, "Fantasia"



Click below to view the film clip: 

I came upon this beautiful interpretation of "Clair de Lune" by Claude Debussy, deleted from the final version of the Disney classic film, Fantasia. A visual and aural illustration of life's circularity, this film depicts innovation in the art of filmmaking for the time in which the artists and musicians collaborated to create this film. The love expressed in this one scene makes my heart sing. Moreover, I really love the blue tones in the scene above, for they remind me of the very early morning, right before sunrise, when the flora and fauna all contain shades of blue.  

Below is the opening recitative from my operetta, Luminescence, an interpretation of the 13th century poem, Roman de la Rose. It also focuses on the moon as it relinquishes its light to the sun:

The moon, known as Lunula, emits a soft, silver glow onto the indigo and deep green foliage where life renews in the created shadows of the garden’s crevices. Then, she silently dismisses darkness from the fertile land. As daybreak slowly creates an elusive blush, Lunula moves aside to allow her eminence, the sun, its splendid glow in the dawning light. Knowing that her radiance is dependent on the reflection of the sun, Lunula illuminates this shaded, overgrown venue with dignity and grace, providing inspiration for the precious life over which her luminescence humbly drifts. 

© Jeanne I. Lakatos 

To hear me read this, please click HERE.

06 July, 2025

Attack of the Georgia June Bugs

I had to remove the photo of the June Bug. 
It just gave me the creeps.

With warm days behind and ahead of us, my mind immediately traveled to a memory of one laundry night, many years ago, when I lived in Norcross, Georgia. If you have never encountered a Georgia June bug, well, let me tell you... you are fortunate indeed. The darn things are about two inches long and click and sputter around lights at night, all summer long. ugh! ugh! (worth 2 ughs!) Anyway, here's the poem:

Attack of the Georgia June Bugs

Snugly against my right hip,
I carry laundry, clean and folded,
in a wicker basket on a hot, southern night.

Georgia June bugs encircle my head.
Zipping to and fro, their wings roar
like ghosts of B-52 bombers.

I run to escape 
their clicking laughs;
laundry jostles over the edges of the basket.

Quickly. I swoop 
to retrieve escaping undergarments
before anyone sees me or those bugs get nearer.

“Don’t you dare fly into my hair!”
Ah, at last! 
I’m inside my apartment.
Only one goal: to sip a nice, cold sweet tea.

© Jeanne I. Lakatos

To hear me read this, please click HERE.

05 July, 2025

Sydney Owenson: Weaving Threads of Culture Together




From my book: 

In Sydney Owenson’s national tales, she weaves together threads of disenfranchisement and enchantment, capturing the essence of the politically inspired Romantic era, in which the grand is intentionally written to be grander, where literary characterizations entwine with political forces within a civil society. 

The English aristocracy and the publishing community accept Owenson as a significant member of their elite societies through her writing and marriage to Sir Charles Morgan. Even though she takes the name, ‘Lady Morgan,’ she remains loyal to her Irish roots as Sydney Owenson. Her loyalty to both identities serves her expressive purposes well, for she carefully coordinates these unique influences into her text by merging the English tale of aristocratic inheritance with Irish ideology. 

Not only did Sydney Owenson bring innovation to Irish literature in the form of national tales written from a woman’s perspective, but also she included illuminating research in each of her works on the historical significance of her characters, their personal and political milieux, and their sociolinguistic backgrounds. She includes a wide range of socioeconomic and ethnic variables within the linguistic components of her characters’ discourse. 

For these reasons, she has been an excellent choice in researching the relevance of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’ revolutionary period in Europe and America. Her interest in uniting political factions and social classes as a way to open communication for the cause of justice in Ireland during this era is clearly evident in her thematic structures and characterizations. 

04 July, 2025

Declaration of Independence


Click the title below to go to Yale University's Avalon Project site:
Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident:
That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.... 

03 July, 2025

A Yankee Doodle Dandy

A dear friend was like a surrogate Mom to me and just about everyone else in town.  Every 4th of July, she could be seen in the town parade, riding the back of a motorcycle. (See photo below.) She was the mother of several children now living across the U.S., grandma and great-grandma to oodles more, and just a love. If you have the time, click (tick) onto A Patriotic Wave  to visit my other blog and another poem. 

Happy 4th of July from Connecticut, U.S.A! 

A Yankee Doodle Dandy
She's everybody's Mother.
She 'owns' the third pew
 at Mass on Sunday and daily, too,
just to be sure the priests stay true.
 She's an early bird all right
this merry widow dressed in red.

Prayed for the man for whom she wore white
50+ years ago
whispered one last "I love you!"
Sang the blues.
Then...
hopped on the back of this one's bike,
held on tight to save her life. 

Waves, smiles, stories to share,
filling up on love
feathered boa in mid-air
This yankee doodle dandy
in red, white and blue!

© Jeanne I. Lakatos

To hear me read this, please click HERE.

02 July, 2025

Sydney Owenson's 'The Wild Irish Girl' and Revolutionary Thought


Sydney Owenson’s national tales and narrative poetry echo those of the American colonists in regard to humanity’s birth right of freedom, particularly in the way her British characters interact with Irish characters. Owenson sees the Irish used as scapegoats for England’s perceived imperial failure and, through her writing, takes a stand against the British. While she leads her fellow country men and women to awareness of individual and national pride, she also sheds light upon the conditions of the nineteenth century female, that of subjugation to male dominance. 

Particularly in The Wild Irish Girl, Owenson reveals eighteenth century societal dictates present within the Irish culture. Her inclusion of Irish speech involves the ‘wild’ Irish instructing the British aristocracy on truths evident to the Irish but virtually unknown by the intruding British. For example, the main female character’s name is Glorvina, the word glor in Irish, meaning voice. In one of her initial conversations with the British character, Horatio, she explains the significance of Irish music: 

This susceptibility to the influence of my country’s music, discovered itself in a period of existence, when no associating sentiment of the heart could have called it into being; for I have often wept in convulsive emotion at an air before the sad story it accompanied was understood: but now- now- that feeling is matured, and understanding awakened. Oh! You cannot judge-cannot feel- for you have no national music; and your country is the happiest under heaven! [1]

Audaciously, Owenson configures historical and linguistic elements of Ireland within this foundational national tale and juxtaposes these elements with those of Great Britain through her two main characters, illustrating a cultural fantasy of an Anglo-Irish coalition. 

_____________________________________________________

[1] Sydney Owenson, The Wild Irish Girl, Boston: Joseph Greenleaf, 1808, p. 92.


01 July, 2025

Thunder and Lightning, Then the Flood

'Tis the season...


I took this photo of lightning in Danbury, Connecticut.

Thunder and Lightning, Then the Flood

Flash!
An enlightened moment
of photon intensity
blinds the eye
and elicits the waiting
for thunderous rumble
that rattles a frame;
its invisible command
churns, collides, crashes.
Disrupting yet healing,
emptied tears
cross a parched terrain:
Flood!

© Jeanne I. Lakatos

To hear me recite this verse, just click HERE.

30 June, 2025

Guided Steps through the Mountains

A photo I took whilst lost in Sandy Cove, Ireland

"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation..." (Isaiah 52:7) kjv

Guided Steps through the Mountains
To serve, 
to bring joy,
to surround oneself 
with the Love of Him 
by whom the sacrifice
bestows onto to us a purity 
of spirit, grace, and everlasting peace. 
To walk alone with the One 
who justifies our being
with purpose of Love
through faithful 
steps, guided 
by Divinity. 

© Jeanne I. Lakatos

To hear me read the above, please click HERE.




29 June, 2025

Arachnid's Aim

 Once, I observed a lovely spider, busily spinning her web, and I proceeded to write the poem below. 


A spider's web suspended from my deck

Arachnid's Aim

One by One by One by One by One by One by One by One,
she extends her reach into the world, 
Glad that she yet retains eight strong, healthy appendages. 
Her sisters' are damaged, maimed, broken, or lost, 
but hers are vibrant, able to take her
to any destination she beholds as sacred. 

Now, she extends her reach into the world.
Carefully, gracefully, she moves along this space,
arranging each extension in its proper place, 
allowing a Hopeful Touch to capture the attention
of one who will see her radiance
and share her iridescence with lasting, hopeful bliss.

© Jeanne I. Lakatos


You can hear me recite this verse by clicking the link HERE.

28 June, 2025

In God's Time

Photo taken in Danbury, Connecticut

In God's Time

Taking my time, 
moving through a daily routine, 
I've come to that moment 
when I become anxious 
for answers to questions unresolved. 

Then, a thought enters my mind, 
moves through me, and reaches my soul. 
It becomes a prayer, guiding me 
to these feelings of love, peace, joy
that encompass me. 

No longer am I filled with doubt, 
for purpose supplants ache, and now, 
I feel Divine Love open my heart with His aim 
on a path, carefully tread 
in God's Time.

© Jeanne I. Lakatos

You can listen to me recite this verse in my 'froggy' January voice by clicking HERE.



27 June, 2025

Odes to Pancakes


Photo from 'Duck Duck Go' images

Below is a duet of poetry focusing on the pancake theme in the rondeau form and then a parody of e.e. cummings' poem, "O Sweet Spontaneous."

Ode to Pancake Temptation
There, on my fine bone china plate
Five pancakes can't be a mistake
and neighboring maple trees in a row
provide home grown syrup to amply flow,
as fresh, sweet butter on top does skate.

To eat this meal at such a rate
won’t help in my quest of losing weight
yet hunger’s there; it won’t let go
there, on my fine bone.

This morning sure has sealed my fate
through personal, philosophical debate
but now, determined to my pinky toe,
it's wisdom’s garden I must hoe,
and make these feet accelerate 
there, on my fine bone.

© Jeanne I. Lakatos

*******************************

O Sweet Pancake Temptation
(a parody of e.e. cummings' "O Sweet Spontaneous")

O golden pancakes
drip
               ping
with sweet syrup
extracted
from maple’s vein
and butter 
squeezed
from bovine's 
p
u
r
i
t
y.

Does humanity
know the 
sacrifice
from earth’s offerings
for gluttony’s
bliss?

My delight 
pours forth
dripping
                       sweet 
with
appreciation 
and a little
blueberry pancake guilt.

© Jeanne I. Lakatos

To hear me recite this, please click HERE.