I've never cared for France.

All I knew was they were push-overs politically, stuck up socially, too skinny physically (not to mention too hairy), too nasaly vocally, and they owned ugly dogs.

That may be a bit harsher version, but as I said, I've never cared for France. Until this year. Studying the beautiful architecture France has to boast of, I began to soften up a bit. And today, I think I actually just felt compassion. I didn't quite realize you could feel compassion for an entire country... but I think I've just experienced it. I love literature (you should all know this by now- unless you've never met me, and this is your first time stumbling across my blog). I especially love Les Miserables and A Tale of Two Cities. I also love the work of the French and English Romantics. (Byron and Keats are my two favorites.) For this reason, I've decided to expand my senior thesis to include an interrogation of the literature produced during this period as a response to the French Revolution. As I'm sitting here reading about France and considering the violence of the revolution, and then the occupation of the Nazis as well as their long history.... I suddenly felt compassion and grace for them as a country. Isn't it funny to realize that just as the wounds in a person's life affect their decisions, countenance and personality, so too the wounds in a country's history will affect theirs? France has been through a great deal of violence, and yes, politically I disagree with them, but suddenly I can see so much more. Pieces are beginning to come together, I can see (in a small measure) how their revolutions and tyrannies and 'Terrors' have provoked their art and literature, and therefore the ideas that have shaped them. I can see how their decisions today come from these painful times, and the attempts of their philosophers to make sense of it all, soothe the wounds, and break the bondage.

Suddenly, I care for France. I would like to go, not just for the beautiful structures that stand there, but for the history and emotions and passions that structure France.