Welcome!

Hello, everyone! Welcome to my blog :) Haven't gotten anything up yet, but I envision this as a place to communicate my appreciation for fashion, design, makeup, and costuming, as well as the occasional literary interest. I am a grad student in an English Literature program focusing on the Early Modern period, which explains this blog's name. In Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, The Bower of Bliss is a dangerous garden of sensual temptations, designed to lead the virtuous into libertine pleasure... and this is what these interests are for me. I needed some sort of outlet for them, so, here we are! While I love what I study, it can be frustrating to have other interests with no way to legitimize them, and this is a place where I can honor them and give them the same sort of attention I give to my school work.

When I'm not agonizing over paper writing or reading texts written before the 17th century, I can be found designing and sewing historically inspired costumes, playing around with makeup, frequenting my local Place of Commerce, spending time with my wonderful friends and family, reading the types of blogs that have inspired me to create this one, and passionately advocating the use of the Oxford comma.