Have you ever had a crush / fallen in love with an historical figure?

[NegroniLover]

This has happened to me in the most unexpected manner. I'm in my early 50s (old enough to know better) & I've developed a massive obsession / crush on a long dead writer. It's so weird & had never happened to me before.
Please tell me someone else has experienced this?

Sorry takes me ages to type on phone!
by the time I catch up there have been half a dozen posts.

John Donne: love the poetry (DH quoted me some at our wedding - swoon) but can't help feeling he was a rather tortured soul.

@DuckonaBike : Shackleton: absolutely crush-worthy. Saw a great exhibition about him at the Royal Geographical Society earlier this year. Was blown away.

I hated the tower @NegroniLover but I loved Hever Castle

I can't get behind George Vi because of how he let the Russian Royal family down so badly & with such tragic outcomes
(I also had an obsession with Russian history)

William Wallace.
(Helped along by Mel Gibson, despite the historical inaccuracies)

I went to the Abbey on Friday night to see Edna O'Briens, Joyce's women. It gave a really good insight into his relationship with his mother, wife, "whores" and his beautiful daughter Lucia, who spent most of her adulthood in asylums tormented with schizophrenia. I have gone down a rabbit hole on her. Joyce himself doesn't interest me much, but I really empathised with his daughter. It is thought that she inherited this disorder from Joyce and that while is personality wasn't schizoid, his writings were.

Obviously Thos. Cromwell. Currently still alive as I haven’t read the last book.

I fell in love with Rupert Brooke as a teenager too. In fact I still have a portrait of him on my upstairs landing. Visitors usually think he's a relative .

That was George V, not VI

George VI was the Queen’s father. The V was her grandfather.

Also had a massive thing about Sebastian Flyte/Evelyn Waugh when I was a teenager.

Entirely misplaced because Lord Flyte was fictional and Mr Waugh certainly was a bit of a shit deeply flawed.

OK I have my Georges confused now- apologies

I am a huge Edna O'brien fan & would love to see that play which I've read about
I've read a lot about poor Lucia too incredibly tragic all round- she fell in love with beckett & it was unrequited & tipped her over the edge & she spent the rest of her life in asylums..
Was the play good?

Does anyone watch these YouTube things where they bring historical figures to life? . It's fascinating.
Haven't seen a James Joyce one though!

@NegroniLover, thanks for this thread. Good to know I'm not on my own. As I get older I am drawn more and more to the idea that Richard III wasn't as bad as they make out. Have had crushes on various literary and historical figures and became fascinated with George Mallory and Sandy Irvine. I really wanted them to have conquered Everest.

Ok this thread is creepy 😂

Doh - of course! Brilliant writer. I was obsessed with The Stone Diaries for a while as a teenager (strange book for a thirteen year old to be obsessed with, but I was a bit strange!).

Oh Rupert, My first crush at the tender age of eleven and still going strong. Even finding out about all his unsavoury aspects didn’t put me off. I’m still a bit jealous of Ka Cox.

Play was excellent. Dh reckons it was the best play he had ever seen. I'm not sure I would have rated it that high but it was certainly an eye opener for me into Joyce, the man, and how poorly he treated the women in his life.

Harley Granville Barker - I went to the national portrait gallery as a teen and fell madly in love. He is no longer there.

Is it creepy? I don't feel it is but I accept I may not be the best judge of character

Swoon

Simon de Montfort

Thanks @MysweetAudrina that's v interesting because I read an interview with Edna O'Brien & she was saying she's had a life long obsession with joyce * it's taken her this long (she's 92) to write this work. Fascinating that the perspective is on how badly he treats the women in his life so

I don't think it's weird, and judging by most of the replies I don't think it's that uncommon really.
Not much different than having a crush on a fictional character - it's just escapism really.

It’s just a slightly eccentric version of the celeb crush.

As long as it isn’t mucking up your actual life (and you understand you aren’t ‘in love with him’ because aside from him being dead, you don’t know him, and any character you are projecting onto him is your own fantasy), it’s harmless.

The voice of reason @Luredbyapomegranate