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LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Stardust, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Stardust is extremely interested in poetry, nursery rhymes, and literature in general. As Tristran travels through Faerie and encounters numerous odd things, he regularly uses his knowledge of literature and poetry to guide his behavior. For instance, when he encounters a lion and a unicorn fighting, he thinks of the nursery rhyme “The Lion and the Unicorn.” In the rhyme, Tristran believes, the lion just wants to win—and so telling the lion in front of him that it’s won encourages the lion to leave the unicorn alone. Though fantastical, this incident seems to suggest that even the simplest literature, intended for the youngest audiences, has merit beyond being just entertaining: it can help even adults decide how to properly behave in a given situation. Other times, Tristran thinks about the “penny dreadfuls” he loved reading at home in Wall and about how the dramatic stories leave out important things about the human experience, such as the fact that even heroes get hungry. And so, while Stardust highlights literature’s power to entertain and teach, it suggests that part of growing up entails learning which lessons, and which pieces of a given work, are important, helpful, and worth remembering in times of trouble.
The novel’s epigraph is John Donne’s famous poem, “Song: Go and catch a falling star,” and Tristran’s story more or less follows what the speaker of the poem implores the reader to do: to go on a long journey to do and see numerous fantastical things, like catch a fallen star, which the speaker believes is as impossible to do as finding a faithful woman. By drawing from such a classic poem and expanding it into a fairy tale—that, notably, suggests it is absolutely possible to find a faithful woman—Stardust plays with the poem, adding humor, intrigue, and drama. Further, Gaiman has said that he wrote Stardust in part because he believes that adults deserve entertaining fairy tales, just like children do. With this, the novel acknowledges that while literature can teach important lessons or guide behavior, it’s also okay to engage with a book or poem purely for the fun of doing so.
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The Value of Literature ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of The Value of Literature appears in each chapter of Stardust. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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The Value of Literature Quotes in Stardust
Below you will find the important quotes in Stardust related to the theme of The Value of Literature.
Chapter 1
Quotes
Mr. Bromios had set up a wine-tent and was selling wines and pasties to the village folk, who were often tempted by the foods being sold by the folk from Beyond the Wall but had been told by their grandparents, who had got it from their grandparents, that it was deeply, utterly wrong to eat fairy food, to eat fairy fruit, to drink fairy water and sip fairy wine.
For every nine years, the folk from Beyond the Wall and over the hill set up the stalls, and for a day and a night the meadow played host to the Faerie market; and there was, for one day and one night in nine years, commerce between the nations.
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Chapter 2
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“For a kiss, and the pledge of your hand,” said Tristran, grandiloquently, “I would bring you that fallen star.”
He shivered. His coat was thin, and it was obvious he would not get his kiss, which he found puzzling. The manly heroes of the penny dreadfuls and shilling novels never had these problems getting kissed.
He thought of Victoria’s lips, and her grey eyes, and the sound of her laughter. He straightened his shoulders, placed the crystal snowdrop in the top buttonhole of his coat, now undone. And, too ignorant to be scared, too young to be awed, Tristran Thorn passed beyond the fields we know...
...and into Faerie.
Chapter 3
Quotes
The three old women were the Lilim—the witch-queen—all alone in the woods.
The three women in the mirror were also the Lilim: but whether they were the successors to the old women, of their shadow-selves, or whether only the peasant cottage in the woods was real, or if, somewhere, the Lilim lived in a black hall, with a fountain in the shape of a mermaid playing in the courtyard of stars, none knew for certain, and none but the Lilim could say.
Chapter 5
Quotes
“Hullo,” said Tristran. There were burrs and leaves in the lion’s mane. He held the heavy crown out toward the great beast. “You won. let the unicorn go.” And he took a step closer. Then he reached out both trembling hands and placed the crown upon the lion’s head.
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Chapter 6
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“But you were telling me that Pan owned the forest...”
“Of course he does,” said the voice. “It’s not hard to own something. Or everything. You just have to know that it’s yours and then be willing to let it go. Pan owns this forest, like that.”
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Chapter 8
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“Not without the Power of Stormhold about your neck you’re not, my brother,” said Quintus, tartly.
“And then there’s the matter of revenge,” said Secundus, in the voice of the wind howling through the pass. “You must take revenge upon your brother’s killer before anything else, now. It’s blood-law.”
As if he had heard them, Septimus shook his head. “Why could you not have waited just a few more days, brother Primus?” [...] “And now I must revenge your sad carcass, and all for the honor of our blood and the Stormhold.
“So Septimus will be the eighty-second Lord of Stormhold,” said Tertius.
“There is a proverbial saying chiefly concerned with warning against too closely calculating the numerical value of unhatched chicks,” pointed out Quintus.
[...]
“May you choke on [the rune stones] if you do not take revenge on the bitch who slit my gullet,” said Primus [...]
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Tristran sat at the top of the spire of cloud and wondered why none of the heroes of the penny dreadfuls he used to read so avidly were ever hungry. His stomach rumbled, and his hand hurt him so.
Adventures are all very well in their place, he thought, but there’s a lot to be said for regular meals and freedom from pain.
Chapter 10
Quotes
“You said you would give me whatever I desire.”
“Yes.”
“Then...” He paused. “Then I desire that you should marry Mister Monday. I desire that you should be married as soon as possible—why, within this very week, if such a thing can be arranged. And I desire that you should be as happy together as ever a man and woman have ever been.”
She exhaled in one low shuddering breath of release. Then she looked at him. “Do you mean it?” she asked.
“Marry him with my blessing, and we’ll be quits and done,” said Tristran. “And the star will probably think so, too.”
Yvaine realized that she felt nothing but pity for the creature who had wanted her dead, so she said, “Could it be that the heart that you seek is no longer my own?”
The old woman coughed. Her whole frame shook and spasmed with the retching effort of it.
The star waited for her to be done, and then she said, “I have given my heart to another.”
“The boy? The one in the inn? With the unicorn?”
“Yes.”
“You should have let me take it back then, for my sisters and me. We could have been young again, well into the next age of the world. Your boy will break it, or waste it, or lose it. They all do.”
