An inaugural explainer of the Dark Muse
-An inaugural explainer of the Dark Muse
+
All at sea with the Dark Muse
Introduction
-Introduction
+
The purpose of this media effort will be to convey some of my thoughts
and impressions about things dark, or as I cal it, the Dark
-Muse1
+Muse1
muse: originally any of the nine sister goddesses in Greek
mythology presiding over music, literature, and arts, or a
state of deep thought or abstraction, or a source of
inspiration
. This would hopefully include, be a superset of what is
-known today as goth2
+known today as goth2
The modern “goth subculture” as perhaps described here. It’s as good
as any… Lots more about goth and Dark Muse later.
and gothic. And so I hope to go much deeper
@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@
Let’s start with an example, a litmus test of sorts. It’s a poem from
my main darkness benefactress, the poet who stands at the centre of
-everything I mean to say about dark—Emily Jane Brontë 3
+everything I mean to say about dark—Emily Jane Brontë 3
Oddly enough, I’ve never read her Wuthering Heights and do
not intend to. However, her poetry I read continually, gleaning new
insights each time. See here for a quick biography.
@@ -104,7 +104,7 @@
-Let’s try another poem. Here is Longfellow’s4
+Let’s try another poem. Here is Longfellow’s4
Go here for a quick biography.
Snow-flakes
Introduction
Introduction
Introduction
-And so he processes agents of depression5
+And so he processes agents of depression5
…which are not mentioned, rather, to be assumed by readers
familiar with these agents in their own lives. In Longfellow’s case,
he lost both of his wives, the first to a miscarriage, the second to a
fire accident.
—despair, grief,
misery—into more equanimous states of sadness and melancholy by
-reaching out into the natural world and poetising6
+reaching out into the natural world and poetising6
The idea of poetising, the poetisation of nature and life was
central to the Romantic Movement. It parallels the long-standing
belief that we humans explain ourselves through, embed our lives in
@@ -152,7 +152,7 @@
Here is another great example of “you get the Dark Muse or you don’t,”
-this time from Emily Elizabeth Dickinson’s 8
+this time from Emily Elizabeth Dickinson’s 8
See here for a quick biography.
There’s a certain Slant of light,
-Indeed. That last line includes Death, capitalised10
+Indeed. That last line includes Death, capitalised10
Dickinson often employed the German practice of capitalising
nouns for poetic emphasis.
. It is my
@@ -216,9 +216,9 @@ Introduction
understood sadness to be a sort of cancer or virus that may eventually
go into remission, but can never be entirely eliminated while on
Earth. I contend we have lost the ability to process depression into a
-stasis melancholy, i.e., to find a modus vivendi7
+stasis melancholy, i.e., to find a modus vivendi7
modus vivendi: An arrangement or agreement allowing
conflicting parties to coexist peacefully, either indefinitely or
until a final settlement is reached, or (literally) a way of living.
@@ -167,7 +167,7 @@ Introduction
@@ -180,7 +180,7 @@ Introduction
Winter Afternoons —
-That oppresses, like the Heft 9
+That oppresses, like the Heft 9
weight, heaviness; importance, influence; (archaic) the greater
part or bulk of something.
@@ -204,7 +204,7 @@ Introduction
Introduction
Nature and Death in the nineteenth century
-Nature and Death in the nineteenth century
+
Main points:
➝ No “degrees” of nature, rather, nature ubiquitous
@@ -229,7 +229,7 @@
Nature and Death in the nineteenth century
I believe today’s understanding of nature is very different than
that of early-nineteenth-century poets such as the Haworth and Amherst
-Emilies 11
+Emilies 11
My shorthand for Emily Brontë and Emily Dickinson are based on
their towns of origin — Haworth, West Yorkshire, for the former and
Amherst, Massachusetts, for the latter.
@@ -266,7 +266,7 @@
In the West, architecture seemed to reach a fantastical aesthetic
-crescendo in the Victorian nineteenth century12
+crescendo in the Victorian nineteenth century12
…with dark, dense, dramatic Neo-Gothic as a leading
style. Indeed, seemingly all nineteenth century styles were
“revivalist-nostalgic” (Greek, Gothic, Italianate, Elizabethan, Queen
@@ -286,7 +286,7 @@
Let me relate a modern story to our new attitude towards death. My
father, who has since passed away, lost his third wife to lung
-cancer caused inevitably by decades of smoking18
+cancer caused inevitably by decades of smoking18
Ironically, both of his previous wives had likewise died from
smoking-related illnesses.
. But instead of
@@ -430,11 +430,11 @@ Nature and Death in the nineteenth century
Nature and Death in the nineteenth century
separation—our population doubling in less than fifty years to eight
billion is one measure of prevailing. But have not some of us in
recent times become acutely aware of, if not concerned over this
-estrangement?13
+estrangement?13
Is our slow and gradual separation from nature not a perfect
example of the boiling frog metaphor?
I certainly have.
@@ -304,7 +304,7 @@ Nature and Death in the nineteenth century
outside, out into the elements. But once back indoors, the human was
not so completely out of and above nature’s touch, influence, doom
as we now imagine ourselves. Again, the cycles of birth, growth,
-deterioration, and death were happening everywhere14
+deterioration, and death were happening everywhere14
Obviously the Industrial Revolution created urban production
landscapes vast and barren and completely outside of any sort of
nature, spatial or otherwise. Indeed, William Blake’s “satanic mills.”
@@ -341,7 +341,7 @@ Nature and Death in the nineteenth century
over which to wax poetic. But Romantic Era poets did just that, and to be
sure, sublimely. Haworth Emily stopped, turned around, and stared
directly into an enemy previously terrible unforgiving, and in so
-doing she found sublimity15
+doing she found sublimity15
More on Edmund Burke’s (as well as Bertrand Russell’s) false,
“don’t get it” tedium on sublimity later. In short, sublime is what
we may find beyond mere beauty, touching what Dostoevsky is saying
@@ -360,7 +360,7 @@ Nature and Death in the nineteenth century
With nature as countless cycles of birth, growth, deterioration, and
death going on all around, the last two components, deterioration and
death, must be seen beyond our mechanistic modern take of just
-terminal, physical breakage and malfunction16
+terminal, physical breakage and malfunction16
…as when a car is written off as “totalled.”
. Especially death,
which becomes Death, a quasi-spiritual force majeure. But today
@@ -368,7 +368,7 @@ Nature and Death in the nineteenth century
much more control than ever before—as if through modern medicine we
have begun to acquire demi-godlike veto power over physical demise. Of
course death is an undeniable certainty, and comes as a result of
-accident, old age, or as physical aggression or predation17
+accident, old age, or as physical aggression or predation17
For critters, predators are other bigger critters. For humans,
predators are—outside of war and homicidal criminal activity—all
but exclusively bacteria and viruses.
@@ -404,7 +404,7 @@ Nature and Death in the nineteenth century
Nature and Death in the nineteenth century
Thriving versus surviving; top dog versus underdog
-Thriving versus surviving; top dog versus underdog
+
-In his book The Genius of Instinct 19
+In his book The Genius of Instinct 19
The Genius of Instinct; Reclaim Mother Nature’s Tools for
Enhancing Your Health, Happiness, Family, and Work by Hendrie
Weisinger; 2009; Pearson Education, Inc.
@@ -554,9 +554,9 @@ Thriving versus surviving; top dog versus underdog
Graveyard School versus Night and Graveside Schools
-Graveyard School versus Night and Graveside Schools
+Life is life only with death. Without death a strange irrelevance begins to shake at life’s foundations. @@ -589,9 +589,9 @@
Graveyard School versus Night and Graveside Schools
Really feeling
-Really feeling
+The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched — they must be felt with the heart.
@@ -602,9 +602,9 @@Really feeling
Why the “North Shore”?
-Why the “North Shore”?
+I live in the far-northeastern tip of Minnesota on the so-called North Shore of Lake Superior, in the very last county, Cook, along the shore @@ -623,7 +623,7 @@