Hal Johnson's Blog, page 37
May 24, 2020
More Vampire Stories
Really
there are a lot of them. Some of these were previously mentioned in
The Big Book of Monsters, but I’m including them here so I
can put links in, and you can stay up all night reading vampire
stories until the sun comes up and you feel safe again.
Christabel by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1816)
The Vampyre by John Polidori (1819)
Varney the Vampire (anonymous, 1847) (no one’s ever read this all the way through, I think)
Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1872)
Good Lady Ducayne by Mary Elizabet...
May 22, 2020
The Old English Books That Survive
Old English literature was kept and copied in monasteries, and much of it—perhaps most of it—was lost in the 1560s, when King Henry VIII seized the monasteries and sold the land to pay for his wars. The books just went in the fire.
Nevertheless,
enough survives to give an idea of what they used to write about in
Old England: translations, histories, biblical commentaries, sword
fights, sad poems about returning to a life on the sea. Also:
•The Physiologus. An adaptation of an old Greek boo...
May 19, 2020
Everywhere Dragons
We’re
used to dragons having wings and breathing fire, but in Medieval
Europe dragons often spit poison instead of fire, and usually have no
wings—sometimes they only have two legs!
In Chinese mythology, dragons are inevitably wingless, although they often can fly; others live in great palaces under water. They assume the form of humans at times. In the Chinese fairy tale “The Dragon Princess” (from The Chinese Fairy Book (1921), translated by Frederick H. Martens “after original sources”),...
May 17, 2020
Minerva/Athena
Ovid was a Roman, so in the Metamorphoses he used the Roman names for the gods, even when his story took place in Greece. Minerva is the Roman name for the Greek Athena. Neptune is the Roman name of the Greek Poseidon. In case you were wondering what was going on there.
The title of Ovids poem, Metamorphoses, comes from a Greek word meaning transformations. The focus of the poem stories of changes. In the tale of Medusa, for example, her petrifying gaze changes sticks into coral, and her...
May 14, 2020
Invisible Problems
Being invisible sounds like a sure-fire path to power, but H.G. Wells argues that its not actually as useful as it appears. Think of how easy it would be to get caught, even though you were invisible. If you walk through rain or fog, your outline will easily be seen. If you walk in snow or mud, your footprints will reveal your position. Anything you eat will show in your invisible belly, floating in air until your body gets a chance to digest it.
Dogs growl at you, for you still have the...
May 12, 2020
Honorable Mentions XI
Urgan from Tristram of Lyonesse by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1882): One the strongest of the sons of earth, a cruel giant in Medieval Wales.
May 10, 2020
Keats and His Tropes
When John Keats talks about a snakes freakish human mouth, he says it is a mouth with all its pearls complete. But hes not talking about pearls, of course. Even magic snakes dont have pearls in their mouths. Hes using a metaphor, comparing shiny white teeth to pearls.
You cant be a poet without a stock of metaphors, and Keats never stopped trying to be a poet until the day he died. So The Lamia is loaded with tropes, which is an old word that means different poetic turns of phrase, such as...
May 7, 2020
Two Ways to Read Jekyll and Hyde
The great Argentinian critic Jorge Luis Borges says that the problem with The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is that its supposed to be a mystery, but everyone who reads it nowadays already knows the solution. Readers in 1886 would have been surprised to learn that the title refers to one person, not two, but that twist has been spoiled for us now. Borges says that if you want to make a film adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the first thing you should do is call it something...
May 5, 2020
From The Mummy!
As it went along it saw a dead cat lying in the street; and it knelt down and took the creature up, and kissed it, and lamented over it in such a strange way, and in such a strange language!
(Thats the mummy! He loves cats!)
May 3, 2020
The Further Adventures of Captain Nemo
Captain Nemo appears in another Jules Verne book, Mysterious Island (1874), and its only in this sequel that we learn things like Nemos real name and country or origin.
Nemos appearance in Mysterious Island comes as a surprise though, and near the end, so try to forget hes in it while youre reading the book.
Sorry about the spoiler.
