Wednesday, October 30, 2024

A day with Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, and James Joyce

My day began with a deathbed confession of a murder from half a century earlier: “You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat” (Edgar Allan Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado). It continued with the sense of overhearing someone quoting 1 Corinthians 2:9: “‘Eye hath not seen’ may possibly / Be current with the Blind / But let not Revelation / By theses be detained—“ (Emily Dickinson, “The Lilac is an ancient shrub, Fr 1261). It ended with a further Biblical allusion, to Matthew 7:3-5: “from Lesbia Looshe the beam in her eye” (James Joyce, “Finnegan's Wake”, 93:27-28). (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 30 October 2024)

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