A concept worth considering.
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- Carter Kaplan
- Carter Kaplan is the author of The Invisible Tower Trilogy: Echoes, We Reign Secure, and The Sky-Shaped Sarcophagus. His first novel is Tally-Ho, Cornelius! Diogenes is an Aristophanic comedy. Editor of Emanations; IA edition of The Scarlet Letter with Afterword, "A" is for Antinomian: Theology and Politics in The Scarlet Letter; the anthology Fantasy Worlds. Co-translator and editor of Creation of the World by Torquato Tasso. Book on Wittgenstein and literary theory: Critical Synoptics. Articles on “Karel Čapek,” “Menippean Satire” and “Dystopian Literature” in The Encyclopedia of Literature and Politics. Articles on "Herman Melville" and "Michael Butterworth" in A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes (which has an article about him). A chapter on William Blake and Michael Moorcock appears in New Boundaries in Political Science Fiction. Teaching includes Literature, Philosophy, and post-graduate Medical Research Writing in universities ranging across Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York City, and Scotland.
Crossroads of the Highbrow Commonwealth
Echoes
We Reign Secure
The Sky-Shaped Sarcophagus
Tally-Ho, Cornelius!
Diogenes
Emanations 11
Emanations Zen
Emanations: When a Planet was a Planet
Octo-Emanations
Emanations: Chorus Pleiades
Emanations: I Am Not a Number
Emanations: 2 + 2 = 5
Emanations: Foray into Forever
Emanations: Third Eye
Emanations: Second Sight
Emanations
Creation of the World by Torquato Tasso
Critical Synoptics: Menippean Satire and the Analysis of Intellectual Mythology
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Humanities: From Ancient Mesopotamia to the Renaissance in England
Fantasy Worlds
A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes
Encyclopedia of Literature and Politics
New Boundaries in Political Science Fiction
Followers
Cosmic Time Line
6 comments:
Doesn't he fight against the villains? (or, villa-in-habitants?)
Indeed he does! How about a sequel? Maybe a story of The Red Death chasing Hitler around in his bunker?
Modern Capitalism, rather than Hitler. They gathered all goods and enjoyed life while all others died.
I was rather thinking about the scenario in the bunker. Wasn't thinking about the political implications. Maybe capitalism (essentially, it isn't an "ism"; it is rather the activity of trade) produces too much wealth, and supports a population that is not educated enough to control its politicians and armies? All things being equal, I would prefer an educated populations and liberal trade, if it could be done. Have to pay teachers more, maybe. And create standards for cultural artifacts--literature, TV, film and music--that encourage individual virtues and civic mindedness? Very much what we do at International Authors! We are the Athens of the Internet.
But really I have not got a clue!
I've always wondered if the red death might be compared to adolescence and coming of age; the end of childhood (red blotches = teenage acne). Or--and certainly this has been written about--the story is about waking up from a night of dreams. The red death is the manifestation of flesh around the face of the spirit that had been free in the realm of dreams, our true native home.
But your point is well taken.
My main suggestion is that Red Death is Christ. Poe provides a clue in the final lines: "He had come like a thief in the night," that's what Jesus told about himself dealing with his Second Coming.
This seems to be a key for a great part of Poe's narrative, starting from "Metzengerstein" (that opens with the quote "Death, I will be your death," as St Paul said with reference to Christ) all the way up to "Hop-Frog." The Divine Judge who destroys an evil and selfish world.
Excellent suggestion. I hope to re-read these stories soon.
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