opening statement with unexplained sound

"Whether the dreams brought on the fever or the fever brought on the dreams Walter Gilman did not know. Behind everything crouched the brooding, festering horror of the ancient town, and of the mouldy, unhallowed garret gable where he wrote and studied and wrestled with figures and formulae when he was not tossing on the meagre iron bed. His ears were growing sensitive to a preternatural and intolerable degree, and he had long ago stopped the cheap mantel clock whose ticking had come to seem like a thunder of artillery. At night the subtle stirring of the black city outside, the sinister scurrying of rats in the wormy partitions, and the creaking of hidden timbers in the centuried house, were enough to give him a sense of strident pandemonium. The darkness always teemed with unexplained sound—and yet he sometimes shook with fear lest the noises he heard should subside and allow him to hear certain other, fainter, noises which he suspected were lurking behind them." ( full text at the lovecraft archive )

h.p.lovecraft, dreams in the witch house.

 

Posted with Blogsy

preface to stellification

 

"the climax? what plain tale of science can boast of such a rhetorical effect? i have merely set down certain things appealing to me as facts, allowing you to construe them as you will. ...lest you think me a biased witness, another pen must add this final testimony, which may perhaps supply the climax you expect. i will quote the following account of the star nova persei verbatim from the pages of that eminent astronomical authority, professor garrett p. serviss: ..."

h.p.lovecraft, beyond the wall of sleep.

 

''the lectures gave me an opportunity to explore a feature of renaissance literature which has probably struck every serious student as puzzling at one time or another: namely, the extraordinary prominence of astronomical imagery. that the stars were important astrologically is at best a partial explanation, i am more concerned here with the impact of astronomical discoveries--particularly their implications for stellification, or translation to the stars.

''renaissance astronomical imagery is often seen as no more than a literary repercussion of copernicus, just as stellification is dismissed as hyperbolic flattery. but for some time i have felt sure that other factors were involved. in the renaissance, purely objective science hardly existed. ... seventeenth century culture was both religious and materialistic. far from science replacing religion, the literature of the period seems to show a great variety of negotiated reconciliations of the two. ... meanwhile, an urge to survive materially after death is squared with new scientific information, there are extreme swings of opinion, strange temporary solutions.''

alastair fowler, times purpled masquers.

 

Posted with Blogsy