Because I have been rather busy with the release of the Chapter 10 alternatives, I have been ignoring her emails about S. I going to remedy that right now by sharing some of the bunny trails she has been following. I realize that some of these things have already been discussed by the other bloggers, but I'm including her more interesting thoughts here.
1. The coriolis effect that causes distortion in airplane travel north to south or vice versa is also responsible for causing start of hurricanes which go back to the Poe Maelstrom illustration and the storm in SOT.
In Bucket class we talked about the meridian and England wanting Greenwich and France wanting Paris. Fascinating fact that two guys, Delambre and McChain actually physically measured distances to determine. They did it by actually measuring and in instances they couldn't, they did it by measuring two sides of a triangle and figuring out. I believe this was in the 1700's. A couple of books were written about this and I think would make good reading. The end result was within only a very few feet of GPS. Different meridians have been used at different times and different maps or charts would use these different ones. Using the meridian at El Hierro would suggest that it was prior to any discovery of islands or lands beyond that western most known point at least before Columbus. But Portugal had a very robust trade and the most advanced maps for at least a good part of this time and each country had their own preferences.
The advent of modern science with standard measures, scientific methods, consistent verbiage (Latin) and categorization started with Francis Bacon and within the next century was put in place so all knowledge could be accessed on an equal basis thus the reason for having only one Meridian.
So, the question I have is whether or not the longitude and latitudes derived would vary or not based upon which chart using a different Meridian was used. Just a thought.
2. Another story by Poe, a story within a story (like tales told in cave) was derivative of another work but was also used
as the basis for works by other authors.
I was struck by the beginning discussion of the main character who was injured and seeks refuge, sees a painting and reads from a book.
3. She wonders if the island of El Hierro is the axis mundi and the basis for the obsidian island. And Poe's work Descent into the Maelstrom mentions a cistern which is a primary feature of the island.
4. Okay, so in the copy of The Birds (by Aristophanes) we have, on the bottom of page 40 Syracusius is introduced as " the magpie". There is a city in Greece named Syracuse with a lot of history and I found an article which mentioned Syracusan democracy. At one time the country's populations were resettled and split up to maintain the hold of the tyrant rulers. It didn't work.
A Greek myth is the one of Cupid and Psyche. C. S. Lewis wrote a different version of this in Till We Have Faces (Cupid of course is portrayed as an archer and the stories in Ship of Theseus are love stories.
5. There was a K R Simmons in Chapter 10 (p418) and though this is spelled differently, I came across a poem titled "Of Our Spiritual Strivings" and it starts with:
O water, voice of my heart, crying in the same,
All night long crying with a mournful cry
He was also a critic and wrote a book The Symbolist Movement in Literature. [Also note, Zola (as in Emile Zola) is] Close to Sola - political writer, in critiqued in Symons book. Nominated for Nobel Prize 1901 and 1902.
6. Okay so following the rabbit, p259 Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Oscar Wilde was buried there.
He wrote Salome in 1891 and there is a note about quarreling with his translator (and lover) Lord Alfred Douglas because of his poor command of French and therefore a bad translation. Does that remind you of anything? :)
Many dirivative works, one in 2009 by Tale of Tales is a computer game Fatale. And multiple paintings, plays, music contain references (Smashing Pumpkins!?!)
Wilde also wrote Portrait of Dorian Grey which is a derivative of another author - Poe I think. Anyway - ebedee, ebedee, that's all folks (for now).
7. Okay, so this is connections again. They talk about Lewis Looper. This might be a nod to the movie "Looper" which came out about the same time a year before this book. It deals with a time traveler which "loops". Wells goes back to wells in El Huerro etc. and the picture related to Maelstrom could be a hole or well as well. But, the main interesting thing is that going back to the thread about Greek gods, the first version of this story was published as "The Chronic Argonauts." And, of course, we know argonauts were archers, Calais and Heracles were both argonauts.
8. Quote from the 1939 prize winning novel Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck:
"This is the beginning--from "I" to "we". If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I" , and cuts you off forever from the "we"."The S[traka] book Wineblood's Mine may be relating to Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. In a way you could say that Grapes of Wrath could be a synonym for reaping the reward for actions sewn. The quote could be a very modern observation about the 1% vs we the 99%.
9. The viewpoint in the poem is that of Tiresias who was born male, made female, (original manuscript 19 pages), given ability to understand birdsong, died drinking tainted water and wounded by Apollo's arrow.(And then she added)
Quote from Wikipedia:
The text of the poem is followed by several pages of notes, purporting to explain his metaphors, references, and allusions. Some of these notes are helpful in interpreting the poem, but some are arguably even more puzzling, and many of the most opaque passages are left unannotated. The notes were added after Eliot's publisher requested something longer to justify printing The Waste Land in a separate book.Thirty years after publishing the poem with these notes, Eliot expressed his regret at "having sent so many enquirers off on a wild goose chase after Tarot cards and the Holy Grail".
- Anyway useful things - Protagonist point of view is that of Tiresias - again
- Quite a few allusions to other authors the first Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
- and Chaucer had written something about the 1381 peasant's revolt.
- I skimmed the tales but found nothing really helpful.
- Refereced RW Emerson's Threnody a poem about his son that died, mentions of birds in poem.
- Allusions to Lincoln's death, various royalty including Ferdinand's death by the black hand, and Shakespear's Ariel's Song from the Tempest which references the drowned Phoenician sailor (Phlebus?) and I will follow that up plus a couple other minor things.
