A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Thousand-Five-Hundred-And-Forty

I was doing some research for my vampire essay and found a very interesting passage I had not known about previously.  In truth, it was not even what I was looking for, and I only discovered it at random.  Earlier, I was watching a video on the subject of Julie D'Aubigny and it happened to mention that Bram Stoker had written a piece about her in one of his books, and suggested the piece was not sympathetic to her in ways that I found potentially intriguing, and so I sought the book (Stoker's Famous Impostors) on Project Guttenberg.  When I read the passage in question, I was not all that certain it would actually be relevant, though I am planning to go back through it again at some point.  Indeed, I might well have spent more time on that  portion of the text if not for another discovery.  Initially I had not looked closely at the table of contents, but had found the relevant section of the book and skipped to it without considering the rest of the book.  The passage I had first sought out was from a section of the book that focused on women "disguising" themselves to live as men, and I wondered if there might be anything equivalent concerning men taking on female identities.  While it does not appear that this topic is raised, I did discover that the book contains a chapter on "The Wandering Jew," an anti-Semitic myth concerning a Jewish man cursed by Jesus to immortally wander the world until the Second Coming.  I already was well aware of Stoker's interest in this particular story, and a major contention of my work involves the idea that Dracula is a combination of the Wandering Jew myth and the Blood Libel, the claim that Jewish people consume the blood of Christians, often children.  I suppose it is, in some ways, a condemnation of my skills as a researcher that it took me so long to find a chapter in a book with "The Wandering Jew" for a title, but I can't help but perceive the shappenstance by which I stumbled upon this discover, instead, as one of those strange and random paths towards knowledge that falls into line with Jung's notion of the "Library Angel."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poem: Neighborhood Inhabitants

Neighborhood Inhabitants There was a fox once, and another time, otters, and now a peacock that we think got lost during one of the storms. She stays down on the other end of the street, though, does not visit us. We have a racoon family that stays in our tree some nights, and there is a baby lizard, a brown basilisk, who we have seen several times. It is not supposed to be here, is invasive and troublesome to the local ecosystem, as are the duck.  I hear there are giant snails now who eat stucco or concrete or something of that sort. I have not seen one, though, I just heard they are here and big as my fist.
Read more

A Writer's Notebook, One-Thousand-Eight-Hundred-And-Seventy-Three

I am still finding it difficult to get back to a more productive work schedule at the moment.  In part, I am sure it is that I gave myself permission to slack off a bit, and it is difficult to walk that back, especially because I am still writing and being productive, even if not to the same degree. I know it would be good to get back to doing more writing, but I also know that I am still meeting my core obligations, even if at a more minimal level.  Really, I just need to make the choice and force myself to stick to it.  To that end, I am planning to at least get back to work on my longer projects again tomorrow, even if I don't increase the poetry output right away.
Read more

A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Thousand-One-Hundred-And-Thirty-Three

I received my acceptance to attend workshop at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival next year and am very excited to be working with Matthew Olzmann, a poet whose work I have admired for some time.  He has a rare capacity for being simultaneously absurd and serious in ways that are hysterical, but with devastating insights underneath.  I feel quite fortunate to have the PBPF, and can say, honestly, that each workshop I have attended there has been incredible.  As a person who has taken many workshops in my life, and who often finds them wanting, I am always astounded at the caliber of the classes at the festival, both in the instruction and in the community of poets I have encountered.  I only wish it could be more than just one week out of the year.
Read more