Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter” is a rich and darkly morbid story that showcases Hawthorne’s art at its most sensuous and florid. It is the story of a beautiful young woman in a poisonous garden, and its gorgeous and lethal beauty are wonderfully done. The story is a sinister one in that the growing signs of the deadliness of Beatrice, and inevitably of Giovanni himself, accumulate with a horrid insistence.
Beatrice’s father is Professor Rappaccini of Padua, who raised her from childhood among deadly plants and flowers of his own creation in order to endow her with “marvellous gifts against which no power or strength could avail an enemy.” Giovanni, a young student, unaware of the secrets of the garden, is deeply attracted to her extraordinary beauty and her intimate tending to the beautiful plants. Gradually he becomes aware of the deadliness of the garden, and despite the warnings of Rappaccini’s rival, Baglioni, Giovanni continues to pursue her until he eventually takes on her deadly power. When he finally realizes the extent of his contamination, he urges her to drink with him the antidote prepared by Baglioni. She drinks it first, and “as poison had been life, so the powerful antidote was death.” The story ends with Baglioni’s horrified yet triumphant cry: “ ‘Rappaccini! Rappaccini! and is this the upshot of your experiment?’ ”
Trailer for the German musical “Rappaccini’s Daughter”
At the time of his trial and execution in 399 BC, Socrates had reached the age of seventy. He had lived through the Periclean Age when Athens was at the pinnacle of Imperial power, then through twenty-five years of war with Sparta and Athens’ defeat in 404. He did, however, live to see the restoration of democracy. For most of that time he was a well-known character in the streets of Athens, speaking to anyone who’d listen to his philosophy of life. His mission, which he explains in the Apology, was to expound the idea that man was responsible for his own moral attitudes.
Benjamin Jowett’s translations in this volume give Plato’s account of Socrates’ trial and death. Euthyphro is a kind of introduction to Plato’s account of Socrates’ speech to the jury in his own defense. Crito gives the account of how Socrates could have escaped into exile but refused. Meno shows Socrates debating Meno on the nature of human virtue and questioning Meno’s slave boy on a question of geometry in order to prove the preexistence of the soul. Phaedo gives the account of Socrates’ last discussions with his friends on the immortality of the soul.
Three of the essays in this collection (“History,” “Self-Reliance,” “The Over-soul”) sprang from the 1836 lectures on the philosophy of history Emerson delivered at the Boston Masonic Temple.
“History” really isn’t about history but how to convert the burden of the past into a survival kit for the future. “The fact narrated must correspond to something in me to be credible or intelligible.” Emerson believed that history could not be ignored, but for it to have currency we must imagine ourselves in it. “We . . . must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and executioner, must fasten images to some reality in our experience, or we shall learn nothing rightly.”
Also in this collection is “The Poet,” the finest piece ever penned about literature as a process, a form of expression as fundamental as any basic drive — like sex — but also one of the main purposes of human life. Poetry is not a skill or a trade, but a reflection of the human spirit, the inner fire: “For we are not pans and barrows, nor even porters of the fire and torch bearers, but children of the fire, made of it.”
The last essay in this collection is “The Divinity School Address,” given July 15, 1838, to the senior class of the Harvard Divinity School. Emerson had not been invited by the officers of the school, but by the senior class. What he delivered that evening was so objectionable to the clergy that nearly thirty years passed before he was invited to speak again at Harvard. Emerson’s address was both an attack on formal historical Christianity and a proposition of a personal religious consciousness, a sort of declaration of the divinity of the human. Emerson ended his talk with advice that asked a lot of the young graduates: “Let me admonish you to go alone; to refuse the good models . . . and to love God without mediator or veil.” The address would be Emerson’s last face-off with organized religion, though he would remain a deeply religious and spiritual man throughout his life.
For “The Dead” James Joyce drew upon an incident in Galway in 1903. There a young man named Michael (“Sonny”) Bodkin was courting Nora Barnacle (Joyce’s eventual wife), but he had tuberculosis and was soon bedridden. When Nora resolved to leave Galway for Dublin, the boy stole out of his sickbed and in the rain under an apple tree sang to Nora . Later, in Dublin, Nora learned that Bodkin was dead. When Nora first met Joyce, as she told her sister, what attracted her to him was his resemblance to “Sonny” Bodkin.
Apparently, Joyce was jealous of the dead suitor and grilled Nora ceaselessly about him. What bothered him was that her heart was still moved by the recollection of the boy’s love for her. This notion of a man in rivalry with a dead boy lying in a cemetery appears to be the genesis of Joyce’s most famous story.
Besides basing his story only on this incident, Joyce borrowed heavily from the ending of a book which is hardly read anymore, George Moore’s Vain Fortune. In that book a young bridal couple learn that a young woman whom the groom jilted has committed suicide. Both are tormented, and the bride asks her husband not to kiss her. She falls off to sleep, their marriage unconsummated, and the husband stares out the window at “the melancholy greyness of the dawn.” In that instant he realizes that his life is a failure and that his wife lacks the passion of the girl who killed herself. He does, however, achieve a sort of redemption through his agony: a resolution to try to make his wife happy. This is clearly the situation from which Joyce adroitly lifted: the dead lover who comes between the living lovers, the husband’s realization of his failure, his acceptance of mediocrity, the resolve to be at least sympathetic — it all came from this other book. Nonetheless, Joyce rarefies the story by having it arise not from the suicide of a former love but from the simple memory of the young love itself.
Spontaneous human combustion (SHC) is a concept that has fascinated and puzzled people for centuries. The idea that a human body can suddenly burst into flames without an external source of ignition has intrigued and terrified people, appearing in both literature and alleged real-life cases. But is there any scientific basis to this phenomenon, or is it simply a myth? In this blog post, we will delve into the history, science, and mysteries surrounding SHC to separate fact from fiction.
The first known accounts of SHC date back to the 17th century, with a Danish anatomy expert describing a case from the late 14th century involving a knight called Polonus Vorstius who drank wine before bursting into flames. However, it was in the 19th century that SHC gained widespread attention, largely due to its inclusion in Charles Dickens’ novel “Bleak House.” In the novel, the character Mr. Krook, an alcoholic junk merchant, spontaneously combusts, leaving behind only a heap of ashes and a greasy coating on the walls and ceiling. Dickens defended his use of SHC by citing several real-life cases and medical opinions that supported the phenomenon.
Today, the scientific community has largely dismissed the idea of SHC as a genuine phenomenon. The human body, composed mostly of water, is not easily ignited, and the possibility of SHC occurring naturally seems remote. Proposed causes of SHC, such as bacteria, static electricity, obesity, and stress, have not been scientifically proven. While early explanations relied on outdated medical theories, modern forensic science has provided a more plausible theory known as the “wick effect.” This theory suggests that clothing or blankets can soak up melted fat from a burning body, acting like a candle wick and allowing the body to smolder for an extended period. This effect can result in the near-complete incineration of the body while leaving the surroundings relatively undamaged.
Despite the skepticism, there have been numerous reported cases of SHC throughout history. One notable example is the case of Matilda Rooney, a woman from Seneca, Illinois, who burst into flames on Christmas Eve in 1885, with her body being completely incinerated except for her feet. The fire also claimed the life of her husband, Patrick, who suffocated from the fumes. Investigators found no evidence of foul play or an external source of ignition, leading to speculation that SHC was the cause. More recently, in 2010, an Irish coroner attributed the death of 76-year-old Michael Faherty to spontaneous combustion, as his body was badly burned while the surrounding area remained largely undamaged.
While the idea of spontaneously bursting into flames captures the imagination, the scientific consensus is that SHC is extremely unlikely. The “wick effect” provides a more plausible explanation for many of the reported cases, with an external source of ignition often going undetected or destroyed by the fire. However, with a lack of concrete evidence, the mysteries surrounding SHC continue to intrigue and leave room for speculation.
