Day One

Yesterday was day one. It was easy for me to locate short stories and poems in my library, and a bit more difficult to find essays. I have a lot, as I have found since this morning, but I forgot to check LibraryThing under the term "essay." Even then, however, I was wanting something other than a theological essay.

The readings I ended up with last night were the story "A Curtain of Green" by Eudora Welty (one of Bradbury's specific recommendations), the essay "Diaphaneitè" by Walter Pater, and the poem "The Song of the Indian Maid" by John Keats.

The Eudora Welty story reminded me of just how little a short story needs to do to be effective. The focus seemed to be on the meaning of one feeling at one point in time. The Walter Pater piece gave me a category for a kind of person. I want to consider that idea more. The closest I've seen to this kind of thinking is in C.G. Jung, or perhaps Camille Paglia. There was a quote from Carlyle that sounds like a story idea in itself: "'What,' says Carlyle, of Charlotte Corday, 'What if she had emerged from her secluded stillness, suddenly like a star; cruel-lovely, with half-angelic, half-daemonic splendour; to gleam for a moment, and in a moment be extinguished; to be held in memory, so bright complete was she, through long centuries!'"

The Keats poem was a revelation. This did not surprise me after recently seeing the movie "Bright Star" which featured quite a few of his poems. I want to slow down and analyze this, and I may, but Bradbury will have me continuing to read, too.