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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 20h

#AScareADay
Lionel Johnson, "The Dark Angel"
Moral conflicts torment humans who must struggle ceaselessly against earthly desires to avoid eternal damnation.
Maybe Johnson had in mind Bosch's hellscapes (as I did) where a comprehensive range of human pleasures are mercilessly, foreverly punished.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 1d

#AScareADay
Oliphant, "The Secret Chamber"
Castles were built to keep the enemy out & to protect those inside. But in this story the castle's sturdy walls also trap a few within a generations-old secret that controls the male heirs.
Lindores wanted to find the secret room. And he did.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 2d

#AScareADay
Rhoda Broughton, "The Truth..."
Without a description or a naming of the horror that the housemaid & Ralph Gordon saw in that accursed room, we the readers can only experience the horror of the results of encountering such a horror.
For me that is more than enough horror for one day.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 3d

#AScareADay
Mulock, "Last House in C___ Street"

In this sad story, the ghost's appearance heralded the arrival of a new life & bid farewell to another's life well loved & lived.

For a brief moment the physical distance between husband & wife was bridged. But that path could only be walked by one.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 4d

I took some of the words in Bronte's poem as indicating a supernatural or other-worldly, even demonic, presence. It seemed possible that the stranger could even be Death - which I thought plausible because of the phrase "his basilisk charm".

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 4d

Fascinating. I appreciate this info. Good luck.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 4d

I opted for a terrifying interpretation guided by the hope that the inevitable could be delayed.
Death walks among them but is swayed by the generosity of the family that welcomes a stranger into their cheery home on a cold, dismal day.
Admittedly, I was influenced by my literal reading of the poem.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 4d

2/2 #AScareADay Bronte

The family members are terrified, not the least because
"lightning all unearthly shone / Deep in that dark eye's circling zone".
But the stranger hides his face & turns his withering gaze from them.
Why? Bronte doesn't say.
Perhaps Death decides to spare the family that day.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 4d

#AScareADay
The cheer of home & the warmth of hearth sets the tone for Emily Bronte's poem, "And now the house-dog". The family welcomes an unexpected stranger whose full face is cloaked. Once the visitor uncovers his head, the family confronts a ghastly visage, pale, with hair stringy & long.
1/2

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 5d

Some find the flickering images cast on a sooty cave wall more enchanting, more compelling than what the often glaring rays of reason can disclose.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 5d

#AScareADay
Tennyson, "The Kraken"
Mythical creatures should remain undisturbed, sleeping in the darkness of their lairs and in the depths of human imagination - else, once roused, they cannot endure the light of devastating reason.
[Influencing me: Poe, "Sonnet--To Science"; Yeats, "The Realists"]

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 6d

You're right.
Fate works in unfathomable ways, it seems.
We humans are but Fate's playthings, alas.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 6d

#AScareADay
Galt's "Buried Alive" is not ghostly, but is a frightening story of the protagonist's experiences of inadequate medical knowledge & technology.
Where would he be w/out grave robbers & the unintentional CPR of the anatomy professor's galvanic shocks & chest-pounding actions?
Where indeed.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 7d

3/3 #AScareADay
Hoffman varies the story's epistemic POV by changing its epistolary narrators. This highlights the story's scopic focus on eyes & sight, all initially deriving from the child's bogeyman, the Sandman.
Nate never develops deeper understanding, never seeing critically beyond appearance.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 7d

2/3 #AScareADay Hoffman
Nathanael's POV becomes embodied in the Coppelius/Coppola antagonist who, Nate believes, returns to bedevil him across his life. His perspective also becomes fixated from afar & romantically on the prototagonist(?!) Olimpia whose interactions with Nate are - no spoilers here!

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 7d

#AScareADay
ETA Hoffman, "The Sandman"
Where's the scare?
For me, it's in the inescapability of one's childhood terrors, even in adulthood.
Nathanael the protagonist carries w/ him both an internal monologue & interpersonal dialogues focusing on the deterministic influences on life & the cosmos.
1/3

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 8d

#AScareADay
Re: Johan Musaus, "The Elopement"
Can love conquer all, or at least alter a mother's goal to marry her daughter to a noble?
Is it true love when it persists over distance and time?
What's the role of the ghostly nuns? Plot tools, maybe twists, to test the lovers' resolve & ingenuity?

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 9d

Thank you.
I enjoyed composing my response.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 9d

"The flames in my circle of hell are a little warm. So red. But the gold accents are so golden. People say they've never seen gold accents like these before. Except maybe in the Big Beautiful Ballroom I built. Gold's everywhere. And marble. Can't get marble here. Brimstone's cornered the market."

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 9d

Herrick, "The Hag"
#AScareADay

Nightly mischief, the poet did claim,

Is linked to evil, to devilish aim.

But Satan at a presser did say, "Don't be quick.

Don't confuse mere correlates w/ deeper cause.

Against that, eternally, there should be laws.

Wouldn't you attest & agree, Robert Herrick?"

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 10d

Indeed, I am enjoying the readings.
I appreciate the opportunity to read outside of my field of political theory.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 11d

I've already started reading for #AScareADay
If that's wrong, I don't wanna be right.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 17d

During a brief interview the key said, "I guess my vacay - I mean my holiday - is over. Has much happened while I was gone?"

Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 18d

Oh my, oh my. Is it almost October again?
With Fall 2025 officially starting, I'm ready to be chlled to the bone. And I don't mean by the weather.
Looks like a great lineup of stories!
Every October I realize how little of this literature I've been exposed to.
Thank you for providing a solution!

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 19d

Sounds interesting. Hopefully your talk and others' talks will be uploaded to the very vast virtual vorld (Opps. The 'v' went vogue - I mean rogue - on me.)

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