On Socrates’ Final Words

Socrates' last words: "Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt? The debt shall be paid, said Crito; is there anything else? There was no answer to this question; but in a minute or two a movement was heard, and the attendants uncovered him; his eyes were set, and …

Passage to the Underworld (The Fall of Mephisto writing sample)

The cavern covered the riverbank completely, and there was a pale glow of light far, far ahead on the other side of a great mass of water. The mist ahead obfuscated his eyesight, making the path ahead blurry and undiscernible. Mephisto approached the figure. He wore a dirty, dark robe, and his eyes shined like …

Dante’s Purgatorio: The Necessity of Christ

"Foolish is he who hopes our intellect can reach the end of that unending road only one Substance in three Persons follows. Confine yourselves, o human, to the quia, had you been able to see all, there would have been no need for Mary to give birth. You saw the fruitless longing of those men …

Philosophical Underpinnings of Loki: Episode 4

As noble and true Plato's Republic seems to be, there is a dark side to it, for Socrates' expresses the need for a "noble lie" which carries a lot of weight on how to organize his static state. The noble lie appears to be a marriage lottery but it's actually a way to control the …

Faust’s Unlikely Guide

Many great characters have a guide. Homer was Virgil's guide, Virgil was Dante's guide, Morpheus was Neo's guide. Both Morpheus and Virgil were men of cracked faith, spoiled by what they didn't know, disillusioned by revelation. It's interesting that Faust's guide wasn't Dante. Nor was the great Earth Spirit Faust's guide because he was unworthy …

Dissonance in The Deep (Writing Sample from Undercurrents)

The angel rose from his throne, spread his wings, and shot off into the darkness, further, and further, past the dying stars and floating asteroids. Until the gravitational pull was no more, he shone his light into the darkness, but he saw nothing. He strained his eyes and shone brighter, but it was folly, for …

Converted into Original Chaos

Dante's Inferno has an extraordinary passage where Dante likens Christ's harrowing of hell to the pre-Socratic Empedocles' cosmic forces of Love and Strife. The Inferno passage is: Now I would have you know: the other time that I descended into lower Hell, this mass of boulders had not yet collapsed; but if I reason rightly, …

Reason’s Peevish Blame

Before the story of The Castle Otranto, the story that started gothic literature, there is a sonnet tucked away. It's Romantic in its implications for it warns us of reason's peevish blame. That reason, science, mathematics, don't always cut to the heart of the matter. Oh! guard the marvels I relateOf fell ambition scourg'd by …

Keats on Negative Capability

The advantage of Negative Capability is that your identity isn't an obstacle. You can step outside of yourself and not be Stephen or Helen, be wrapped up in one's biology, or psychology, or social/environmental situation, but as a pure human being untainted by the products of what made one. If this is truly possible is …

Plato on the Madness of the Muses

It might be so if madness where simply an evil; but there is also a madness which is a divine gift, and the source of the chiefest blessings granted to men. ... The third kind is the madness of those who are possessed by the Muses; which taking hold of a delicate and virgin soul, …

The Ur Sorceress (Sample from The Fall of Mephisto)

The flame separated from the wick and traveled further into the darkness. Job stood and followed it until it illuminated another door. It was black. It was made of stone, maybe obsidian. He felt as if this door was the center of the labyrinth. On the door was written, “Death comes knocking.” He knocked on …

The Moral of Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Shakespeare doesn't moralize, he just writes, and his characterology is masterful. But after having read Hamlet, what a person would think upon reflection is, that if Hamlet would have just walked away, chilled the fuck out in some other castle or at a university, cooled his chaos, vented into the void, everything would have been …

The Romantic Solitary Wanderer and The Cult of Genius

There are rare beings who posses an abnormal abundance of emotions. Under certain conditions, for instance, in isolation, and with the right upbringing, they become more in tuned with reality. That is, isolation makes them vulnerable, and this vulnerability brings forth creation. So it is with the great genius of analyzation, who become wizards in …

Achilles, Man at War With Himself

Rage--Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son AchillesMurderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion,feasts for the dogs and birds,and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end. Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed. …

The Character Arc of Goethe’s Faust

The Faust of Part 1 is a bad man. He ruins a young girls life completely. He has killed Her mother and brother, he gets Gretchen pregnant and then deserts her. He's a bad man, a solipsist who can't get in the mind of others, he doesn't seem to empathize because he's too concerned with …