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July 17, 2007
CAAF: Emerson's early efforts
Last week I wrote about Maugham's The Magician, a gothic novel written early in the author's career. Another unlikely dabbler in the form: Emerson.
From Robert Richardson's Emerson: The Mind on Fire:
In writing, as in other endeavors, Emerson did not find his characteristic voice while at college, although some traits begin to emerge. In prose he was working on wildly diverse projects. One was a lurid gothic tale about a Norse prophetess and sibyl and her magician son. The fantasy is overheated and overwritten -- more dream than anything else, a sort of Norse Vathek. The heroine Uilsa speaks:"Did I not wake the mountains with my denouncing scream -- calling vengeance from the north? Odin knew me and thundered. A thousand wolves ran down the mountain scared by the hideous lightning and baring the tooth to kill; they rushed after the cumbrous host. I saw when the pale faces glared back in terror as the black wolf pounced on his victim."
Posted July 17, 2007 12:00 AM
