Poison is the prevalent gothic element in “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” Poison and its connection with beauty and, in the case of Beatrice, goodness and life also supplies ample Hawthorian ambiguity. All of the characters, in one way or another, are poisoned either mentally or physically. This poison, or poisoning, leads to the tale’s other gothicisms, namely [...]
Archive | January, 1994
Blok’s “The Stranger”
Alexander Blok’s poem “The Stranger” tests veritas, or reality. It is concerned with reality and peoples’ perceptions of it. These people, or more apropos to the poem, these drunkards, attest “In vino veritas.” Blok’s narrator is convinced by the poem’s end that this subjectivity is his preferred reality. In the world of “reality,” the “putrid [...]
