There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. In the meantime it was folly to grieve or to think. The external world could take care of itself.
With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince’s own eccentric yet august taste. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his crenellated abbeys. And the whole seizure, progress, and termination of the disease, were incidents of half an hour.īut Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. Blood was its Avatar and its seal - the madness and the horror of blood. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. A., "The Masque of the Red Death.The red death had long devastated the country. With that in mind, please stay safe and healthy! No amount of hubris - be it derived from health, wealth, or power - can protect you from the inevitable. We hope you enjoy this reading, and that you’ll remember its key lesson. The convivial spirit of the party, however, soon unravels as the guests’ creeping sense of their own mortality grows stronger, until they realize - far too late - that an unwanted guest is in their midst. To spite the threat of contagion, Prospero throws a magnificent masquerade ball, inviting his courtiers and friends to gather in a gratuitous, hedonistic celebration of life. Each of the works we re:read will include themes related to current political and cultural events, and will be bookended by brief reflections on its implications for contemporary audiences.įor our first re:read, we bring to life a timely tale from horror master Edgar Allan Poe: “The Masque of the Red Death.” This story narrates a gala-turned-nightmare in the abbey of Prince Prospero, a rich despot presiding over a nation ravaged by a horrific plague known as the Red Death. Today marks the inauguration of a new style of episode we’re trying out called re:read, in which we bring you sonic re-imaginings of literary works, featuring dramatic vocal performances, sound effects, and music.
0 kommentar(er)
