Bobbie Sellers wrote:

Don wrote:

<snip>

Yet, despite my proclivity for YA, the fight continues. Robert
Frederick offers world class research on Bacon. He recently released
another free episode:

The Gnostic Romeo and Juliet: Sex, Death, Violence and Vampires

Romeo and Juliet is possibly the most famous and popular
play of all time- it's filled with death, not love and
there is barely any romance! I make a detailed scene by
scene case that this play is hiding a horror movie.

<https://thehiddenlifeisbest.com/post/episode-17>

I would tend to agree with your evaluation of the Romeo and Juliet and perhaps with the aid of the Monk it becomes a Gothic
tale. Modern enactment do not properly emphasis the horror of
the situation. Two children seduced by Love(I hear it is a drug)
die rather that live without each other.

Up until now, my mind associated Gothic with gloomy Germanic people. You motivated me to look a little deeper. Here's one definition of Gothic
Horror:

The Basics

If you're looking for a basic answer for what makes up gothic
horror, some of the hallmarks are:

Haunted and decayed settings (castles, homes, etc.)
Supernatural elements (especially ghosts)
Themes of isolation and/or confinement (both physical and mental)
Emotional and psychological overwhelm (characters doubting their
reality, facing emotional turmoil like grief and loss, etc.)
Morally ambiguous characters (these characters engage the reader's
thinking on a deeper level)
Discussions of religion or philosophy (often tied to the morally
ambiguous character)
Terror vs. horror (terror is when authors use suspense to
build unease, and horror is when the promise of that terror
is delivered) ...

The author says "almost anything by Edgar Allan Poe" qualifies as gothic horror. Poe's my favorite author. Despite my massive family, and
professional network, isolation beckons.
Russian generals Nevsky, Suvorov, and Rokossovsky retired into
monastic isolation. Le Carre touches on this trait in SMILEY'S PEOPLE:

'How long was the journey?' Smiley interrupted, as he
continued writing.
Across town, Grigoriev replied vaguely. Across town,
then into countryside till dark. Till we reached this one
little man like a monk, sitting in a small room, who seemed
to be their master.
Once again, Toby insists on bearing witness here to
Smiley's unique mastery of the occasion. It was the
strongest proof yet of Smiley's tradecraft, says Toby -
as well as of his command of Grigoriev altogether - that
throughout Grigoriev's protracted narrative, he never once,
whether by an over-hasty follow-up question or the smallest
false inflection of his voice, departed from the faceless
role he had assumed for the interrogation. By his self-
effacement, Toby insists, George held the whole scene 'like
a thrush's egg in his hand'. The slightest careless movement
on his part could have destroyed everything, but he never
made it. And as the crowning example, Toby likes to offer
this crucial moment, when the actual figure of Karla was for
the first time introduced. Any other inquisitor, he says, at
the very mention of a 'little man like a monk who seemed to
be their master,' would have pressed for a description - his
age, rank, with the mention of a 'little man like a monk who
seemed to be their master', Not Smiley. Smiley with a
suppressed exclamation of annoyance tapped his ballpoint pen
on his pad, and in a long-suffering voice invited Grigoriev,
then and for the future, kindly not to foreshorten factual detail:
'Let me put the question again. How long was the journey?
Please describe it precisely as you remember it and let us
proceed from there.'


C S Lewis' MERE CHRISTIANITY exposits emphemeral love. In the beginning,
love shares the intense feelings of excitement, euphoria, and energy experienced with recreational drug use. Then there's the Come Down.

Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last;
but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people
say, the state called 'being in love' usually does not
last. If the old fairy-tale ending 'They lived happily
ever after' is taken to mean 'They felt for the next fifty
years exactly as they felt the day before they were married',
then it says what probably never was nor ever would be true,
and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to
live in that excitement for even five years? What would become
of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships? But,
of course, ceasing to be 'in love' need not mean ceasing to
love. Love in this second sense-love as distinct from 'being in
love'-is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by
the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by
(in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and
receive, from God.

Danke,

--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

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