Monday, September 23, 2013

links

Grauniad Poem of the Week: "To Autumn," John Keats
All of Keats's Odes abound in mythical beings. There are the three urn-figures of "Indolence" (Love, Ambition and Poesie), the eponymous "Psyche" and "Melancholy", the "light-winged Dryad" of "Nightingale", and the "marble men and maidens" in "Grecian Urn". Like Ambition and Poesie, the addressee of "To Autumn" may be allegorical, Keats taking his cues not only from Spenser's "Mutabilitie" cantos, but from Chatterton's "Ælla: A Tragicall Interlude", both of which feature a male Autumn.

Stephen King on alcoholism and returning to the Shining
It also captures the reality of a recovering alcoholic, a state with which King is intimately familiar. "The hungover eye," he writes, "had a weird ability to find the ugliest things in any given landscape." Danny turns his life around and starts going to AA meetings, where, King writes, he discovers that memories are the "real ghosts". It is a book as extravagantly inventive as any in King's pantheon, and a careful study of self-haunting: "You take yourself with you, wherever you go."

Kelly Clarkson gives up Jane Austen's ring
Mary Guyatt, curator of Jane Austen's House Museum, said: "We have been stunned by the generosity and light-footedness of all those who have supported our campaign to meet the costs of acquiring Jane Austen's ring for our permanent collection. Visitors come from all around the world to see the house where she once lived, and we will now take great pleasure in displaying this pretty ring for their appreciation."