1 Name: 4shenfell : 2021-03-09 15:38 ID:PngKXEQj [Del]
I read this essay a while ago and I only half remember most of it but it was very interesting: it has the vibe of something that you'd find on myspace in '04. But no, it was written in 1827 by one of the more notable romantics of the era (that being Thomas De Quincey). Have any of y'all read it?
It was written (I believe) as a satirisation of the way death had been sensationalised by popular art at the time. As such, the narrator is conducting a lecture for the fictional "Society of Connoisseurs in Murder" in which he describes various murders he has done and the "artfulness" behind them. The most absurd thing about it is, as a romantic, De Quincey has such a good way with words that, if i didn't know it was satire, I would've assumed the essay was being straight-faced about it. I guess this is a product of the most violent stuff in the essay being fairly tame in comparison to what we see all the time in our modern life. It's definitely an interesting read; my versions less than 60 pages long so you could blitz it over a long evening if you wanted. It's also hella cheap, with its RRP being like 80p from Penguin.
"I have had the honour to be appointed by your committee to the trying task of reading the Williams' Lecture on Murder, considered as one of the Fine arts - a task which might be easy enough three or four centuries ago, when the art was little understood, and a few great models had been exhibited; but in this age, when masterpieces of excellence have been executed by professional men, it must be evident, that in the style of criticism applied to them, the public will look for something of a corresponding improvement."
