Celebrate Creativity

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 334 Poe and Frankenstein Both Mary Shelley and Poe delve into Gothic themes such as monstrosity, isolation, guilt, and the boundaries of human experience.  For example, in Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein's creation of the monster explores the consequences of transgressing natural limits, as well as themes of guilt and alienation.  Poe&apos...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I want to delve into what is generally viewed as the first vampire novel - the VAMPYRE by John William Polidori and published in 1819. This novella marked the beginning of modern vampire fiction and introduced the archetype of the aristocratic vampire through the character of Lord Ruthven. Polidori's work was inspired by a fragment of a story written by Lord...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 332 - Darkness The Vampyre and Frankenstein are two liteary works that came out of the literary competition at the Villa Diadati - but another lesser known work is Lord George Gordon Byron’s Darkness.  There is a lot of information in this episode - after an introduction, I am going to analyze the poem line by line - and then when you hopefully h...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - episode 331 - The Year Without a Summer, Part Two In the previous episode, I talked about the basic background behind the eruption of Mount Tamboro - but in this episode I would like to delve into not only the volcanic eruption, but the literary effects - especially the Gothic influences on Edgar Poe. Support the show Thank you for experiencing Celebrate...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - This is Episode 330 - The Year Without a Summer, Part One - the 1815 explosion of Mount Tambora would have been much longer, and much louder, and become an ecological terror. Now, In the past few episodes, Poe has delved into Ivan the Terrible and Vlad the Impaler - two historical figures, whether by sensibility or mythology, have played a role in the de...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 355 - Vlad the Impaler, Part Two In the previous episode, I talked excusively about the historical figure - Vlad the Impaler.  But in this episode, I want to introduce a literary figure - Dracula - who is often confused with that historical figure - Vlad the Impaler. Support the show Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 328 - Vlad the Impaler, Part One Vlad the Impaler was a 15th-century ruler of Wallachia, a historical region in modern-day Romania. His life and reign were marked by political intrigue, military campaigns, and extreme cruelty, earning him a fearsome reputation that persists to this day. Vlad's legacy is deeply tied to his brutal methods of p...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 327 - How Terrible Was Ivan? I hope that from the previous episode, you have come to the conclusion that Ivan the Terrible was a very formidable guy.  But how did he get the name Ivan the Terrible? Well, you see, Ivan IV Vasilyevich, commonly known as Ivan the Terrible, earned his most common name due to a combination of linguistic interpretation...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - this is episode 326 - Don’t Fool with Ivan From Poe’s favorite melody to Russia’s darkest czar - now In this episode, I want to continue an exploration of Gothic works and the psychological complexities that resonate with Poe’s literary works - in other words, go back and explore the influences on Poe’s works - especially the dark and Gothic.  Obviously,...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - This is episode 325 - The Hero’s Journey During the Christmas holidays, you may remember that I went over the the complete The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, written in 1900.  And by the way, when I finished writing the transcript for this episode, I realized that, while it was meant as a temporary transition from Poe’s works to The Wonderful W...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 325 - Translating Poe Before Celebrate Poe goes any further, I want to admit that I am going back and dealing with some of the influences of Poe - emphasizing that they were part of Gothic literature or writing that employs dark and picturesque scenery, startling and melodramatic narrative devices, and an overall atmosphere of exoticism, mystery,...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 325 - Translating Poe Before Celebrate Poe goes any further, I want to admit that I am going back and dealing with some of the influences of Poe - emphasizing that they were part of Gothic literature or writing that employs dark and picturesque scenery, startling and melodramatic narrative devices, and an overall atmosphere of exoticism, mystery,...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 321 - DeQuincy, Baudelaire, and Poe - Part Three) I hope you listened to the previous episode that deals with Thomas De Quincy and his 1821 autobiographical work "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. But before we go any further, I wan to try and clear something up. An opium-eater is not actually someone who eats opium, but rather a person...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - my name is George Bartley and this is episode 321 - Answer to Listener The intro music was Come Rest in This Bosom - said to be Edgar Poe’s favorite song.   I’d like to start with a whooper of an apology - last month - yes, last month - I got a kind message with my podcast episode on my iPhone - I was so elated that I did an entire episode in response to...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe  - Episode 320 -  DeQuincy, Baudelaire, and Poe - Part Two When I started this podcast, my plans are to delve more into Charles Baudelaire, but I ran into something that I did not expect.  Oh sure, there was his great collection known as Flowers of Evil and his classic and highly influential translation of Poe’s works.  And I began reading a book about the...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - episode 319 - Intolerable Leaders This should be episode 319 - Baudelaire, De Quincey, and Poe - Part Two.  But while I was looking through some past transcripts on my web site, I ran across one that addressed the invasion of the Capital in Washington. It was an issue that I strongly felt needed to be addressed 4 years ago when it happened, and our recen...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - this is episode 318 - DeQuincy, Baudelaire, and Poe - Part One Recently, I ran across a book about Charles Baudelaire called A Portrait of the Artist as a Drug Addict.  There is no question about it - According to the author -  Charles Baudelaire, the translator of Edgar Allan Poe's works, was a heavy user of opium. Baudelaire wrote extensively abou...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 317 - Flowers of Evil Today I want to look at some of Baudelaire’s masterpiece - Les Fleurs du Mal - or The Flowers of Evil. First published in 1857, the poems were extremely controversial upon publication, with six of its poems censored due to their immorality.  Now it is now considered a major work of French poetry. The poems in The Flowers of...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 316 - From Ecstasy to Anguish Many years ago, when I was working at the Poe Museum in Richmond, I remember the brilliant curator, Chris Semptner talking about a French writer who was greatly influenced by Poe and translated Poe’s works into French. Chris seemed to be very excited at the connection, but to be honest, I forgot the writer’s name and...

Send us Fan Mail I guess you could say I unconsciously (or maybe even consciously) devoted at least 11 or 12 of the previous episodes reading the complete version of the original The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - because the movie Wicked is currently popular. Then I considered the movie A Complete Unknown about the great Bob Dylan.   But the problem was that I didn’t think there was ANY connection betw...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Episode 318 - Salad Days, the Beatles, Taylor Swift, and Poe. And yes, this podcast has returned to the subject of Edgar Allan Poe - and I know you will enjoy the ride as this podcast delves deeper into the life and works of America’s Shakespeare. I hope you had a great 2024, and have an even better 2025.  This year, one of my New Year’s Resolutions (in addition thoroug...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - This should be episode 314 - Home Again The four travelers passed through the rest of the forest in safety, and when they came out from its gloom saw before them a steep hill, covered from top to bottom with great pieces of rock. “That will be a hard climb,” said the Scarecrow, “but we must get over the hill, nevertheless.” Support the show Thank you for...

Send us Fan Mail Chapter XVI The Magic Art of the Great Humbug Next morning the Scarecrow said to his friends: “Congratulate me. I am going to Oz to get my brains at last. When I return I shall be as other men are.” “I have always liked you as you were,” said Dorothy simply. Support the show Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - this is episode 311 - Chapter XV The Discovery of Oz, the Terrible The four travelers walked up to the great gate of Emerald City and rang the bell. After ringing several times, it was opened by the same Guardian of the Gates they had met before. Support the show Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.

Send us Fan Mail Chapter XIII  The Rescue The Cowardly Lion was much pleased to hear that the Wicked Witch had been melted by a bucket of water, and Dorothy at once unlocked the gate of his prison and set him free. They went in together to the castle, where Dorothy’s first act was to call all the Winkies together and tell them that they were no longer slaves. There was great rejoicing among the ye...