I am the proud owner of Poe For Moderns which includes beatnik inspired readings over jazz backing, as well as the most jaw-dropping jazz vocal ensemble version of "The Raven" you probably don't want to hear.

What do you think is Coleridge's gothiest?

Kubla Khan? Dejection: An Ode? Frost at Midnight?

Speaking of Coleridge, it's very funny looking at all the allusions to "Person From Porlock" which occurs in everything from Sandman to Nabokov to Arthur Conan Doyle to Douglas Adams.

Also, it's being broadcast for free tonight at the Giants ballpark. People are bringing blankets and snacks and bedding down on the playing field. If I thought there was a chance in hell Emmett would tolerate opera, I'd've been pimping this outing approximately nine times a minute for the past two weeks.

JZ, do you like opera in general? Like, if I got tickets, would you be interested in going along? Also, the symphony is doing a semi-staged Iolanthe in late spring--any interest?

I am the proud owner of Poe For Moderns which includes beatnik inspired readings over jazz backing, as well as the most jaw-dropping jazz vocal ensemble version of "The Raven" you probably don't want to hear.

Was one of these on a buffistarawk Halloween mix?

t /music talk

This calls to mind that I've been enjoying "The Classic Tales" podcast quite a bit. It's mostly short stories, but has also done "The Highwayman" and "Rime of the Ancient Mariner". And I'm sure some Poe before I started listening. Sadly, only the most recent episodes are available free.

Was one of these on a buffistarawk Halloween mix?

Yep, "Ulalume."

Help us with the French decadents, megan. Baudelaire and Rimbaud and Verlaine surely have something goth to offer us.

Hey, there's a whole wikipedia subsection on Coleridge and the influence of the Gothic.

Love this tidbit:

Mary Shelley later recalled hiding behind the sofa and hearing [Coleridge's] voice chanting The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Mary Shelley, high spirited scamp.

What do you think is Coleridge's gothiest?

The writings that inspired Argento's Three Mothers trilogy (from Confessions of an Opium Eater, I believe).

Didn't someone already mention "Le Vampire"? That's what comes to mind for Baudelaire. I don't know Rimbaud or Verlaine very well off hand.

"Le Vampire"
Toi qui, comme un coup de couteau,
Dans mon coeur plaintif es entrée;
Toi qui, forte comme un troupeau
De démons, vins, folle et parée,

De mon esprit humilié
Faire ton lit et ton domaine;
— Infâme à qui je suis lié
Comme le forçat à la chaîne,

Comme au jeu le joueur têtu,
Comme à la bouteille l'ivrogne,
Comme aux vermines la charogne
— Maudite, maudite sois-tu!

J'ai prié le glaive rapide
De conquérir ma liberté,
Et j'ai dit au poison perfide
De secourir ma lâcheté.

Hélas! le poison et le glaive
M'ont pris en dédain et m'ont dit:
«Tu n'es pas digne qu'on t'enlève
À ton esclavage maudit,

Imbécile! — de son empire
Si nos efforts te délivraient,
Tes baisers ressusciteraient
Le cadavre de ton vampire!»

— Charles Baudelaire

from Confessions of an Opium Eater, I believe

Isn't that Thomas DeQuincey?

There's also

"Le Mort joyeux"

Dans une terre grasse et pleine d'escargots
Je veux creuser moi-même une fosse profonde,
Où je puisse à loisir étaler mes vieux os
Et dormir dans l'oubli comme un requin dans l'onde.

Je hais les testaments et je hais les tombeaux;
Plutôt que d'implorer une larme du monde,
Vivant, j'aimerais mieux inviter les corbeaux
À saigner tous les bouts de ma carcasse immonde.

Ô vers! noirs compagnons sans oreille et sans yeux,
Voyez venir à vous un mort libre et joyeux;
Philosophes viveurs, fils de la pourriture,

À travers ma ruine allez donc sans remords,
Et dites-moi s'il est encor quelque torture
Pour ce vieux corps sans âme et mort parmi les morts!

— Charles Baudelaire

The Joyful Corpse

In a rich, heavy soil, infested with snails,
I wish to dig my own grave, wide and deep,
Where I can at leisure stretch out my old bones
And sleep in oblivion like a shark in the wave.

I have a hatred for testaments and for tombs;
Rather than implore a tear of the world,
I'd sooner, while alive, invite the crows
To drain the blood from my filthy carcass.

O worms! black companions with neither eyes nor ears,
See a dead man, joyous and free, approaching you;
Wanton philosophers, children of putrescence,

Go through my ruin then, without remorse,
And tell me if there still remains any torture
For this old soulless body, dead among the dead!

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)