Occasionally, I stumble on an idea that really excites me.  This would be a fortuitous occurrence to combat mid-day lethargy, but for better or worse, I’ve become perhaps irrevocably nocturnal.  As such, it’s two in the morning, and re-reading sections of Paradise Lost for the upcoming candidacy exam has yielded a level of excitement about pondering the nature of evil – indeed, writing an essay completely committed to the topic of evil, which seems appropriate for a horror blog.  And the excitement is difficult to contain.  Really, I’m not exaggerating.  I even thought maybe dissecting literary depictions of evil would be good fodder for a doctoral dissertation, which brought further almost uncomfortable fervor.  So, I started pacing around frantically, then I decided to settle on the couch for a ten-minute meditation, to calm down and focus.  I have learned, especially under the right circumstances, that I am a person who feels very strong emotions.  In any case, the idea tonight is to harness those emotions into a writing product, one of my atypical miscellaneous essays for this blog, a piece of writing not tied to one particular work of art.  Who knows – such meanderings may even help me shape the dissertation I need to start writing in about two years.  As usual, then, I’m using whoever might be misguided enough to read my thoughts for my own academic purposes.  To that end, thanks for your time. Continue reading “3 A.M. Thoughts on Evil” →