When her term to bear grew full, then behold! There were twins in her womb. The first one emerged red, entirely like a hairy mantle; so they named him Esau… but Jacob was an honest man, abiding in tents.

A world of pain and history of torture, dispossession and identity-theft has been built around Esav’s sale of his birthright to Jacob. But for our purposes, the fact that the brothers are twins and in various ways reflections and completions of each other is the central feature of the narrative; that and the fact that Esav’s nature is linked by etymology to goats, blood, soil and the food he demanded in exchange for his birthright. (more…)

This is an excerpt of an essay on a masterwork of poeisis that illuminates the West’s relation to Israel.  The notes have not come through but it is a valuable meditation on Shelley’s “Julian & Maddalo” (1818-19). Look for forthcoming work, The West, Image-work & the Wasteland.” — en

A broken Prometheus, a Hunger Artist still strong, angry and hopeful enough to sing, the Maniac knows his madness is heightened by wearing a “mask of falsehood,” a smiling mask over the tangle of his bifurcated history; “no scorn or pain or hate could be so heavy as that falsehood is to me,” he emphasizes, expressing the true agony or passion of the meta-fiction, the one it inflicts on itself. He also epitomizes the use of art as disguise, to avoid further scorn, not to impose imperial schemes. (more…)