In describing Dracula's ship careening towards the shore (though she did not know who was aboard), Mina describes the sight as this:
"As idle as a painted ship on a painted ocean"
What she saw was a ship headed, still a ways from shore, directly for a collision with the rocks and certain demise, but making no effort to trim its sales or change direction, with no crew visible on deck.
The quote is from the poem "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Bram Stoker makes good use of someone else's art to enhance is own.
He also leave us a clue into his mind when he wrote Dracula. Reading the poem in its entirety, a stanza exists that describes what Lucy transforms into:
Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was not writing about vampires and had no idea that someone else would reference his work in their own. But that is what happens sometimes. When done properly, it can greatly enhance and enrich the experience not only for the artist, but also for those of us who rediscover these hidden gems.
Directors do the same thing when preparing for a production. We read other pieces of literature, listen to music, look at other art, etc.
Even if we find and use things that were not intended, it can still serve to enhance our own art, and give our audiences layers and depths to our work to discover for themselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment