Tag Archives: Halloween

For Halloween, Dickinson Matches Poe

By Robin Bates | Published: October 30, 2025

Emily Dickinson matches Poe in gothic horror and is worth reading on Halloween.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Pit and the Pendulum", “’Tis so appalling it exhilarates", “’Twas like a Maelstrom with a notch", death and dying, Descent into the Maelstrom, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson | Comments closed

Halloween: “Purring in My Haunted Ear”

By Robin Bates | Published: October 31, 2024

For Halloween, here’s one of the scariest poems that I know. In it, Robert Graves recalls a childhood nightmare after he was wounded in World War I.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Child's Nightmare", Carl Jung, PTSD, Robert Graves | Comments closed

Halloween Horrors in the Aeneid

By Robin Bates | Published: October 30, 2023

For Halloween, check out the monsters who greet Aeneas on his way to the underworld.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Aeneid, Dante, death, Inferno, Underworld, Virgil | Comments closed

A Dickinson Poem for Halloween

By Robin Bates | Published: October 27, 2022

For the ultimate in horror, look to the human mind.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "One need not be a chamber to be haunted", Emily Dickinson, ghost stories, Gothic horror | Comments closed

Coleridge’s Nightmare LIFE-IN-DEATH

By Robin Bates | Published: October 28, 2021

Think of “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” as a Halloween poem.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge | Comments closed

For Halloween, Read Headley’s Beowulf

By Robin Bates | Published: October 29, 2020

For Halloween, reread Headley’s new translation of Beowulf, which uses the language of millennials and generation z.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Beowulf, Beowulf poet, Maria Dahvana Headley | Comments closed

Check Out the Bard for Halloween

By Robin Bates | Published: October 30, 2019

Shakespeare does a great Halloween. Check out Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Pinocchio, a Horror Story

By Robin Bates | Published: October 31, 2018

Disney’s “Pinocchio” sugarcoats the original, which is the stuff of nightmares. Happy Halloween.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Bruno Bettelheim, Carlo Collodi, fantasy, morality tales, Pinocchio, Uses of Enchantment | Comments closed

The Bard Does Halloween

By Robin Bates | Published: October 30, 2015

In honor of Halloween, check out what Shakespeare had to say about ghosts. When his graves yawn and yield up their dead, they produce apparitions that are genuinely frightening.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged ghosts, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare | Comments closed