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Wednesday, April 13, 2011

A-Z: Kraken

Below the thunders of the upper deep,
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

–– Alfred Tennyson, "The Kraken"

This poem can be found at Wikisource.

5 comments:

  1. Never knew this was a Tennyson poem but must admit when I read the heading on my blogroll I immeadiately thought of Johnny Depp (the shame).

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  2. Throughout history, the reports of kraken and kraken-like monsters that slumber in the depths and rise up to cause destruction with their tentacles sounds like Cthulhu and other Great Old Ones to me ;)

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  3. Another great choice for the challenge. Will return for the morrow's!

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  4. Kraken, Behemoth, Leviathan... classic ancient monsters that manage to still remain in modern imaginations.

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  5. I think that's one of the cool things about so many mythical creatures, is how they stick around either in their "original" form or in resonated form. All the more reason to NOT feel shame at thinking first of Johnny Depp -- it's just a testament to the true extent and power of such legends in our general culture. No one version is better or higher, but all are part of a living breathing evolving mythology.

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