1783 Volcano fun.

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Hello, long time no post (it's so slow these days on a non-Intel Mac!). Dunno if this news has travelled worldwide, but European airspace is currently unusable because of the dust cloud from an Icelandic volcano. If the eruption goes on much longer it's going to cause imported food shortages here and severe hardship for - for example - African farmers who depend on air freight to the European market. Hundreds of skeletons from a medieval mass grave were recently dug up near my friend's workplace in Spitalfields, London, dead from starvation after a volcano caused failed harvests, and I heard discussion of the 1783 eruption today, and found this in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/15/iceland-volcano-weather-french-revolution

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

That's an interesting point - Pompeii was rediscovered in the early-mid 18thc and was on the 18thc 'Grand Tour'and the idea of a mountain destroying a (decadent?) society appeals to the 'sublime' imagination, so maybe that's why (?). Tiger imagery also features a lot, a wild force as opposed to the 'monarchical' Lion with its pride-hierarchy ('Tyger Tyger burning bright' - written in 1793/4, full of Promethean imagery - the animal equivalent of the volcano!).