Baffling Combustions

4. Chariot


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Here we throw words at the chariot, beginning with a review of this classic “supreme military weapon” emerging out of Eurasia about four thousand years back, before tackling its various archetypal, literary and artistic deployments. These include Plato’s chariot evocation as a way of explaining the soul’s construction; Emily Dickinson’s poem posthumously titled and adulterated as “The Chariot” (though we include a reading of its original lineation, words, and a missing stanza (no. 475)); the seat of Arjuna and Krishna’s conversation in the BHAGAVAD GITA; the Tarot card of this name; Erich von Däniken’s CHARIOTS OF THE GODS; Duchamp’s “Large Glass”; the Circus Maximus race in the film “Ben Hur”; the deployment of chariot in the 1915 parade of Suffragette’s up Fifth Avenue in New York City; and Bob Dylan's "115th Dream." You won’t want to miss our touching on much more ancient and contemporary lore as we seek to plumb the ongoing human fascination with this machine of imagination and violence.
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