Modern Apocalypse in Reverse:

Edgar Allan Poes Diologue

The Conversation of Eiros
and Charmion. (1839)

Christian Zolles
The time of the apocalypse is divided between full stop
(or, ebtter, full stop with exclamation mark) and present
continuous. It is ending and continuity at one and the
same time. Apocalyptic indicates the end of time the
ultimate rupture. But this co-exists with another time,
the present continuous, the time of survival and bathos;
the time of continuing to produce, dust down and curate
the apocalyptic archive.
(Yvonne Sherwood)
The time of the apocalypse is divided between full stop
(or, ebtter, full stop with exclamation mark) and present
continuous. It is ending and continuity at one and the
same time. Apocalyptic indicates the end of time the
ultimate rupture. But this co-exists with another time,
the present continuous, the time of survival and bathos;
the time of continuing to produce, dust down and curate
the apocalyptic archive.
(Yvonne Sherwood)

The end approaches, but the apocalypse is long-lived.

(Jacques Derrida)
 The end of the world as subject of natural
sciences and history
Conceptions of ultimate progress
Scriptural Belief in the Revelation vs formation of
public sphere
Visionary enthusiasm vs Enlightenment
 The end of the world as subject of natural
sciences and history
Conceptions of ultimate progress
Scriptural Belief in the Revelation vs formation of
public sphere
Visionary enthusiasm vs Enlightenment

Apocalyptic is the bte-noire of the kinds of polities

and epistemologies that we call (and call into being as)
Western and modern.
(Yvonne Sherwood)
Edgar Allan Poe: The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion
(1839)

The views embodied in this conversation are in strict

accordance with philosophical speculation. [] The purport of
the article in question seems to be the suggestion of a mode
in which, through the cometary influence, the destruction of
the earth might be brought about, and brought about in
accordance to Prophecy. From the celestial visitant now
present [The Great Comet, 1843] we have, of course, nothing
to fear. [] But it came unheralded, and to-morrow its
counterpart, or some wonder even more startling, may make
it appearance. Its firm reliance upon the wisdom and
goodness of the Deity is by no means inconsistent with a due
sense of the manifold and multiform perils by which we are so
fearfully environed.
(commentary on 2nd edition by E. A. Poe)
Edgar Allan Poe: The Conversation of Eiros
and Charmion (1839)

CHARMION:
Dreams are with us no more.
Edgar Allan Poe: The Conversation of Eiros and
Charmion (1839)

CHARMION:
Dreams are with us no more.
The speculative Future merged in the august and
certain Present.
Edgar Allan Poe: The Conversation of Eiros
and Charmion (1839)

CHARMION:
Dreams are with us no more.
The speculative Future merged in the august and
certain Present.
Let us converse of familiar things, in the old
familiar language.
Edgar Allan Poe: The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion
(1839)

CHARMION:
Dreams are with us no more.
The speculative Future merged in the august and certain
Present.
Let us converse of familiar things, in the old familiar language.
Your mind wavers, and its agitation will find relief in the exercise
of simple memories. Look not around, nor forward but back.
Edgar Allan Poe: The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion
(1839)

CHARMION:
Dreams are with us no more.
The speculative Future merged in the august and certain
Present.
Let us converse of familiar things, in the old familiar language.
Your mind wavers, and its agitation will find relief in the exercise
of simple memories. Look not around, nor forward but back.

EIROS:
We could no longer apply to the strange orb any accustomed
thoughts. Its historical attributes had disappeared. It oppressed us
with a hideous novelty of emotion. We saw it not as an
astronomical phenomenon in the heavens, but as an incubus upon
our hearts, and a shadow upon our brains.
Living in the end times

We could no longer apply to the strange orb any

accustomed thoughts. Its historical attributes had
disappeared. It oppressed us with a hideous novelty of
emotion. We saw it not as an astronomical phenomenon
in the heavens, but as an incubus upon our hearts,
and a shadow upon our brains. (E.A. Poe)
Lars von Trier: Melancholia (2011)
Lars von Trier: Melancholia (2011)
Lars von Trier: Melancholia (2011)
Lars von Trier: Melancholia (2011)
Lars von Trier: Melancholia (2011)
But the nucleus of the destroyer was now
upon us; even here in Aidenn, I shudder while I
speak. (E.A. Poe)
But the nucleus of the destroyer was now upon
us; even here in Aidenn, I shudder while I
speak. (E.A. Poe)
A combustion irresistible, all-devouring, omni-
prevalent, immediate; the entire fulfillment, in all
their minute and terrible details, of the fiery and
horror-inspiring denunciations of the prophecies of
the Holy Book. (E.A. Poe)
Thus ended all (E.A.
Poe)
 Slavoj iek
The Optimism of Melancholia