Can there be a dark apotheosis of something?

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...as in, a sort of mis-reading that doesn't encompass the entire truth of the matter, but does highlight the more darker, brutal aspects...

example: Jay Gatsby is the dark apotheosis of The autobiography of Ben Franklin.

(im writing a paper, not sure if this sounds right. If apotheosis isn't the right word, what is?)

― thanx, Wednesday, 30 November 2005 23:36 (twenty years ago)

No offense, but: "Jay Gatsby is the dark apotheosis of The autobiography of Ben Franklin" makes no sense.

Do you mean, like, Jay Gatsby's life is to Ben Franklin's as the orcs are to the elves?

― giboyeux (skowly), Wednesday, 30 November 2005 23:41 (twenty years ago)

Maybe something like "Jay Gatsby is the dark apotheosis of the kind of self-made American first exemplified in The Autobiography of Ben Franklin"?

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 30 November 2005 23:43 (twenty years ago)

'dark apotheosis' still doesn't sit well with me. There's a better term here...

― giboyeux (skowly), Wednesday, 30 November 2005 23:46 (twenty years ago)

i know there is, i just dont know it. (this post is a very rough version of what im thinking, just general ideas.)

― thanx, Wednesday, 30 November 2005 23:49 (twenty years ago)

http://carpebonum.net/archives/images/Evil%20Spock-thumb.jpg

― oooh, Wednesday, 30 November 2005 23:50 (twenty years ago)

http://www.terra.es/personal/mbayona/ac254d.jpg

― oooh, Wednesday, 30 November 2005 23:51 (twenty years ago)

Well, "dark apotheosis" is a good example of a particular sort of purple phrase making that appeals to some people, but mostly it appeals to writers, not to readers - which is a very good reason for writers to give themselves an approving pat on the head when they dream up such a phrase and then edit it out.

The main problem is that such phrases stubbornly resist intelligibility. They almost mean something. They approximate the shape of an idea. They have a pungent taste, but taste of nothing you can name. They arrest the reader's attention, stopping them dead in mid-sentence, but they don't reward that attention by resolving into anything they can carry to the end of the sentence. So, finally, they irritate more than they delight.

My opinion.

― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 1 December 2005 00:23 (twenty years ago)

a·poth·e·o·sis (?-p?th'?-?'s?s, ?p'?-th?'?-s?s)
n., pl. -ses (-s?z').
Exaltation to divine rank or stature; deification.
Elevation to a preeminent or transcendent position; glorification: “Many observers have tried to attribute Warhol's current apotheosis to the subversive power of artistic vision” (Michiko Kakutani).
An exalted or glorified example: Their leader was the apotheosis of courage.
[Late Latin apothe?sis, from Greek, from apotheoun, to deify : apo-, change; see apo– + theos, god.]

So what would a "dark apotheosis" be, anyway? Exaltation to satanic stature?

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Thursday, 1 December 2005 00:31 (twenty years ago)

...its a college English paper, no more, no less. if i didn't have to write the bastard, i wouldn't...

that said, in my mind "dark apotheosis" is satanic, in its own way. Gatsby, as exemplified many times in his tragedy, believes in the utilitarianism of Franklin, but is woefully misguided as to use his capacity for self-betterment. Gatsby is a pinnacle of what can go wrong if one believes too strongly in the american myth of 'rags to riches'.

or something like that...

― thanx, Thursday, 1 December 2005 00:46 (twenty years ago)

Gatsby is a pinnacle of what can go wrong if one believes too strongly in the american myth of 'rags to riches'.
That sentence is better than one using "dark apothesis," I think.

― emilys. (emilys.), Thursday, 1 December 2005 00:51 (twenty years ago)

let it go

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 1 December 2005 01:01 (twenty years ago)

because (and I say this as someone who has graded more than his fair share of college english papers) that tertiary definition of "apotheosis" is wack to begin with - an apotheosis, dark or otherwise, is an event, not a personage.

and strike that "to be" construction, yo - "Jay Gatsby REPRESENTS..."

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 1 December 2005 01:08 (twenty years ago)

yeah, its lame, finally agreed

― thanx, Thursday, 1 December 2005 01:11 (twenty years ago)

I hear "dark apotheosis", I think...

GOTHIC ANUS

― turboalbino (haitch), Thursday, 1 December 2005 01:13 (twenty years ago)

oooh, you forgot

http://photos1.blogger.com/img/201/1033/320/EvilWillow.jpg

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 1 December 2005 01:18 (twenty years ago)

aw, what the hell...

http://www.x-mencharacters.com/images/Dark_Phoenix.jpg

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 1 December 2005 01:20 (twenty years ago)

actually, how about this?

"With his Autobiography, Ben Franklin set the template for the American Dream, a template that Mark Twain realized only worked if one avoided actually reading the work, and that F. Scott Fitzgerald to a shuddering apotheosis in The Great Gatsby."

― thanx, Thursday, 1 December 2005 01:21 (twenty years ago)

I think I can see where this is going to go.

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 1 December 2005 01:24 (twenty years ago)

badly, right?

― thanx, Thursday, 1 December 2005 01:25 (twenty years ago)

messily

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 1 December 2005 01:29 (twenty years ago)

"a shuddering apotheosis" = TEH MONEY SHOTZ0R

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 1 December 2005 01:30 (twenty years ago)

"With his Autobiography, Ben Franklin ~~set the~~ established a template for the American Dream, ~~a template~~ one that Mark Twain realized only worked if one avoided actually reading ~~the work~~ Franklin, and ~~that~~ which F. Scott Fitzgerald ~~VERB? to a shuddering apotheosis~~ [reduced to absurdity? brought to its inevitable, pathetic conclusion? etc etc?] in The Great Gatsby."

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 1 December 2005 01:32 (twenty years ago)

ruthlessly skewered?

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 1 December 2005 01:35 (twenty years ago)

WOULD ruthlessly skewer!

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 1 December 2005 01:36 (twenty years ago)

I can't go on. I'll go on. [/beckett]

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 1 December 2005 01:36 (twenty years ago)

hahahahaha

(i used to be so good at writing english papers. used to do it for money, even got $175 for 8 pages on Wilde (A+), but my 'talent' is essentially gone, obv.)

thanks for the help.

― thanx, Thursday, 1 December 2005 01:44 (twenty years ago)

Oh christ H, that gothic anus thread is hilarious, I'd forgotten about it.

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 1 December 2005 01:44 (twenty years ago)

It's a beautifully resonant phrase, 'dark apotheosis', that, like many fine phrases, is starting to become a cliche, especially among goths. Google it and find out!

― moley (moley), Thursday, 1 December 2005 01:44 (twenty years ago)

Holy... er... moley!

(note that I can't object to the construction "achieves/reaches/etc its dark apotheosis in...")

(note to self: stop selling blood to goths, start selling english papers to goths)

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 1 December 2005 01:49 (twenty years ago)

It's so easy, it's like selling eyeliner to goths.

― moley (moley), Thursday, 1 December 2005 02:15 (twenty years ago)

Dark Apotheosis of Something is actually a pretty good name for an emo band. SORRY but it's true. And therefore funny.

― moley (moley), Thursday, 1 December 2005 02:20 (twenty years ago)

nine years pass...

Did we ever sort this out

― MONKEY had been BUMMED by the GHOST of the late prancing paedophile (darraghmac), Tuesday, 24 November 2015 02:29 (ten years ago)

No offense but "Jay Gatsby is the dark apotheosis of The autobiography of Ben Franklin" makes no sense.

― Treeship, Tuesday, 24 November 2015 02:36 (ten years ago)

Treeship thinks not, revive is a hit

― MONKEY had been BUMMED by the GHOST of the late prancing paedophile (darraghmac), Tuesday, 24 November 2015 02:39 (ten years ago)

The effort to bring together the logic of the commodity form with the social, to calibrate thought and economy (efforts undertaken differently by Karl Marx and Max Weber) finds its dark apotheosis in Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment.

― drash, Tuesday, 24 November 2015 21:32 (ten years ago)

Ad Reinhardt ‘s, Black Paintings series (1963-66), might, as a group, be seen as the “ultima thule” of generic painting, abstraction’s dark apotheosis with barely differentiated and repetitive compositional schema.

― drash, Tuesday, 24 November 2015 21:33 (ten years ago)

The speed with which they gained ground, the rapid succession of quick victories they accumulated (included their dramatic seizure of the city of Mosul), and the shocking way in which the Iraqi army melted before them came together to function as a kind of dark apotheosis for the group, leaving them not only the world’s richest terrorist organization, but also its most feared.

― drash, Tuesday, 24 November 2015 21:33 (ten years ago)

Your search - "gaz coombes" "dark apotheosis" - did not match any documents.

― drash, Tuesday, 24 November 2015 21:34 (ten years ago)

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