Roderick

Roderick Usher is the main character in Edgar Allen Poe’s famous 1839 short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher”. Roderick is a great name, but this character is a mess! Sorry, that’s the way it is. He and his invalided, bed-ridden, in-a-trance mess of a twin sister, Madeline, live together in the decaying family mansion. She is a physical wreck and he’s an emotional one; the eerie and distasteful suggestion of a kind of spiritual incest between them hangs in the air. Roderick has called upon a friend, the unnamed narrator, to come and help him out – and he needs it! Roderick is a hypochondriac and a probable agoraphobic who also, just by the way, buries his sister alive, while telling his friend she is dead. Not so fast, says she, managing to claw her way out of her tomb and take her revenge on Roderick. At the end of this cheery tale, the narrator escapes with his life, while the House of Usher splits in two and falls upon the dead Roderick and Madeline, now united forever. In 1960, Roger Corman made a low-budget film entitled House of Usher, with Vincent Price as Roderick, but that doesn’t help matters at all.

The Vision of Don Roderick is an 1811 poem by Sir Walter Scott about the last Visigothic King of Spain Rodrigo’s legendary vision (Rodrigo’s name was anglicized to Roderick by the Scottish poet). In the poem, the king goes inside a magical chamber where, according to legend, the future will be exposed but only to the “last” King of Spain. Amidst his military campaign against the Moors, the king enters the magnificent marble chamber and sees two giant bronze statues on either side of the hall. One statue is holding an hourglass which instantly runs out of sand, while the other giant statue hurls a scepter at a far wall which immediately displays a movie-like panorama revealing the future of Spain. It foretells the imminent conquest by the Moors (8th century); the Spanish Inquisition (15th century) and the Napoleonic conquest of Portugal (around the time this poem was written, between 1807 and 1814). It also revealed how the British would come to the aid of the Portuguese and help liberate them. The proceeds from the sale of the poem were used to help fund the Portuguese but also to provide inspiration for a victorious outcome.

The Vision of Don Roderick is an 1811 poem by Sir Walter Scott about the last Visigothic King of Spain Rodrigo’s legendary vision (Rodrigo’s name was anglicized to Roderick by the Scottish poet). In the poem, the king goes inside a magical chamber where, according to legend, the future will be exposed but only to the “last” King of Spain. Amidst his military campaign against the Moors, the king enters the magnificent marble chamber and sees two giant bronze statues on either side of the hall. One statue is holding an hourglass which instantly runs out of sand, while the other giant statue hurls a scepter at a far wall which immediately displays a movie-like panorama revealing the future of Spain. It foretells the imminent conquest by the Moors (8th century); the Spanish Inquisition (15th century) and the Napoleonic conquest of Portugal (around the time this poem was written, between 1807 and 1814). It also revealed how the British would come to the aid of the Portuguese and help liberate them. The proceeds from the sale of the poem were used to help fund the Portuguese but also to provide inspiration for a victorious outcome.