St. Elmo's Fire - in Literature

In Literature

One of the earliest references to the phenomenon appears in Alcaeus's Fragment 34a about the Dioscuri, or Castor and Pollux. It is also referenced in Homeric Hymn 33 to the Dioscuri who were from Homeric times associated with it. Whether the Homeric Hymn antedates the Alcaeus fragment is unknown.

Also in The Castaways of the Flying Dutchman by Brian Jacques St. Elmo's Fire is mentioned.

The phenomenon appears to be described first in the Gesta Herwardi, written around 1100 and concerning an event of the 1070s. However, one of the earliest direct references to St. Elmo's fire made in fiction can be found in Ludovico Ariosto's epic poem Orlando furioso (1516). It is located in the 17th canto (19th in the revised edition of 1532) after a storm has punished the ship of Marfisa, Astolfo, Aquilant, Grifon, and others, for three straight days, and is positively associated with hope:

But now St. Elmo's fire appeared, which they had so longed for, it settled at the bows of a fore stay, the masts and yards all being gone, and gave them hope of calmer airs.

In Shakespeare's The Tempest (c. 1623), Act I, Scene II, St. Elmo's fire acquires a more negative association, appearing as evidence of the tempest inflicted by Ariel according to the command of Prospero:

PROSPERO

Hast thou, spirit, Perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee?

ARIEL

To every article. I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak, Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, I flamed amazement: sometime I'ld divide, And burn in many places; on the topmast, The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly, Then meet and join.

— Act I, Scene II, The Tempest

Later in 18th century and 19th century literature associated St. Elmo's fire with bad omen or divine judgment, coinciding with the growing conventions of Romanticism and the Gothic novel. For example, in Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), during a thunderstorm above the ramparts of the castle:

"And what is that tapering of light you bear?" said Emily, "see how it darts upwards,—and now it vanishes!" "This light, lady", said the soldier, "has appeared to-night as you see it, on the point of my lance, ever since I have been on watch; but what it means I cannot tell". "This is very strange!" said Emily. "My fellow-guard", continued the man, "has the same flame on his arms; he says he has sometimes seen it before...he says it is an omen, lady, and bodes no good". "And what harm can it bode?" rejoined Emily. "He knows not so much as that, lady".

— Vol. III, Ch. IV, The Mysteries of Udolpho

Starbuck points out "corpusants" in Melville's novel Moby Dick during a thunder storm in the Japanese sea in chapter 119 "The Candles".

In Lars von Trier's 2011 film Melancholia, the phenomenon is clearly observed in the opening sequence and later in the film as the rogue planet Melancholia approaches Earth for an impact event.

In Hergé's twentieth title in the comic book series The Adventures of Tintin, Tintin in Tibet, Tintin recognizes the phenomenon on Captain Haddock's ice-axe.

In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, when Billy Pilgrim sees the phenomenon on soldiers' helmets and on rooftops.

Kurt Vonnegut's book, The Sirens of Titan, also notes the phenomenon affecting Winston Niles Rumfoord's dog, Kazak, the Hound of Space, in conjunction with solar disturbances of the chrono-synclastic infundibulum.