LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Mount Vesuvius
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Joseph John writes in World Literature Today: 'Mount Vesuvius in Eight Frames is a slim volume containing eight poems by Sudeep Sen and eight etchings by Peter Standen. The poems are meditations on the aftermath of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, which destroyed the Italian city of Pompeii, and the etchings provide pictorial representations of the love-death nexus on which these meditations focus. Together the poems and the etchings evoke an ironic vision of the perennial "macabreness" of the Vesuvian catastrophe. Between them they conjure up an intriguing "idyll" of unlamented mortality, with neither solemnity nor sentimentality attending on the singular phenomenon of death dreaming of life.
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In the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD, there were many towns located around the volcano, benefiting from the fertility of the land. It is thought the eruption lasted about 19 hours, in which time the volcano released about 4 cubic kilometres of ash and rock over a wide area to the south and south-east of the crater, with about 3 m depth falling on Pompeii. The town was lost for 1600 years before its accidental discovery in the C18th. Today, Pompeii is a United Nations World Heritage Site, the most popular tourist attraction in Italy, and provides an extraordinarily detailed insight into the life of a city at the height of the Roman Empire.
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On August 24, 79 Mount Vesuvius silenced its neighboring Roman cities. Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabaie were buried alive by Vesuvius' molten debris and poisonous vapors. It was not until 1748 that excavations began. These cities were buried for almost 1700 years. By studying these excavations, scientists now have a better understanding of the eruption on the night of August 24, 79 A.D.
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The eruption of Mount Vesuvius on March 22nd, 1944 caused more physical damage to the 340th bombardment group than the German air raid was to inflict two months later at Alesan Air Field on the island of Corsica. Indeed, 88 B-25 Mitchell medium bombers were covered in hot ash which burned off the fabric control surfaces and glazed the Plexiglas. Planes were tipped onto their tails from the weight of the ash. All 88 B-25s were completely totaled. Click here to see a NASA radar image of Vesuvius.
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Today, Mount Vesuvius is classified as a dangerous and deadly volcano. It has erupted more than once since 79 AD. There are records of eruptions as late as 1906, 1929 and 1944. The eruptions have sometimes been so strong that ashes spread over quite a bit of southern Europe, reaching as far as Constantinople which is over 1000 miles away.
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An active volcano in southern Italy, rising 4,190 feet (1,277 meters) above the Bay of Naples, Mount Vesuvius is situated on the plain of Campania, about 7 miles (11 kilometers) from the city of Naples. Its fiery eruptions have claimed a high toll in lives and property through the centuries, but the mountainside and surrounding area remain the home of more than 2 million people. There are…
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