![]() ![]() Indeed, once the flesh-and-blood muse has been transformed into a work of art, she becomes surplus to requirements, and dies a few years later so her portrait can represent her utterly, without competition from its living prototype. So ‘The Moving Finger’ is a story about the intersection between life and art, but it is not a happy symbiotic relationship. What’s true for poets is true, Claydon would say, of all artists: he may reluctantly agree to change the perfect portrait of Mrs Grancy, at the insistence of Mr Grancy, but as soon as he can, Claydon restores the picture to its perfect state, a beautiful embodiment of something beautiful. In this quatrain, the poet asserts the artist’s right: once the ‘moving finger’ of the poet has written something, nothing can erase what they have created. ![]() ![]() Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, The Moving Finger writes and, having writ, Wharton’s story takes its title ‘The Moving Finger’ from a verse in Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat: ![]()
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