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Fernando Pessoa on art

 Orts
Nov 192010
 

from The Book of Disquiet (translated by Richard Zenith)

We were born into a world that has suffered from a century and a half of renunciation and violence – the renunciation of superior men and the violence of inferior men, which is their victory.

No superior trait can assert itself in the modern age, whether in action or in thought, in the political sphere or in the theoretical sphere.

The downfall of aristocratic influence has created an atmosphere of brutality and indifference towards the arts, such that a refined sensibility has nowhere to take refuge. Contact with life is ever more painful for the soul, and all efforts are ever more arduous, because the outer conditions for making an effort are forever more odious.

The downfall of classical ideals made all men potential artists, and therefore bad artists. When art depended on solid construction and the careful observance of rules, few could attempt to be artists, and a fair number of these were quite good. But when art, instead of being understood as creation, became merely an expression of feelings, then anyone could be an artist, because everyone has feelings.

Edward Said thoughts on late style

 Book Notes
Nov 192010
 

London Review of Books, August 5 2004.

Said examines the way in which the work of some great artists and writers acquire a new idiom at the end of the their lives – a late style.

Beethoven: his late works are a form of exile from his milieu.
“There is heroism here, but also intrasigence.”

“Late style is what happens if art does not abdicate its rights in favour of reality.”

Adorno on Beethoven, sees his late works “as communicating a tragic sense in spite of their irascibility” and that Beethoven seems to “inhabit the late works as a lamenting personality.”

“The late works are about lost totality, and it is in this sense that they are catastrophic.”

“Beethoven’s late style, remorsely alienated and obscure, is the prototypical modern aesthetic form.”

“The prerogative of late style: it has the power to render disenchantment and pleasure without resolving the contradiction between them. What holds them in tension, as equal forces straining in opposite directions, is the artist’s mature subjectivity, stripped of hubris and pomposity, unashamed either of its fallibility or of the modest assurance it has gained as a result of age and exile.”

Christopher Marlowe – The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

 Poems
Nov 192010
 

Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.

There will we sit upon the rocks
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

There will I make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider’d all with leaves of myrtle.

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull,
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.

A belt of straw and ivy buds
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my Love.

Thy silver dishes for thy meat
As precious as the gods do eat,
Shall on an ivory table be
Prepared each day for thee and me.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my Love.

Dante – from Paradiso, XVII

 Poems
Nov 192010
 

Cacciaguida urges Dante to speak out

The light in which it had appeared to me,
That jewel of reserve, suddenly flashed
Like a ray of sun in the gold depths of a mirror,

And carried on: “Those alone who blush
Inwardly, at their own or their neighbours’ shame,
Will find your tidings harsh.

But nevertheless, you must stake your claim,
In the teeth of lies, to absolute recall,
And let them scratch whose itch has been inflamed.

And if what you say is hard for them to swallow
At the beginning, let them digest it –
Nourishment will follow.

Let your voice, like a storm-force gust,
Blow louder the higher the peaks it screams off –
You will only be doing yourself proper honour and justice.

That is why, in the giant scheme of things –
The mountain, and the anguished under-valley –
You were allowed to meet only the great and famous,

For the souls of your readers, undecided still,
Will not be convinced, if all they hear
Are unknown stories, good or ill,

Of those whose names have vanished with the years.”

Translated by Harry Clifton

6 thoughts about humour

 Quotes
Nov 192010
 

Humor. 1. A ticklish proposition. 2. Something which, like history, repeats itself. 3. A hole that lets the sawdust out of the stuffed shirt. 4. Stuff that has stood the test of time. 5. A quality of which there exists a great deal in the world because so many people take themselves seriously. -Esar’s Comic Dictionary

What little I know of humor suggests that it is not something which a man possesses, but rather something which possesses him; it is constantly in operation, it has a dark as well as a light aspect, and its function is by no means that of keeping its possessor in fits of chuckles. -Robertson Davies

The social scientist and especially the student of political economy is compelled to make his peace with satire or humor. -H. A. Innis

Humour is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor, for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit. -Aristotle

The love of truth lies at the root of much humor. -Robertson Davies

The world’s humor, in its best and greaetest sense, is perhaps the highest product of our civilization. -Stephen Leacock