Conrad Aiken: Frasi in inglese
The Paris Review interview (1963)
Contesto: I do believe in this evolution of consciousness as the only thing which we can embark on, or in fact, willy-nilly, are embarked on; and along with that will go the spiritual discoveries and, I feel, the inexhaustible wonder that one feels, that opens more and more the more you know. It’s simply that this increasing knowledge constantly enlarges your kingdom and the capacity for admiring and loving the universe.
The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)
Contesto: What did we build it for? Was it all a dream?...
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam...
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.
“Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread;”
I, This section is also known as "Bread and Music"
Discordants (1916)
Contesto: Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread;
Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
All that was once so beautiful is dead.
On his childhood inspiration to become a poet, and later studies and efforts to produce poetry.
The Paris Review interview (1963)
Contesto: I think Ushant describes it pretty well, with that epigraph from Tom Brown’s School Days: “I’m the poet of White Horse Vale, sir, with Liberal notions under my cap!” For some reason those lines stuck in my head, and I’ve never forgotten them. This image became something I had to be. … I compelled myself all through to write an exercise in verse, in a different form, every day of the year. I turned out my page every day, of some sort — I mean I didn’t give a damn about the meaning, I just wanted to master the form — all the way from free verse, Walt Whitman, to the most elaborate of villanelles and ballad forms. Very good training. I’ve always told everybody who has ever come to me that I thought that was the first thing to do. And to study all the vowel effects and all the consonant effects and the variation in vowel sounds.
The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)
The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)
The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)
The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)
“Death is a meeting place of sea and sea.”
The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)
The Paris Review interview (1963)
“When you are dead your spirit will find my spirit,
And then we shall die no more.”
The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)
The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)
