Saturday, October 14, 2006

raison d'etre

writers. good ones. writers who say meaningful things. writers who say beautiful things. writers with more original minds than my own.

words. good ones. words that when paired are more than black marks on white paper. words that when paired are more than words. words that when paired are more than ideas and ideologies. words that are experiences.

In the manner of Hunter S. Thompson's Hemingway and Fitzgerald retyping, hopefully the repetition of all these amazing things will help me to learn what it is about them that makes them great and will cause them to rub off on me, just a bit.

disclaimer: I am particularly, if not overly, fond of figurative and romantic phrasing. I am drawn consistently and egregiously to themes of beauty, love, and sex, and to images of flames, ghosts, gems, and sweets. Know this about me.

Also, I will try to refrain from over-contextualizing and analyzing because as the aesthetic esthetic of Lord Henry Wotton purports:

"Beauty, real beauty ends where intellectual expression begins." - Oscar Wilde


That being said, here's my first post:

"Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming."

I have always been a collector of quotes, but not in the Bartlett's sense. I don't collect quotes because they are quotable. The things that stand out to me are not those that fit neatly into categories like "on success" or "on dreams." Oscar Wilde seems to me to exemplify both the exception and the rule. He is endlessly quotable and a master of the bon mot. His quotable quotes, however, are so interesting because they are in a way anti-quotes, anti-proverbs. They are often destructive paradoxes espousing the values of aestheticism. Their self-negation models the idea that art has no use, no morals, and no purpose aside from beauty. In this case, words for words' sake with no meaning or message beyond them. And sometimes he just says beautiul things.

Some of my favorites from The Picture of Dorian Gray:

"...I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible."

"'What you have told me is quite a romance, a romance of art one might call it, and the worst of having a romance of any kind is that it leaves one so unromantic."

"People say sometimes that Beauty is only superficial. That may be so. But at least it is not so superficial as Thought is. Beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances."

"Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to make it last for ever. It is a meaningless word, too. The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that the caprice lasts longer."

Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnm, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flame-like as theirs.




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