Podcasts about de quincey

Frances Wilson has written biographies of Dorothy Wordsworth, Thomas De Quincey, D.H. Lawrence, and, most recently, Muriel Spark. I thought Electric Spark was excellent. In my review, I wrote: “Wilson has done far more than string the facts together. She has created a strange and vivid portrait of one of the most curious of twentieth century novelists.” In this interview, we covered questions like why Thomas De Quincey is more widely read, why D.H. Lawrence's best books aren't his novels, Frances's conversion to spookiness, what she thinks about a whole range of modern biographers, literature and parasocial relationships, Elizabeth Bowen, George Meredith, and plenty about Muriel Spark.Here are two brief extracts. There is a full transcript below.Henry: De Quincey and Lawrence were the people you wrote about before Muriel Spark, and even though they seem like three very different people, but in their own way, they're all a little bit mad, aren't they?Frances: Yes, that is, I think, something that they have in common. It's something that I'm drawn to. I like writing about difficult people. I don't think I could write about anyone who wasn't difficult. I like difficult people in general. I like the fact that they pose a puzzle and they're hard to crack, and that their difficulty is laid out in their work and as a code. I like tackling really, really stubborn personalities as well. Yes, they were all a bit mad. The madness was what fuelled their journeys without doubt.Henry: This must make it very hard as a biographer. Is there always a code to be cracked, or are you sometimes dealing with someone who is slippery and protean and uncrackable?And.Henry: People listening will be able to tell that Spark is a very spooky person in several different ways. She had what I suppose we would call spiritual beliefs to do with ghosts and other sorts of things. You had a sort of conversion of your own while writing this book, didn't you?Frances: Yes, I did. [laughs] Every time I write a biography, I become very, very, very immersed in who I'm writing about. I learned this from Richard Holmes, who I see as a method biographer. He Footsteps his subjects. He becomes his subjects. I think I recognized when I first read Holmes's Coleridge, when I was a student, that this was how I also wanted to live. I wanted to live inside the minds of the people that I wrote about, because it was very preferable to live inside my own mind. Why not live inside the mind of someone really, really exciting, one with genius?What I felt with Spark wasn't so much that I was immersed by-- I wasn't immersed by her. I felt actually possessed by her. I think this is the Spark effect. I think a lot of her friends felt like this. I think that her lovers possibly felt like this. There is an extraordinary force to her character, which absolutely lives on, even though she's dead, but only recently dead. The conversion I felt, I think, was that I have always been a very enlightenment thinker, very rational, very scientific, very Freudian in my approach to-- I will acknowledge the unconscious but no more.By the time I finished with Spark, I'm pure woo-woo now.TranscriptHenry: Today, I am talking to Frances Wilson. Frances is a biographer. Her latest book, Electric Spark, is a biography of the novelist Muriel Spark, but she has also written about Dorothy Wordsworth, Thomas De Quincey, DH Lawrence and others. Frances, welcome.Frances Wilson: Thank you so much for having me on.Henry: Why don't more people read Thomas De Quincey's work?Frances: [laughs] Oh, God. We're going right into the deep end.[laughter]Frances: I think because there's too much of it. When I chose to write about Thomas De Quincey, I just followed one thread in his writing because Thomas De Quincey was an addict. One of the things he was addicted to was writing. He wrote far, far, far too much. He was a professional hack. He was a transcendental hack, if you like, because all of his writing he did while on opium, which made the sentences too long and too high and very, very hard to read.When I wrote about him, I just followed his interest in murder. He was fascinated by murder as a fine art. The title of one of his best essays is On Murder as One of the Fine Arts. I was also interested in his relationship with Wordsworth. I twinned those together, which meant cutting out about 97% of the rest of his work. I think people do read his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. I think that's a cult text. It was the memoir, if you want to call it a memoir, that kick-started the whole pharmaceutical memoir business on drugs.It was also the first addict's memoir and the first recovery memoir, and I'd say also the first misery memoir. He's very much at the root of English literary culture. We're all De Quincey-an without knowing it, is my argument.Henry: Oh, no, I fully agree. That's what surprises me, that they don't read him more often.Frances: I know it's a shame, isn't it? Of all the Romantic Circle, he's the one who's the most exciting to read. Also, Lamb is wonderfully exciting to read as well, but Lamb's a tiny little bit more grounded than De Quincey, who was literally not grounded. He's floating in an opium haze above you.[laughter]Henry: What I liked about your book was the way you emphasized the book addiction, not just the opium addiction. It is shocking the way he piled up chests full of books and notebooks, and couldn't get into the room because there were too many books in there. He was [crosstalk].Frances: Yes. He had this in common with Muriel Spark. He was a hoarder, but in a much more chaotic way than Spark, because, as you say, he piled up rooms with papers and books until he couldn't get into the room, and so just rented another room. He was someone who had no money at all. The no money he had went on paying rent for rooms, storing what we would be giving to Oxfam, or putting in the recycling bin. Then he'd forget that he was paying rent on all these rooms filled with his mountains of paper. The man was chaos.Henry: What is D.H. Lawrence's best book?Frances: Oh, my argument about Lawrence is that we've gone very badly wrong in our reading of him, in seeing him primarily as a novelist and only secondarily as an essayist and critic and short story writer, and poet. This is because of F.R. Leavis writing that celebration of him called D.H. Lawrence: Novelist, because novels are not the best of Lawrence. I think the best of his novels is absolutely, without doubt, Sons and Lovers. I think we should put the novels in the margins and put in the centre, the poems, travel writing.Absolutely at the centre of the centre should be his studies in classic American literature. His criticism was- We still haven't come to terms with it. It was so good. We haven't heard all of Lawrence's various voices yet. When Lawrence was writing, contemporaries didn't think of Lawrence as a novelist at all. It was anyone's guess what he was going to come out with next. Sometimes it was a novel [laughs] and it was usually a rant about-- sometimes it was a prophecy. Posterity has not treated Lawrence well in any way, but I think where we've been most savage to him is in marginalizing his best writing.Henry: The short fiction is truly extraordinary.Frances: Isn't it?Henry: I always thought Lawrence was someone I didn't want to read, and then I read the short fiction, and I was just obsessed.Frances: It's because in the short fiction, he doesn't have time to go wrong. I think brevity was his perfect length. Give him too much space, and you know he's going to get on his soapbox and start ranting, start mansplaining. He was a terrible mansplainer. Mansplaining his versions of what had gone wrong in the world. It is like a drunk at the end of a too-long dinner party, and you really want to just bundle him out. Give him only a tiny bit of space, and he comes out with the perfection that is his writing.Henry: De Quincey and Lawrence were the people you wrote about before Muriel Spark, and even though they seem like three very different people, but in their own way, they're all a little bit mad, aren't they?Frances: Yes, that is, I think, something that they have in common. It's something that I'm drawn to. I like writing about difficult people. I don't think I could write about anyone who wasn't difficult. I like difficult people in general. I like the fact that they pose a puzzle and they're hard to crack, and that their difficulty is laid out in their work and as a code. I like tackling really, really stubborn personalities as well. Yes, they were all a bit mad. The madness was what fuelled their journeys without doubt.Henry: This must make it very hard as a biographer. Is there always a code to be cracked, or are you sometimes dealing with someone who is slippery and protean and uncrackable?Frances: I think that the way I approach biography is that there is a code to crack, but I'm not necessarily concerned with whether I crack it or not. I think it's just recognizing that there's a hell of a lot going on in the writing and that, in certain cases and not in every case at all, the best way of exploring the psyche of the writer and the complexity of the life is through the writing, which is a argument for psycho biography, which isn't something I necessarily would argue for, because it can be very, very crude.I think with the writers I choose, there is no option. Muriel Spark argued for this as well. She said in her own work as a biographer, which was really very, very strong. She was a biographer before she became a novelist. She thought hard about biography and absolutely in advance of anyone else who thought about biography, she said, "Of course, the only way we can approach the minds of writers is through their work, and the writer's life is encoded in the concerns of their work."When I was writing about Muriel Spark, I followed, as much as I could, to the letter, her own theories of biography, believing that that was part of the code that she left. She said very, very strong and very definitive things about what biography was about and how to write a biography. I tried to follow those rules.Henry: Can we play a little game where I say the names of some biographers and you tell me what you think of them?Frances: Oh my goodness. Okay.Henry: We're not trying to get you into trouble. We just want some quick opinions. A.N. Wilson.Frances: I think he's wonderful as a biographer. I think he's unzipped and he's enthusiastic and he's unpredictable and he's often off the rails. I think his Goethe biography-- Have you read the Goethe biography?Henry: Yes, I thought that was great.Frances: It's just great, isn't it? It's so exciting. I like the way that when he writes about someone, it's almost as if he's memorized the whole of their work.Henry: Yes.Frances: You don't imagine him sitting at a desk piled with books and having to score through his marginalia. It sits in his head, and he just pours it down on a page. I'm always excited by an A.N. Wilson biography. He is one of the few biographers who I would read regardless of who the subject was.Henry: Yes.Frances: I just want to read him.Henry: He does have good range.Frances: He absolutely does have good range.Henry: Selina Hastings.Frances: I was thinking about Selina Hastings this morning, funnily enough, because I had been talking to people over the weekend about her Sybil Bedford biography and why that hadn't lifted. She wrote a very excitingly good life of Nancy Mitford and then a very unexcitingly not good life of Sybil Bedford. I was interested in why the Sybil Bedford simply hadn't worked. I met people this weekend who were saying the same thing, that she was a very good biographer who had just failed [laughs] to give us anything about Sybil Bedford.I think what went wrong in that biography was that she just could not give us her opinions. It's as if she just withdrew from her subject as if she was writing a Wikipedia entry. There were no opinions at all. What the friends I was talking to said was that she just fell out with her subject during the book. That's what happened. She stopped being interested in her. She fell out with her and therefore couldn't be bothered. That's what went wrong.Henry: Interesting. I think her Evelyn Waugh biography is superb.Frances: Yes, I absolutely agree. She was on fire until this last one.Henry: That's one of the best books on Waugh, I think.Frances: Yes.Henry: Absolutely magical.Frances: I also remember, it's a very rare thing, of reading a review of it by Hilary Mantel saying that she had not read a biography that had been as good, ever, as Selina Hastings' on Evelyn Waugh. My goodness, that's high praise, isn't it?Henry: Yes, it is. It is. I'm always trying to push that book on people. Richard Holmes.Frances: He's my favourite. He's the reason that I'm a biographer at all. I think his Coleridge, especially the first volume of the two-volume Coleridge, is one of the great books. It left me breathless when I read it. It was devastating. I also think that his Johnson and Savage book is one of the great books. I love Footsteps as well, his account of the books he didn't write in Footsteps. I think he has a strange magic. When Muriel Spark talked about certain writers and critics having a sixth literary sense, which meant that they tuned into language and thought in a way that the rest of us don't, I think that Richard Holmes does have that. I think he absolutely has it in relation to Coleridge. I'm longing for his Tennyson to come out.Henry: Oh, I know. I know.Frances: Oh, I just can't wait. I'm holding off on reading Tennyson until I've got Holmes to help me read him. Yes, he is quite extraordinary.Henry: I would have given my finger to write the Johnson and Savage book.Frances: Yes, I know. I agree. How often do you return to it?Henry: Oh, all the time. All the time.Frances: Me too.Henry: Michael Holroyd.Frances: Oh, that's interesting, Michael Holroyd, because I think he's one of the great unreads. I think he's in this strange position of being known as a greatest living biographer, but nobody's read him on Augustus John. [laughs] I haven't read his biographies cover to cover because they're too long and it's not in my subject area, but I do look in them, and they're novelistic in their wit and complexity. His sentences are very, very, very entertaining, and there's a lot of freight in each paragraph. I hope that he keeps selling.I love his essays as well, and also, I think that he has been a wonderful ambassador for biography. He's very, very supportive of younger biographers, which not every biographer is, but I know he's been very supportive of younger biographers and is incredibly approachable.Henry: Let's do a few Muriel Spark questions. Why was the Book of Job so important to Muriel Spark?Frances: I think she liked it because it was rogue, because it was the only book of the Bible that wasn't based on any evidence, it wasn't based on any truth. It was a fictional book, and she liked fiction sitting in the middle of fact. That was one of her main things, as all Spark lovers know. She liked the fact that there was this work of pure imagination and extraordinarily powerful imagination sitting in the middle of the Old Testament, and also, she thought it was an absolutely magnificent poem.She saw herself primarily as a poet, and she responded to it as a poem, which, of course, it is. Also, she liked God in it. She described Him as the Incredible Hulk [laughs] and she liked His boastfulness. She enjoyed, as I do, difficult personalities, and she liked the fact that God had such an incredibly difficult personality. She liked the fact that God boasted and boasted and boasted, "I made this and I made that," to Job, but also I think she liked the fact that you hear God's voice.She was much more interested in voices than she was in faces. The fact that God's voice comes out of the burning bush, I think it was an image for her of early radio, this voice speaking, and she liked the fact that what the voice said was tricksy and touchy and impossibly arrogant. He gives Moses all these instructions to lead the Israelites, and Moses says, "But who shall I say sent me? Who are you?" He says, "I am who I am." [laughs] She thought that was completely wonderful. She quotes that all the time about herself. She says, "I know it's a bit large quoting God, but I am who I am." [laughs]Henry: That disembodied voice is very important to her fiction.Frances: Yes.Henry: It's the telephone in Memento Mori.Frances: Yes.Henry: Also, to some extent, tell me what you think of this, the narrator often acts like that.Frances: Like this disembodied voice?Henry: Yes, like you're supposed to feel like you're not quite sure who's telling you this or where you're being told it from. That's why it gets, like in The Ballad of Peckham Rye or something, very weird.Frances: Yes. I'm waiting for the PhD on Muriel Sparks' narrators. Maybe it's being done as we speak, but she's very, very interested in narrators and the difference between first-person and third-person. She was very keen on not having warm narrators, to put it mildly. She makes a strong argument throughout her work for the absence of the seductive narrative. Her narratives are, as we know, unbelievably seductive, but not because we are being flattered as readers and not because the narrator makes herself or himself pretty. The narrator says what they feel like saying, withholds most of what you would like them to say, plays with us, like in a Spark expression, describing her ideal narrator like a cat with a bird [laughs].Henry: I like that. Could she have been a novelist if she had not become a Catholic?Frances: No, she couldn't. The two things happened at the same time. I wonder, actually, whether she became a Catholic in order to become a novelist. It wasn't that becoming a novelist was an accidental effect of being a Catholic. The conversion was, I think, from being a biographer to a novelist rather than from being an Anglican to a Catholic. What happened is a tremendous interest. I think it's the most interesting moment in any life that I've ever written about is the moment of Sparks' conversion because it did break her life in two.She converted when she was in her mid-30s, and several things happened at once. She converted to Catholicism, she became a Catholic, she became a novelist, but she also had this breakdown. The breakdown was very much part of that conversion package. The breakdown was brought on, she says, by taking Dexys. There was slimming pills, amphetamines. She wanted to lose weight. She put on weight very easily, and her weight went up and down throughout her life.She wanted to take these diet pills, but I think she was also taking the pills because she needed to do all-nighters, because she never, ever, ever stopped working. She was addicted to writing, but also she was impoverished and she had to sell her work, and she worked all night. She was in a rush to get her writing done because she'd wasted so much of her life in her early 20s, in a bad marriage trapped in Africa. She needed to buy herself time. She was on these pills, which have terrible side effects, one of which is hallucinations.I think there were other reasons for her breakdown as well. She was very, very sensitive and I think psychologically fragile. Her mother lived in a state of mental fragility, too. She had a crash when she finished her book. She became depressed. Of course, a breakdown isn't the same as depression, but what happened to her in her breakdown was a paranoid attack rather than a breakdown. She didn't crack into nothing and then have to rebuild herself. She just became very paranoid. That paranoia was always there.Again, it's what's exciting about her writing. She was drawn to paranoia in other writers. She liked Cardinal Newman's paranoia. She liked Charlotte Brontë's paranoia, and she had paranoia. During her paranoid attack, she felt very, very interestingly, because nothing that happened in her life was not interesting, that T.S. Eliot was sending her coded messages. He was encoding these messages in his play, The Confidential Clerk, in the program notes to the play, but also in the blurbs he wrote for Faber and Faber, where he was an editor. These messages were very malign and they were encoded in anagrams.The word lived, for example, became devil. I wonder whether one of the things that happened during her breakdown wasn't that she discovered God, but that she met the devil. I don't think that that's unusual as a conversion experience. In fact, the only conversion experience she ever describes, you'll remember, is in The Girls of Slender Means, when she's describing Nicholas Farrington's conversion. That's the only conversion experience she ever describes. She says that his conversion is when he sees one of the girls leaving the burning building, holding a Schiaparelli dress. Suddenly, he's converted because he's seen a vision of evil.She says, "Conversion can be as a result of a recognition of evil, rather than a recognition of good." I think that what might have happened in this big cocktail of things that happened to her during her breakdown/conversion, is that a writer whom she had idolized, T.S. Eliot, who taught her everything that she needed to know about the impersonality of art. Her narrative coldness comes from Eliot, who thought that emotions had no place in art because they were messy, and art should be clean.I think a writer whom she had idolized, she suddenly felt was her enemy because she was converting from his church, because he was an Anglo-Catholic. He was a high Anglican, and she was leaving Anglo-Catholicism to go through the Rubicon, to cross the Rubicon into Catholicism. She felt very strongly that that is something he would not have approved of.Henry: She's also leaving poetry to become a prose writer.Frances: She was leaving his world of poetry. That's absolutely right.Henry: This is a very curious parallel because the same thing exactly happens to De Quincey with his worship of Wordsworth.Frances: You're right.Henry: They have the same obsessive mania. Then this, as you say, not quite a breakdown, but a kind of explosive mania in the break. De Quincey goes out and destroys that mossy hut or whatever it is in the orchard, doesn't he?Frances: Yes, that disgusting hut in the orchard. Yes, you're completely right. What fascinated me about De Quincey, and this was at the heart of the De Quincey book, was how he had been guided his whole life by Wordsworth. He discovered Wordsworth as a boy when he read We Are Seven, that very creepy poem about a little girl sitting on her sibling's grave, describing the sibling as still alive. For De Quincey, who had lost his very adored sister, he felt that Wordsworth had seen into his soul and that Wordsworth was his mentor and his lodestar.He worshipped Wordsworth as someone who understood him and stalked Wordsworth, pursued and stalked him. When he met him, what he discovered was a man without any redeeming qualities at all. He thought he was a dry monster, but it didn't stop him loving the work. In fact, he loved the work more and more. What threw De Quincey completely was that there was such a difference between Wordsworth, the man who had no genius, and Wordsworth, the poet who had nothing but.Eliot described it, the difference between the man who suffers and the mind which creates. What De Quincey was trying to deal with was the fact that he adulated the work, but was absolutely appalled by the man. Yes, you're right, this same experience happened to spark when she began to feel that T.S. Eliot, whom she had never met, was a malign person, but the work was still not only of immense importance to her, but the work had formed her.Henry: You see the Wasteland all over her own work and the shared Dante obsession.Frances: Yes.Henry: It's remarkably strong. She got to the point of thinking that T.S. Eliot was breaking into her house.Frances: Yes. As I said, she had this paranoid imagination, but also what fired her imagination and what repeated itself again and again in the imaginative scenarios that recur in her fiction and nonfiction is the idea of the intruder. It was the image of someone rifling around in cupboards, drawers, looking at manuscripts. This image, you first find it in a piece she wrote about finding herself completely coincidentally, staying the night during the war in the poet Louis MacNeice's house. She didn't know it was Louis MacNeice's house, but he was a poet who was very, very important to her.Spark's coming back from visiting her parents in Edinburgh in 1944. She gets talking to an au pair on the train. By the time they pull into Houston, there's an air raid, and the au pair says, "Come and spend the night at mine. My employers are away and they live nearby in St. John's Wood." Spark goes to this house and sees it's packed with books and papers, and she's fascinated by the quality of the material she finds there.She looks in all the books. She goes into the attic, and she looks at all the papers, and she asks the au pair whose house it is, and the au pair said, "Oh, he's a professor called Professor Louis MacNeice." Spark had just been reading Whitney. He's one of her favourite poets. She retells this story four times in four different forms, as non-fiction, as fiction, as a broadcast, as reflections, but the image that keeps coming back, what she can't get rid of, is the idea of herself as snooping around in this poet's study.She describes herself, in one of the versions, as trying to draw from his papers his power as a writer. She says she sniffs his pens, she puts her hands over his papers, telling herself, "I must become a writer. I must become a writer." Then she makes this weird anonymous phone call. She loved the phone because it was the most strange form of electrical device. She makes a weird anonymous phone call to an agent, saying, "I'm ringing from Louis MacNeice's house, would you like to see my manuscript?" She doesn't give her name, and the agent says yes.Now I don't believe this phone call took place. I think it's part of Sparks' imagination. This idea of someone snooping around in someone else's room was very, very powerful to her. Then she transposed it in her paranoid attack about T.S. Eliot. She transposed the image that Eliot was now in her house, but not going through her papers, but going through her food cupboards. [laughs] In her food cupboards, all she actually had was baked beans because she was a terrible cook. Part of her unwellness at that point was malnutrition. No, she thought that T.S. Eliot was spying on her. She was obsessed with spies. Spies, snoopers, blackmailers.Henry: T.S. Eliot is Stealing My Baked Beans would have been a very good title for a memoir.Frances: It actually would, wouldn't it?Henry: Yes, it'd be great.[laughter]Henry: People listening will be able to tell that Spark is a very spooky person in several different ways. She had what I suppose we would call spiritual beliefs to do with ghosts and other sorts of things. You had a sort of conversion of your own while writing this book, didn't you?Frances: Yes, I did. [laughs] Every time I write a biography, I become very, very, very immersed in who I'm writing about. I learned this from Richard Holmes, who I see as a method biographer. He Footsteps his subjects. He becomes his subjects. I think I recognized when I first read Holmes's Coleridge, when I was a student, that this was how I also wanted to live. I wanted to live inside the minds of the people that I wrote about, because it was very preferable to live inside my own mind. Why not live inside the mind of someone really, really exciting, one with genius?What I felt with Spark wasn't so much that I was immersed by-- I wasn't immersed by her. I felt actually possessed by her. I think this is the Spark effect. I think a lot of her friends felt like this. I think that her lovers possibly felt like this. There is an extraordinary force to her character, which absolutely lives on, even though she's dead, but only recently dead. The conversion I felt, I think, was that I have always been a very enlightenment thinker, very rational, very scientific, very Freudian in my approach to-- I will acknowledge the unconscious but no more.By the time I finished with Spark, I'm pure woo-woo now. Anything can happen. This is one of the reasons Spark was attracted to Catholicism because anything can happen, because it legitimizes the supernatural. I felt so strongly that the supernatural experiences that Spark had were real, that what Spark was describing as the spookiness of our own life were things that actually happened.One of the things I found very, very unsettling about her was that everything that happened to her, she had written about first. She didn't describe her experiences in retrospect. She described them as in foresight. For example, her first single authored published book, because she wrote for a while in collaboration with her lover, Derek Stanford, but her first single authored book was a biography of Mary Shelley.Henry: Great book.Frances: An absolutely wonderful book, which really should be better than any of the other Mary Shelley biographies. She completely got to Mary Shelley. Everything she described in Mary Shelley's life would then happen to Spark. For example, she described Mary Shelley as having her love letters sold. Her lover sold Mary Shelley's love letters, and Mary Shelley was then blackmailed by the person who bought them. This happened to Spark. She described Mary Shelley's closest friends all becoming incredibly jealous of her literary talent. This happened to Spark. She described trusting people who betrayed her. This happened to Spark.Spark was the first person to write about Frankenstein seriously, to treat Frankenstein as a masterpiece rather than as a one-off weird novel that is actually just the screenplay for a Hammer Horror film. This was 1951, remember. Everything she described in Frankenstein as its power is a hybrid text, described the powerful hybrid text that she would later write about. What fascinated her in Frankenstein was the relationship between the creator and the monster, and which one was the monster. This is exactly the story of her own life. I think where she is. She was really interested in art monsters and in the fact that the only powerful writers out there, the only writers who make a dent, are monsters.If you're not a monster, you're just not competing. I think Spark has always spoken about as having a monster-like quality. She says at the end of one of her short stories, Bang-bang You're Dead, "Am I an intellectual woman, or am I a monster?" It's the question that is frequently asked of Spark. I think she worked so hard to monsterize herself. Again, she learnt this from Elliot. She learnt her coldness from Elliot. She learnt indifference from Elliot. There's a very good letter where she's writing to a friend, Shirley Hazzard, in New York.It's after she discovers that her lover, Derek Stanford, has sold her love letters, 70 love letters, which describe two very, very painfully raw, very tender love letters. She describes to Shirley Hazzard this terrible betrayal. She says, "But, I'm over it. I'm over it now. Now I'm just going to be indifferent." She's telling herself to just be indifferent about this. You watch her tutoring herself into the indifference that she needed in order to become the artist that she knew she was.Henry: Is this why she's attracted to mediocrities, because she can possess them and monsterize them, and they're good feeding for her artistic programme?Frances: Her attraction to mediocrities is completely baffling, and it makes writing her biography, a comedy, because the men she was surrounded by were so speck-like. Saw themselves as so important, but were, in fact, so speck-like that you have to laugh, and it was one after another after another. I'd never come across, in my life, so many men I'd never heard of. This was the literary world that she was surrounded by. It's odd, I don't know whether, at the time, she knew how mediocre these mediocrities were.She certainly recognised it in her novels where they're all put together into one corporate personality called the pisseur de copie in A Far Cry from Kensington, where every single literary mediocrity is in that critic who she describes as pissing and vomiting out copy. With Derek Stanford, who was obviously no one's ever heard of now, because he wrote nothing that was memorable, he was her partner from the end of the 40s until-- They ceased their sexual relationship when she started to be interested in becoming a Catholic in 1953, but she was devoted to him up until 1958. She seemed to be completely incapable of recognising that she had the genius and he had none.Her letters to him deferred to him, all the time, as having literary powers that she hadn't got, as having insights that she hadn't got, he's better read than she was. She was such an amazingly good critic. Why could she not see when she looked at his baggy, bad prose that it wasn't good enough? She rated him so highly. When she was co-authoring books with him, which was how she started her literary career, they would occasionally write alternative sentences. Some of her sentences are always absolutely-- they're sharp, lean, sparkling, and witty, and his are way too long and really baggy and they don't say anything. Obviously, you can see that she's irritated by it.She still doesn't say, "Look, I'm going now." It was only when she became a novelist that she said, "I want my mind to myself." She puts, "I want my mind to myself." She didn't want to be in a double act with him. Doubles were important to her. She didn't want to be in a double act with him anymore. He obviously had bought into her adulation of him and hadn't recognised that she had this terrifying power as a writer. It was now his turn to have the breakdown. Spark had the mental breakdown in 1950, '45. When her first novel came out in 1957, it was Stanford who had the breakdown because he couldn't take on board who she was as a novelist.What he didn't know about her as a novelist was her comic sense, how that would fuel the fiction, but also, he didn't recognize because he reviewed her books badly. He didn't recognise that the woman who had been so tender, vulnerable, and loving with him could be this novelist who had nothing to say about tenderness or love. In his reviews, he says, "Why are her characters so cold?" because he thought that she should be writing from the core of her as a human being rather than the core of her as an intellect.Henry: What are her best novels?Frances: Every one I read, I think this has to be the best.[laughter]This is particularly the case in the early novels, where I'm dazzled by The Comforters and think there cannot have been a better first novel of the 20th century or even the 21st century so far. The Comforters. Then read Robinson, her second novel, and think, "Oh God, no, that is her best novel. Then Memento Mori, I think, "Actually, that must be the best novel of the 20th century." [laughs] Then you move on to The Ballad of Peckham Rye, I think, "No, that's even better."The novels landed. It's one of the strange things about her; it took her so long to become a novelist. When she had become one, the novels just landed. Once in one year, two novels landed. In 1959, she had, it was The Bachelors and The Ballad of Peckham Rye, both just completely extraordinary. The novels had been the storing up, and then they just fell on the page. They're different, but samey. They're samey in as much as they're very, very, very clever. They're clever about Catholicism, and they have the same narrative wit. My God, do the plots work in different ways. She was wonderful at plots. She was a great plotter. She liked plots in both senses of the world.She liked the idea of plotting against someone, also laying a plot. She was, at the same time, absolutely horrified by being caught inside someone's plot. That's what The Comforters is about, a young writer called Caroline Rose, who has a breakdown, it's a dramatisation of Sparks' own breakdown, who has a breakdown, and believes that she is caught inside someone else's story. She is a typewriter repeating all of her thoughts. Typewriter and a chorus repeating all of her thoughts.What people say about The Comforters is that Caroline Rose thought she is a heroine of a novel who finds herself trapped in a novel. Actually, if you read what Caroline Rose says in the novel, she doesn't think she's trapped in a novel; she thinks she's trapped in a biography. "There is a typewriter typing the story of our lives," she says to her boyfriend. "Of our lives." Muriel Sparks' first book was about being trapped in a biography, which is, of course, what she brought on herself when she decided to trap herself in a biography. [laughs]Henry: I think I would vote for Loitering with Intent, The Girls of Slender Means as my favourites. I can see that Memento Mori is a good book, but I don't love it, actually.Frances: Really? Interesting. Okay. I completely agree with you about-- I think Loitering with Intent is my overall favourite. Don't you find every time you read it, it's a different book? There are about 12 books I've discovered so far in that book. She loved books inside books, but every time I read it, I think, "Oh my God, it's changed shape again. It's a shape-shifting novel."Henry: We all now need the Frances Wilson essay about the 12 books inside Loitering with Intent.Frances: I know.[laughter]Henry: A few more general questions to close. Did Thomas De Quincey waste his talents?Frances: I wouldn't have said so. I think that's because every single day of his life, he was on opium.Henry: I think the argument is a combination of too much opium and also too much magazine work and not enough "real serious" philosophy, big poems, whatever.Frances: I think the best of his work went into Blackwood's, so the magazine work. When he was taken on by Blackwood's, the razor-sharp Edinburgh magazine, then the best of his work took place. I think that had he only written the murder essays, that would have been enough for me, On Murder as a Fine Art.That was enough. I don't need any more of De Quincey. I think Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is also enough in as much as it's the great memoir of addiction. We don't need any more memoirs of addiction, just read that. It's not just a memoir of being addicted to opium. It's about being addicted to what's what. It's about being a super fan and addicted to writing. He was addicted to everything. If he was in AA now, they'd say, apparently, there are 12 addictions, he had all of them. [laughs]Henry: Yes. People talk a lot about parasocial relationships online, where you read someone online or you follow them, and you have this strange idea in your head that you know them in some way, even though they're just this disembodied online person. You sometimes see people say, "Oh, we should understand this more." I think, "Well, read the history of literature, parasocial relationships everywhere."Frances: That's completely true. I hadn't heard that term before. The history of literature, a parasocial relationship. That's your next book.Henry: There we go. I think what I want from De Quincey is more about Shakespeare, because I think the Macbeth essay is superb.Frances: Absolutely brilliant. On Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth.Henry: Yes, and then you think, "Wait, where's the rest of this book? There should be an essay about every play."Frances: That's an absolutely brilliant example of microhistory, isn't it? Just taking a moment in a play, just the knocking at the gate, the morning after the murders, and blowing that moment up, so it becomes the whole play. Oh, my God, it's good. You're right.Henry: It's so good. What is, I think, "important about it", is that in the 20th century, critics started saying or scholars started saying a lot, "We can't just look at the words on the page. We've got to think about the dramaturgy. We've got to really, really think about how it plays out." De Quincey was an absolute master of that. It's really brilliant.Frances: Yes.Henry: What's your favourite modern novel or novelist?Frances: Oh, Hilary Mantel, without doubt, I think. I think we were lucky enough to live alongside a great, great, great novelist. I think the Wolf Hall trilogy is absolutely the greatest piece of narrative fiction that's come out of the 21st century. I also love her. I love her work as an essayist. I love her. She's spooky like Spark. She was inspired.Henry: Yes, she is. Yes.Frances: She learnt a lot of her cunning from Spark, I think. She's written a very spooky memoir. In fact, the only women novelists who acknowledge Spark as their influencer are Ali Smith and Hilary Mantel, although you can see Spark in William Boyd all the time. I think we're pretty lucky to live alongside William Boyd as well. Looking for real, real greatness, I think there's no one to compare with Mantel. Do you agree?Henry: I don't like the third volume of the trilogy.Frances: Okay. Right.Henry: Yes, in general, I do agree. Yes. I think some people don't like historical fiction for a variety of reasons. It may take some time for her to get it. I think she's acknowledged as being really good. I don't know that she's yet acknowledged at the level that you're saying.Frances: Yes.Henry: I think that will take a little bit longer. Maybe as and when there's a biography that will help with that, which I'm sure there will be a biography.Frances: I think they need to wait. I do think it's important to wait for a reputation to settle before starting the biography. Her biography will be very interesting because she married the same man twice. Her growth as a novelist was so extraordinary. Spark, she spent time in Africa. She had this terrible, terrible illness. She knew something. I think what I love about Mantel is, as with Spark, she knew something. She knew something, and she didn't quite know what it was that she knew. She had to write because of this knowledge. When you read her, you know that she's on a different level of understanding.Henry: You specialise in slightly neglected figures of English literature. Who else among the canonical writers deserves a bit more attention?Frances: Oh, that's interesting. I love minor characters. I think Spark was very witty about describing herself as a minor novelist or a writer of minor novels when she was evidently major. She always saw the comedy in being a minor. All the minor writers interest me. Elizabeth Bowen, Henry Green. No, they have heard Elizabeth Bowen has been treated well by Hermione Lee and Henry Green has been treated well by Jeremy Treglown.Why are they not up there yet? They're so much better than most of their contemporaries. I am mystified and fascinated by why it is that the most powerful writers tend to be kicked into the long grass. It's dazzling. When you read a Henry Green novel, you think, "But this is what it's all about. He's understood everything about what the novel can do. Why has no one heard of him?"Henry: I think Elizabeth Bowen's problem is that she's so concise, dense, and well-structured, and everything really plays its part in the pattern of the whole that it's not breezy reading.Frances: No, it's absolutely not.Henry: I think that probably holds her back in some way, even though when I have pushed it on people, most of the time they've said, "Gosh, she's a genius."Frances: Yes.Henry: It's not an easy genius. Whereas Dickens, the pages sort of fly along, something like that.Frances: Yes. One of the really interesting things about Spark is that she really, really is easy reading. At the same time, there's so much freight in those books. There's so much intellectual weight and so many games being played. There's so many books inside the books. Yet you can just read them for the pleasure. You can just read them for the plot. You can read one in an afternoon and think that you've been lost inside a book for 10 years. You don't get that from Elizabeth Bowen. That's true. The novels, you feel the weight, don't you?Henry: Yes.Frances: She's Jamesian. She's more Jamesian, I think, than Spark is.Henry: Something like A World of Love, it requires quite a lot of you.Frances: Yes, it does. Yes, it's not bedtime reading.Henry: No, exactly.Frances: Sitting up in a library.Henry: Yes. Now, you mentioned James. You're a Henry James expert.Frances: I did my PhD on Henry James.Henry: Yes. Will you ever write about him?Frances: I have, actually. Just a little plug. I've just done a selection of James's short stories, three volumes, which are coming out, I think, later this year for Riverrun with a separate introduction for each volume. I think that's all the writing I'm going to do on James. When I was an academic, I did some academic essays on him for collections and things. No, I've never felt, ever, ready to write on James because he's too complicated. I can only take tiny, tiny bits of James and home in on them.Henry: He's a great one for trying to crack the code.Frances: He really is. In fact, I was struck all the way through writing Electric Spark by James's understanding of the comedy of biography, which is described in the figure in the carpet. Remember that wonderful story where there's a writer called Verica who explains to a young critic that none of the critics have understood what his work's about. Everything that's written about him, it's fine, but it's absolutely missed his main point, his beautiful point. He said that in order to understand what the work's about, you have to look for The Figure in the Carpet. It's The Figure in the CarpetIt's the string on which my pearls are strung. A couple of critics become completely obsessed with looking for this Figure in the Carpet. Of course, Spark loved James's short stories. You feel James's short stories playing inside her own short stories. I think that one of the games she left for her biographers was the idea of The Figure in the Carpet. Go on, find it then. Find it. [laughs] The string on which my pearls are strung.Henry: Why did you leave academia? We should say that you did this before it became the thing that everyone's doing.Frances: Is everyone leaving now?Henry: A lot of people are leaving now.Frances: Oh, I didn't know. I was ahead of the curve. I left 20 years ago because I wasn't able to write the books I wanted to write. I left when I'd written two books as an academic. My first was Literary Seductions, and my second was a biography of a blackmailing courtesan called Harriet Wilson, and the book was called The Courtesan's Revenge. My department was sniffy about the books because they were published by Faber and not by OUP, and suggested that somehow I was lowering the tone of the department.This is what things were like 20 years ago. Then I got a contract to write The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth, my third book, again with Faber. I didn't want to write the book with my head of department in the back of my mind saying, "Make this into an academic tome and put footnotes in." I decided then that I would leave, and I left very suddenly. Now, I said I'm leaving sort of now, and I've got books to write, and felt completely liberated. Then for The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth, I decided not to have footnotes. It's the only book I've ever written without footnotes, simply as a celebration of no longer being in academia.Then the things I loved about being in academia, I loved teaching, and I loved being immersed in literature, but I really couldn't be around colleagues and couldn't be around the ridiculous rules of what was seen as okay. In fact, the university I left, then asked me to come back on a 0.5 basis when they realised that it was now fashionable to have someone who was a trade author. They asked me to come back, which I did not want to do. I wanted to spend days where I didn't see people rather than days where I had to talk to colleagues all the time. I think that academia is very unhappy. The department I was in was incredibly unhappy.Since then, I took up a job very briefly in another English department where I taught creative writing part-time. That was also incredibly unhappy. I don't know whether other French departments or engineering departments are happier places than English departments, but English departments are the most unhappy places I think I've ever seen.[laughter]Henry: What do you admire about the work of George Meredith?Frances: Oh, I love George Meredith. [laughs] Yes. I think Modern Love, his first novel, Modern Love, in a strange sonnet form, where it's not 14 lines, but 16 lines. By the time you get to the bottom two lines, the novel, the sonnet has become hysterical. Modern Love hasn't been properly recognised. It's an account of the breakdown of his marriage. His wife, who was the daughter of the romantic, minor novelist, Thomas Love Peacock. His wife had an affair with the artist who painted the famous Death of Chatterton. Meredith was the model for Chatterton, the dead poet in his purple silks, with his hand falling on the ground. There's a lot of mythology around Meredith.I think, as with Elizabeth Bowen and Henry Green, he's difficult. He's difficult. The other week, I tried to reread Diana of the Crossways, which was a really important novel, and I still love it. I really recognise that it's not an easy read. He doesn't try, in any way, to seduce his readers. They absolutely have to crawl inside each book to sit inside his mind and see the world as he's seeing it.Henry: Can you tell us what you will do next?Frances: At the moment, I'm testing some ideas out. I feel, at the end of every biography, you need a writer. You need to cleanse your palate. Otherwise, there's a danger of writing the same book again. I need this time, I think, to write about, to move century and move genders. I want to go back, I think, to the 19th century. I want to write about a male writer for a moment, and possibly not a novelist as well, because after being immersed in Muriel Sparks' novels, no other novel is going to seem good enough. I'm testing 19th-century men who didn't write novels, and it will probably be a minor character.Henry: Whatever it is, I look forward to reading it. Frances Wilson, thank you very much.Frances: Thank you so much, Henry. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk/subscribe

Send us a textWelcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 321 - DeQuincy, Baudelaire, and Poe - Part Three)I hope you listened to the previous episode that deals with Thomas De Quincy and his 1821 autobiographical work "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater.But before we go any further, I wan to try and clear something up. An opium-eater is not actually someone who eats opium, but rather a person who uses opium as a recreational drug or an opium addict. The term "opium-eater" was popularized by Thomas De Quincey in his work "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater”. In reality, De Quincey consumed opium in the form of laudanum, which is a tincture of opium dissolved in alcohol. This liquid preparation was widely used in the 19th century to treat various ailments and was easily available without a prescription. What could possibly go wrong?Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Poe.

Send us a textWelcome to Celebrate Poe - episode 319 - Intolerable LeadersThis should be episode 319 - Baudelaire, De Quincey, and Poe - Part Two.  But while I was looking through some past transcripts on my web site, I ran across one that addressed the invasion of the Capital in Washington. It was an issue that I strongly felt needed to be addressed 4 years ago when it happened, and our recent President has taken actions that just pour salt on the wounds.Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Poe.

Send us a textWelcome to Celebrate Poe - this is episode 318 - DeQuincy, Baudelaire, and Poe - Part OneRecently, I ran across a book about Charles Baudelaire called A Portrait of the Artist as a Drug Addict.  There is no question about it - According to the author -  Charles Baudelaire, the translator of Edgar Allan Poe's works, was a heavy user of opium. Baudelaire wrote extensively about his experiences with opium and other drugs in his book (Artificial Paradises), published in 1860.This episode is the first in a series of podcasts that examine the opium use of Baudelaire, De Quincey, and Poe.Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Poe.

Skulle våra politiker bli mindre slätstrukna om de kryddade sina tal med ordvitsar? Carl Magnus Juliusson berättar om hur ordlekarna använts historiskt och kan utgöra en nödvändig ventil. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. ESSÄ: Detta är en text där skribenten reflekterar över ett ämne eller ett verk. Åsikter som uttrycks är skribentens egna.Det finns de som hatar ordvitsar. Det är något jag blev varse när jag läste Thomas de Quinceys självbiografiska ”En engelsk opieätares bekännelser” som första gången gavs ut anonymt 1821. 1856 publicerade De Quincy den på nytt i en reviderad utgåva. I denna utgåva har han bifogat en fotnot. Och i denna fotnot ber han om ursäkt för att en mening rymmer för många allitterationer. 8 av 36 ord börjar på bokstaven f, något som De Quincey hävdar är helt och hållet oavsiktligt.Varför han känner sig tvungen att be om ursäkt är, med hans ord, för att vissa människor ”blir irriterade, eller till och med inbillar sig själva vara förolämpade, av uppenbara allitterationer, som många blir av ordvitsar”.Förolämpade av allitterationer och ordvitsar? Allitterationen är ju en av den klassiska retorikens främsta stilfigurer! Den romerske talaren Cicero staplar allitterationer på varandra. Han gör det så ofta att det blivit ett kännetecken för hans stil – en stil som lyfts fram som den främsta inom latinsk formuleringskonst. Men även ordvitsar var ett vanligt inslag i förmodern litteratur – och det inte bara i humoristiska sammanhang. Det finns gott om ordvitsar även inom allvarliga ämnen som juridik, filosofi och till och med tragedi. Den franske antikhistorikern Jean-Pierre Vernant har lyft fram att det inte finns någon antik genre i vilken det förekommer så mycket ordvitsar som den grekiska tragedin. Flest har ”Kung Oidipus”. Syftet med ordvitsarna är dock inte att de ska vara roliga. De ska visa hur Oidipus jakt på kungens mördare hela tiden leder tillbaka till honom själv. En sådan tvetydighet finns redan i Oidipus namn. Namnet kommer av att han har en svullen fot, oidi-pous. Men också av att han vet – oida – svaret på fotens och sfinxens gåta. Att det är han själv som i själva verket är orsak till alltihop.Samma funktion har ordet homosporon. När Oidipus använder det om Iokasta vill han säga att han har gift sig med samma fru som den tidigare kungen. Men ordet kan också betyda, som när det tas i mun av siaren Tiresias, att de tillhör samma släkt. Ja oj oj.Cicero skriver mest utförligt om ordvitsar – eller ”dubbeltydiga yttranden” – i andra boken av ”Om talaren”. Där kan man läsa att de ”anses vara de allra fyndigaste”. De förekommer inte bara i skämt ”utan också i allvarliga sammanhang”. De kräver ett särskilt ”skarpsinne”. Och de framkallar ”sällan formliga gapskratt utan prisas snarare som uttryck för lärdom och elegans”.Lärdom och elegans alltså. Ordvitsen hade länge kvar sin plats inom filosofin, juridiken och inte minst tragedin. Hamlets första replik – i Shakespeares tragedi – är exempelvis en ordvits: ”A little more than kin, and less than kind”. Raden anspelar på ett talesätt – ”the nearer in kin, the less in kindness” – vars innebörd är att släkten är värst. Ordleken lyfter fram att Claudius som gift sig med Hamlets mor nu är mer släkt, ”kin”, med Hamlet än tidigare. Nu är han både farbror och styvfar. Men han är inte särskilt snäll, ”kind”, och inte av samma sort, ”kind” igen, som den avlidne fadern, utan korrupt och fördärvad.Men detta lekande med ords innebörder förändrades under 1600-talet. Förespråkare för den nya moderna vetenskapen menade att orden inte längre fungerade som de skulle för att förmedla kunskap. Att ord har flera betydelser förvanskar idéer och förvirrar tanken, snarare än att främja den. Mångtydighet lyftes därför fram som den främsta anledningen till missförstånd – något som till och med kunde orsaka krig.Filosofen John Locke yrkade på att matematik istället för vardagsspråk skulle användas för att beskriva världen. Matematiken kunde frigöra vetenskapsmannen från ordens bedräglighet, ”the Cheat of Words”, som han skriver. Och sedan dess kanske man kan säga att ordvitsen befunnit sig i ett visst nummerärt underläge. Talen fick ersatta, ja talet.Det här är något som slår igenom också i litteraturen. Det kan man se till exempel hos de brittiska romantikerna som, till skillnad från Shakespeares ordlekar, undviker tvetydigheter i ordval och syntax till förmån för ett tydligare, mindre konstlat och mer direkt tilltal.Och under 1800-talet kan man alltså till och med bli förolämpad av en ordvits.Men i en sådan värld, den värld vi fortfarande lever i, kan jag inte undgå att känna att något gått förlorat. Om allt ska uttryckas klart och tydligt, eller inte alls, om mångtydighet är något man föraktar eller suckar åt – vad händer då med allt som vi av olika anledningar inte kan, vill eller får uttrycka på ett entydigt vis?Förutom sina litterära poänger har ordvitsar historiskt inte sällan rört ämnen som det är svårt att tala om. Det kan handla om åsikter som man inte får säga rätt upp och ner, eftersom de är impopulära eller rentav olagliga, eller berör aktiviteter som det inte passar sig att tala om alltför naket och oblygt.Ett exempel från Cicero. Scenen är en rättegång. En åklagare lägger fram bevis för att Titus Annius Milo ska ha inväntat tidpunkten då Publius Clodius Pulcher lämnade sitt gods för att slå ihjäl honom.Cicero försvarar den anklagade mördaren. När man gång på gång frågar vid vilken tid Clodius ska ha blivit mördad svarar Cicero ”sero”.”Sero” betyder ”sent” på latin. Men det kan också betyda ”alltför sent”. Cicero svarar alltså att Clodius blev ihjälslagen sent på dagen. Men med hjälp av ordets mångtydighet kan han även ge uttryck åt en åsikt som kanske inte bör sägas rakt ut – att Clodius borde ha tagits av daga för länge sedan.Ja, Cicero är en dräpande försvarsadvokat. Nu menar jag så klart inte att det är bra att gå runt och önska livet ur folk. Men kanske finns det saker som man ändå måste kunna ventilera även om de är svåra att uttrycka utan omskrivning. Ordvitsen kan då utgöra en unik möjlighet att säga något utan att faktiskt säga det.I en tid där allt kan spelas in och spelas upp igen, verkar våra politiker – med vissa uppenbara undantag – bara bli mer och mer försiktiga med vad de säger. Tillsammans med sina pressekreterare printar de ner propra uttalanden som säger exakt så lite som de avser och som inte kan misstolkas av någon. Därefter viker de inte en tum från sitt manus. Klart och tydligt. Varken mer eller mindre. Men också intetsägande. Nej, i dag vimlar det kanske inte av politiker med Ciceros lärdom och elegans. Det är klart att man, mot en sådan fond, lätt kan vinna politiska framgångar med en motsatt mediestrategi för att – ursäkta – trump-eta ut sitt budskap.Humor och mångtydighet kan – också i allvarliga sammanhang – utgöra en nödvändig ventil. Hjälpa till att lätta på trycket. Och bli en politisk superkraft.Carl-Magnus Juliussonlitteraturvetare och kulturjournalist

David Morrell hat in seinen drei De Quincey-Romanen den historischen Kriminalroman unendlich bereichert. Nicht nur, dass sie zum besten zählen, was es auf dem Sektor des viktorianischen London zu lesen gibt, es ist auch eine Meisterleistung der Recherche. Vater und Tochter De Quincey werden im Grunde nur von Sherlock Holmes selbst übertroffen, mit dem einen Unterschied, dass es De Quincey wirklich gab. Folge direkt herunterladen

Orwell, de Quincey & Frye On Literature, Language and Leadership w/Tom Libby--- Welcome and Introduction - 00:00  Grandma's Word, Spirals, Twisted Prose, Jargon Use - 05:37  Balancing Formal and Informal in Remote Work - 11:32  Sales and Marketing Consultant Cutting Words - 20:55 Mixed Metaphors, Code, and Communication in Leadership - 24:51  Misunderstanding the Meaning of the Term "-Ism." - 31:51  Leaders Delay Reaction, Gather Thoughts, Then Respond Strategically - 35:43  Politeness, Authenticity, and Communication in Modern Culture - 38:40  How can Leaders Balance Politics and Reality for Small Brands - 47:49  Leadership Challenges of Discussing Sex, Religion, and Politics Today - 49:56  Orwell's Writing and Understanding WWII - 58:24  Literature Beyond Providing Information - 01:04:32 de Quincey on Owing Power to Milton's Writing - 01:13:23  Modern Society Appears Natural - 01:22:02 Conformity in Society and Literature's Conventions - 01:22:50  Literature and Music Provide Well-Rounded Perspectives - 01:37:29  Staying on the Leadership Path with Orwell, de Quincey & Frye  - 01:46:30 ---Opening and Closing theme composed by Brian Sanyshyn of Brian Sanyshyn Music.--- Pick up your copy of 12 Rules for Leaders: The Foundation of Intentional Leadership NOW on AMAZON! Check out the 2022 Leadership Lessons From the Great Books podcast reading list! --- Check out HSCT Publishing at: https://www.hsctpublishing.com/. Check out LeadingKeys at: https://www.leadingkeys.com/ Check out Leadership ToolBox at: https://leadershiptoolbox.us/ Contact HSCT for more information at 1-833-216-8296 to schedule a full DEMO of LeadingKeys with one of our team members. --- Leadership ToolBox website: https://leadershiptoolbox.us/. Leadership ToolBox LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ldrshptlbx/. Leadership ToolBox YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJvVbIU_bSEflwYpd9lWXuA/. Leadership ToolBox Twitter: https://twitter.com/ldrshptlbx. Leadership ToolBox IG: https://www.instagram.com/leadershiptoolboxus/. Leadership ToolBox FB: https://www.facebook.com/LdrshpTlb

Jaime Paul Lamb Tanto a tradição alquímica quanto o rosacrucianismo podem ser contados entre os muitos tributários do que se tornaria a Maçonaria especulativa moderna. Prova disso pode ser encontrada no trabalho dos órgãos anexos da Fraternidade, como o Rito Escocês e a Societas Rosicruciana, e em certos rituais maçônicos que não são mais trabalhados, como o Rito Egípcio de Cagliostro. É o propósito deste artigo enumerar brevemente algumas das maneiras pelas quais nossa Fraternidade, em seu aspecto especulativo, foi afetada e/ou contribuiu para as tradições rosacruzes e alquímicas. Trataremos primeiro deste último. Considerando que a alquimia pode ser dividida em denominações operativas (práticas) e especulativas (teóricas) – uma distinção que também é evidenciada na Maçonaria – pode-se entender como esses dois sistemas seriam sinérgicos, particularmente no que diz respeito aos seus métodos comuns de simbolização e alegorizando seu trabalho. A alquimia e a maçonaria estão repletas de elaborados conjuntos de símbolos e prosa alegórica ou dramatizações que representam certos processos específicos do ofício. Além disso, o trabalho de ambas as tradições compartilha uma crença em um princípio hermético central centrado nas simpatias entre o microcosmo e o macrocosmo, em que uma operação realizada em um domínio particular pode ter um efeito causal em outro domínio correspondente – uma característica central de magia simpática. Embora o caso tenha sido esquecido durante a maior parte do século passado, a dinâmica entre a alquimia e a Maçonaria voltou a receber a atenção necessária no pensamento e na literatura maçônica do século XXI. Qualquer irmão interessado neste fascinante campo de investigação deve consultar o trabalho do irmão P.D. Newman, um psiconauta operativo, que em seu excelente Alchemically Stoned: The Psychedelic Secret of Freemasonry (The Laudable Pursuit, 2017) desenvolve e apresenta uma das teses mais inovadoras da literatura maçônica moderna, referente ao simbolismo da acácia no ritual e o simbolismo da Maçonaria e sua possível ligação com a Pedra Filosofal dos alquimistas e, assim, com as propriedades enteogênicas da planta. Para uma visão mais ampla, consulte Alchemical Keys to Masonic Ritual (Lulu Press, 2007) do irmão Timothy Hogan, cujo trabalho fez muito para abrir as comportas da investigação alquímica da perspectiva da Maçonaria. Há um enorme valor para o maçom de hoje em desenvolver essa perspectiva alquímica crítica. Se em nenhuma outra forma senão nominalmente, o Rosacrucianismo também foi perpetuado na Maçonaria especulativa e seus órgãos anexos, como os graus Rosa-Cruz no Rito Escocês Antigo e Aceito e na Societas Rosicruciana, ou Sociedade Maçônica Rosacruz; o último de cujos graus são padronizados nos da Orden der Gold und Rosenkreuzer (alemão, Ordem da Cruz Dourada e Rosa-Cruz). Formada por Samuel Richter em 1710 dC e reconstituída em meados do século 18 por Hermann Fictuld, a Orden der Gold und Rosenkreuzer era uma sociedade Rosacruz alemã povoada exclusivamente por maçons e alquimistas. A estrutura de grau sequenciada cabalisticamente da Ordem seria adotada por muitas ordens Rosacruzes e herméticas a seguir, incluindo a Maçônica Societas Rosicruciana e, através delas, a Ordem Hermética da Golden Dawn. No entanto, argumentos foram feitos no sentido de atribuir a origem da Maçonaria como proveniente do meio do rosacrucianismo europeu. [De Quincey, “Inquérito histórico-crítico sobre a origem dos rosacruzes e dos maçons”, Confissões de um comedor de ópio inglês, Londres: Walter Scott, 1886] Uma coisa é clara: exceto talvez o trabalho dos neoplatônicos florentinos de No Renascimento, o furor Rosacruz do início do século XVII foi, ostensivamente, a síntese mais desenvolvida do Cristianismo esotérico, Hermetismo, alquimia, astrologia, magia simpática e pensamento cabalístico no início da era moderna – e, talvez não por coincidência, todos esses desde então, os assuntos foram considerados quanto à sua rel --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/malhete-podcast/message

Der berüchtigte Opiumesser Thomas De Quincey und seine Tochter Emily kehren in diesem letzten Teil von David Morrells viktorianischer Krimi-Trilogie zurück, und sie stellt für viele Leser den Gipfel des Genres dar. Einerseits ist es natürlich schade, dass wir nur drei historische Krimis von David Morrell bekamen, andererseits ist dieses Niveau natürlich auch nicht über eine lange Strecke zu halten. Musik von Kevin MacLeod. Folge direkt herunterladen

David Morrell hat in seinen drei De Quincey-Romanen den historischen Kriminalroman unendlich bereichert. Nicht nur, dass sie zum besten zählen, was es auf dem Sektor des viktorianischen London zu lesen gibt, es ist auch eine Meisterleistung der Recherche. Vater und Tochter De Quincey werden im Grunde nur von Sherlock Holmes selbst übertroffen, mit dem einen Unterschied, dass es De Quincey wirklich gab. Musik von Kevin MacLeod

Here we take a closer look at many assumptions, unquestioned conclusions, and beliefs that are pervasive in our culture, such as our universe exploding from nothing in a big bang, or “we create our own reality”, or “humans are the most special of all the species on the planet”. In this provocative dialogue we explore the nature of consciousness, energy and matter. Christian de Quincey, Ph.D. is Professor of Philosophy and Consciousness Studies at John F. Kennedy University and Dean of Consciousness Studies at the University of Philosophical Research. He is the founder of the Wisdom Academy. His books include Radical Nature: The Soul of Matter (revised edition) (Park Street Press 2010), Radical Knowing: Understanding Consciousness through Relationship (Park Street Press 2005), Consciousness from Zombies to Angels (Park Street Press 2008), Deep Spirit: The Noetic Code (The Wisdom Academy Press 2008) and Blindspots: 21 Good Reasons to Think before You Talk (Park Street Press 2015) Interview Date: 1/5/2016 Tags: Christian de Quincey, Big Bang theory, parallel universes, consciousness, energy, matter, dualism, Descartes, idealism, panpsychism, evolution, Einstein, materialism, octopus, intention, beliefs, sentient, sentience, choice, Philosophy, Science

Joining us on this episode is Professor Sir John Strang a leading clinical academic who has conducted extensive addiction research studies and has worked with governments to improve responses to problems of addiction and related complications. Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is an autobiographical account written by Thomas De Quincey, about his laudanum addiction and its effect on his life. The Confessions was "the first major work De Quincey published and the one that won him fame almost overnight".

The universe around us is literally alive and conscious. This worldview restores a sense of the sacred to modern lives that have too long insisted that mind, spirit, and consciousness must be divorced from body, nature, and matter.  By recognizing that matter feels, one can more closely relate to our bodies, planet, and cosmic environment as magnificent creations brimming with spirit and meaning.Christian de Quincey Ph.DChristian is an American philosopher and author who teaches consciousness, spirituality and cosmology at universities and colleges in the United States and Europe. He is also an international speaker on consciousness. He teaches Advanced Writing & Publishing, Philosophy, and Consciousness Studies at John F. Kennedy University and the Holmes Institute.From the Archives: This live interview was recorded on October 11,  2002 on the nationally syndicated radio program, hosted by Laura Lee . See more at www.lauralee.com

De Quincey imagined that three women were sent to him so that he might know the depths of his soul. Real women could not have wielded greater influence. It is fortunate that everyone does not meet these weird women. (Volume 27, Harvard Classics) Thomas De Quincey died Dec. 8, 1859.

Thomas De Quincey war einer der intelligentesten Autoren, die England je hervorgebracht hat. Im gewöhnlichen Lesebetrieb ist er heutzutage allerdings nicht mehr so bekannt wie etwa Baudelaire oder andere dekadente Autoren. David Morrell hat nun einen genialen Schachzug gemacht und De Quincey in eine ganze Reihe historischer Persönlichkeiten gestellt, die als Ermittler fungieren. David Morrell begnügt sich nicht einfach mit dem Schriftsteller allein; selbst die von ihm dargestellten Morde haben einen grausamen Hintergrund, der einige Jahrzehnte vor Jack the Ripper für Panik in den nebelverhangenen Gassen Londons sorgte. Musik von Kevin MacLeod. Folge direkt herunterladen

LAS TRES MADRESEs una trilogía de películas de terror sobrenaturales dirigidas por Dario Argento.Se compone de Suspiria (1977), Inferno (1982) y The Mother Of Tears (2007).Cada película trata sobre una de las madres, un triunvirato de brujas antiguas y malvadas cuya magia permite manipular eventos mundiales como caos, violencia, suicidios y asesinatos.Mater Suspiriorum (en una academia de danza en Alemania)Mater Tenebrarum (en un edificio de departamentos en Nueva York)Mater Lachrymarum (en el Palacio Varelli en Roma).ORIGENLos origines de las tres madres de Dario Argento son literarios, concretamente están en los ensayos de Thomas DeQuincey.El texto que mas influyó a Argento fue “De Levana y nuestras señoras del dolor” en el que DeQuincey visualiza a la diosa romana del nacimiento, Levana, y a tres acompañantes, las Tres Madres.Argento penso que esto podría ser perfecto como transfondo para una película, basada en una experiencia real que le había contado su abuela, que se fue de una academia alemana porque estaba convencida de que había brujas.Estas representaciones de la triada, siempre ha aparecido en varias culturas y obras de arte, como el cuadro del pintor Rubens llamado Las Tres Gracias que representa a las hijas de Zeus: Aglaya, Talia y Eufrósine, tambien estan las tres brujas de Macbeth de Shakespeare o la Diosa de la mitología Griega Hecate que se representa de forma triple y se le asocia con magia y brujería y que todos los grandes magos y hechiceros mitológicos eran descendientes suyos.Tomas De QuinceyEscritor y poeta adicto al opio, vivió de 1785-1859. Escribió un poema en prosa que incluía Suspiria de Profundis la cual es una secuela de su libro Confesiones de un inglés comedor de opio. Primero describe el rol de Levana, diosa de los recién nacidos en la religión romana, seguido por conjeturas sobre el duelo y el crecimiento de los niños. Ahí es donde vislumbra a las tres mujeres: Las penas, quienes maldicen a la humanidad con depresión, duelo y desesperanza. Se refiere a ellas como las abstracciones poderosas que se encarnan ne todos los sufrimientos que habitan en el corazón humano. Presenta a estas abstracciones como personificaciones vestidas de atributos de vida humanos y con funciones que apuntan a la carne. No habla porque los fantasmas de este calibre desprecian la enfermedad del lenguaje. EL ORIGEN POR ARGENTOEn la ficcion de Argento, Las Tres Madres son tres hermanas brujas que en siglo XI habitaban a las orillas del mar negro, crearon el arte de la brujería, vagaron por el mundo acumulando riquezas y poder.Ellas declaran ser la personificación de la muerte.En el siglo XIX encargaron al arquitecto Varelli diseñar y construir tres edificios que serían sus casas y que desde ahí gobernarían el mundo.Varelli escribió un libro titulado Las Tres Madres, rompiendo a lo que se le llama SILENTIUM, donde detallaba mucha información acerca de ellas y sus casas.Varelli aprendió demasiado tarde la naturaleza malvada de las madres y quiso de alguna manera alertar al mundo de ellas.Uno de los secretos revelados en su libro, son las ubicaciones y dibujos de las 3 casas:Una academia de danza en Alemana para Mater SuspuriorumUn edificio de condominios lujosos en Nueva York para Mater TenebrarumUn palacio llamado Palazzo Varelli en Roma para Mater Lachrymarum.Otro secreto revelado por Varelli fueron a lo que el llama las Tres Llaves, son unas referencias o pistas para conocer exactamente el lugar de las casas y como llegar hasta las cámaras secretas de las tres madres:En Inferno, se menciona que para descubrir los misterios de las tres madres, se debe de encontrar tres llaves.La primera llave es en el olor que rodea el lugar donde viven.La segunda llave esta escondida en los sótanos de cada una de las casas, donde hay un retrato de la madre que vive en la casa.La tercer llave es un acertijo “esta bajo de las suelas de tus zapatos”.¿QUIENES SON LAS TRES MADRES?Mater Suspiriorum - La madre de los suspirosLa primera película de la trilogía es Suspiria de 1977, y se centra en la Mater Suspiriorum, la más vieja y sabia de las tres madres.Su nombre es Helena Markos conocida como la Reina Negra.En la película, los poderes de Helena Markos son: poder ser invisible, crear ilusiones y telequinesia.En la tercer película The Mother Of Tears conocemos que la bruja blanca Elisa Mandy lucho contra Helena Markos en Alemania.El resultado de este enfrentamiento, fue la muerte de Elisa y su esposo, quedando Helena Markos muy debil y su cuerpo dañado.El padre Johannes le revela esto a Sarah Mandy y que fue derrotada por la estudiante Suzy Banion.En Suspiria Helena Markos es la directora de la escuela de ballet, pero su presencia esta oculta por su aquellarre y es encabezada por Madame Blanc.La protagonista, Suzy Banion, una estudiante de ballet de Estados Unidos poco a poco va descubriendo los horribles secretos de la academia de ballet y de la misteriosa Helena Markos, quien intenta asesinarla pero por su estado débil no puede llevarlo a cabo.Al final, Suzy apuñala en el cuello a la Madre Suspiriorum, y esto hace que su casa y su aquelarre pierdan su poder, consumiendose en el fuego.De Quincey y Mater SuspiriorumSeñora de los Suspiros, en su cabeza lleva un turbante desecho que arrastra hasta el suelo. No llora, no grita, no gime, suspira inaudible en intervalos de tiempo. Ese mete arrastrándose tímida y silenciosa, nunca grita, ni desafía, no sueña en aspiraciones rebeliosas. Es humilde ante la abyección. Suya es la docilidad que le pertenece a los desesperanzados. Sus ojos, si llegasen a ser vistos, no serían dulces ni discretos, ningún hombre podría leerles su historia. Estarán llenos de sueños perecederos y con choques de un delirio olvidado. Murmura mientras duerme, murmura hacia ella misma en la oscuridad, murmura en lugares solitarios desolados como ella, quien está desolada, en ciudades arruinadas, y cuando se va el sol.Esto podría representar a la desesperación que siente cualquier persona sin amor, defraudada, cuaquier cautivo en una cárcel, aquél traicionado o marginado, los hijos con males hereditarios - todos ellos caminan con nuestra madre supiriorum. Carga una llave pero la utiliza poco, pues sus súbditos habitan en lugares remotos, sin casa, son vagabundos.Mater Tenebrarum - La madre de la oscuridadEs la mas joven y cruel de las tres madres, ella hace su aparición en la segunda entrega de la trilogia, en Inferno de 1982.Su verdadero nombre nunca es revelado.Ella vive en un lujoso edificio de departamentos en Nueva York bajo la identidad de una enfermera que cuida al profesor Arnold, quien no es nada mas ni nada menos que el arquitecto Varelli, muy viejo y enfermo.Al inicio de la película, una estudiante de poesía llamada Rose Elliot descubre el libro Las Tres Madres que escribió Varelli y se empieza a interesar por todo lo que se menciona en el libro, llegando a conocer que el edificio donde vive es la casa de Mater Tenebrarum.Escribe una carta a su hermano Mark quien vive en Roma Italia, para que lo visite, poco a poco empieza a notar sobre las tres llaves, el olor, el sótano con el retrato de la madre quien vive en ese lugar pero sin lograr descifrar la tercer llave.Mark es quien logra descifrar el acertijo y llegar hasta los aposentos de Mater Tenebrarum, quien resignada sobre su destino, se materializa en la muerte y es consumida por el fuego, al igual que sucedió con su hermana Helena Markos.En esta película hace su aparición Mater Lachrymarum como una estudiante de música quien trata de hechizar a Mark.De Quincey y Mater TenebrarumLa madre Tenebrarum, la más jóven de las tres... shhh! susurra si es que vas a hablar sobre ella. Su reinado no es grande, o de otra forma ninguna carne sobreviviría ahí, pero en ese reino, todo su poder manda. Las raíces de su poder yacen profundo, hasta donde le alcanza la vista, pero su nación es pequeña. Sus ojos, pueden esconderse en la distancia, pero siendo lo que son, no pueden esconderse detrás del velo que le cubre la cabeza, la luz feroz de una miseria arroyante, que no descansa ni de día ni de noche. Es quien desafía a Dios. Es la madre de lo lunático, la que sugestiona al suicidio. Ella puede acercárcele solo a aquellos de naturaleza profunda levantados por convuleciones, donde el corazon tiembra y el cerebro se mese sobre conspiraciones de tempestad, no desde afuera de esta, sino desde adentro. Se mueve con movimiento incalculable, limitante y con brincos atigrados. Ella no carga ninguna llave, ya que se acerca rara vez a los hombres, sino que atormenta todas las puertas en donde le permiten la entrada.Mater Lacrhymarum - La madre de las lagrimasEs la mas hermosa y poderosa del las tres madres. Al igual que su hermana Tenebrarum, su nombre no se menciona nunca.Se sugiere que su casa en Roma Italia puede estar ubicada cerca la Biblioteca que vimos en Inferno, cuando Sara nota un extraño olor dulce en el aire.En Mother Of Tears se revela como el Palazzo Varelli una mansion abandonada en un lugar alejado de la ciudad.En la ultima película de la trilogía es la ultima de las tres hermanas que sigue viva, pero débil y recobrando sus poderes. Su poder afecta eventos del mundo, como causar caos, violencia y asesinatos en Roma.Es despertada cuando Sarah Mandy se descubre la urna que contiene su poderosa reliquia, una tunica que le da poder.Ella es derrotada por Sarah Mandy, cuando descubrió su guarida secreta y quema su tunica, causando el colapso del Palazzo.Lachrymarum muere cuando un obelisco la empala.Su casa al igual que las de sus hermanas, se quema hasta los cimientos.De Quincey y Mater LachrymarumLa madre de las lágrimas, es la más vieja de todas, ella es la primera en nacer y por esto tiene el imperio más grande de todos, se le honra con el título de Madonna. Ella es lo que el día y la noche deliran y gimen, llamando a rostros desaparecidos. Se paró en Belén la noche que Herodes azotó su espada sobre las guarderías de los inocentes, cuyos pies se quedaron inmóviles por siempre. La madre lachrymarym viste una diadema en su cabeza y puede ir a otras tierras siguiendo al viento, cuando escucha el llorar de letanías o el relampageo de los órganos, y cuando se reúnen las nubes de verano. Se mueve con pasos no certeros, a veces rápido o aveces lento, pero siempre con una gracia trágica. Se desliza entre fantasmas intrusos a las cámaras de los hombres con insomnio, mujeres con insomnio y niños con insomnio utilizando el poder de las llaves. Sus ojos son dulces y sutiles, salvajes y adormecidos, por turnos. En ocasiones, ascendiendo al cielo y en otras desafiándo a los cielos. En ocasiones es una tormenta y frenética, iracunda e los más altos cielos y demandando a sus niños. Se reúsa ser recomfortada. Carga todas las llaves, puede entrar a cualquier casa o palacio.Si bien esta ultima pelicula es algo floja, en mi opinion porque entre mas aparezca la bruja o algun enfrentamiento directo, pierde ese misticismo creado en Suspiria y que tambien tiene Inferno.Pero al final, Argento termino de realizar su trilogia de una manera que cumple sin alcanzar la altura que logro en las otras 2 entregas.CURIOSIDADESLa actriz Ania Perioni quien interpreto a Mater Lachrymarum en Inferno, menciono en 1985 que se estaba trabajando en el guion para la tercera entrega y que ella retomaría su papel que interpreto en Inferno, pero por causas desconocidas el proyecto no se llevo a cabo.Esto también fue declarado por Daria Nicolodi quién se sabe que co-escribio el guion de Suspiria e Inferno.Se dice que este guion fue rescatado pero que cambiaron la mayor parte del mismo y filmaron lo que se conoce como Demons 6 o El Gato Negro estrenada en 1989; una pseudo secuela de Suspiria, donde reaparece Mater Suspiriorum.Créditos:Radio Horror es producido por Caro Arriaga y Rael Aguilar.Edición por Matías Beltrando desde Destek Soporte.Música Closing Theme Hounds of Love por Dan Luscombe (Intro)Insiders por Joe Crotty (Intro)Patchwork por Patchworker f.k.a. [friendzoned] (Spoilers)Nightlong por FSM Team (Outro)★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

This weeks legendary cattlemen series takes us to the river plains of Herefordshire in middle England to discuss the prowess of possibly the greatest Hereford cattle breeder of all time, Captain de Quincey. I am joined by breeder, enthusiast and historian Clive Davies as we walk through how this great man sourced his original herd and made his mark in history. And like many other great breeders, it wasn't just Hereford cattle that he stuck with, as we hear about the other breeds and species that would have made a very interesting visit to The Vern. 

Christian de Quincey, PhD, is a faculty member at John F. Kennedy University and Sophia University. He is founder and director of the Wisdom Academy. He is author of Radical Nature: The Soul of Matter, Radical Knowing: Understanding Consciousness Through Relationship, Consciousness From Zombies to Angels: The Shadow and the Light of Knowing Who You … Continue reading "Classic Reboot: The Philosophy of Panpsychism with Christian de Quincey"

Christian de Quincey, PhD, is a faculty member at John F. Kennedy University and Sophia University. He is founder and director of the Wisdom Academy. He is author of Radical Nature: The Soul of Matter, Radical Knowing: Understanding Consciousness Through Relationship, Consciousness From Zombies to Angels: The Shadow and the Light of Knowing Who You … Continue reading "Classic Reboot: Synchronicity with Christian de Quincey"

Dr Rita Louise Christian de Quincey - The Na

De Quincey imagined that three women were sent to him so that he might know the depths of his soul. Real women could not have wielded greater influence. It is fortunate that everyone does not meet these weird women. (Volume 27, Harvard Classics)Thomas De Quincey died Dec. 8, 1859.

Scrisse H. A. Page, primo biografo di De Quncey: «I contributi di De Quincey a riviste e periodici spaziano su una vastissima area di argomenti. Il più compendioso e non certo il più scorretto titolo generale che essi potrebbero avere sarebbe De omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis. Questi suoi scritti possono essere divisi in storici, […]

Carlo Linati (curatore e traduttore) sceglie, tra la sterminata produzione di De Quincey, alcuni scritti particolarmente interessanti che spaziano appunto dalla riflessione letteraria, a quella autobiografica, fino ad annotazioni di tipo storico.

Í Víðsjá í dag er hugað að sýningunni Samkomu sem átti upphaflega að vera í Veröld - húsi Vigdísar, en færist inn á netið vegna faraldursins. Þær Hrafnhildur Gissurardóttir og Sólveig Pálsdóttir segja frá Samkomu í Víðsjá dagsins. Thomas De Quincey, (1785 -1859), var þekktastur fyrir bók sína Játningar enskrar ópíumætu sem út kom árið 1821 og olli miklu uppnámi. Hermann Stefánsson rýnir í enska klassík í Víðsjá í dag. Hinn íslenski þursaflokkur kemur að gefnu tilefni við sögu í þættinum. Og hlustendur heyra ljóð fyrir þjóð. Í dag er það Arnar Jónsson leikari sem les Sonatorrek eftir Egil Skallagrímsson.

In December 1811, two households in the borough of Wapping, one of the docks districts of east London were annihilated in a pair of brutal and apparently motiveless crimes. After the crimes, the murderer was disposed of in a novel and unusual fashion. Twenty years later, they were described in Thomas De Quincey's satirical essay “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts” as “the sublimest and most entire in their excellence that ever were committed.” Part of the Straight Up Strange Network: https://www.straightupstrange.com/ My Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/forgdark/ Opening music from https://filmmusic.io. "Classic Horror 1" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com). License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) "Dark Child" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com). License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Closing music by Soma. SOURCES Caledonian Mercury, September 21, 1812. Ipswich Journal, December 28, 1811. “Another horrid murder!” Bury and Norwich Post, December 25, 1811. “Another massacre – coroner's inquest on the dead bodies of Mr. Williamson, and family.” Leeds Mercury, December 28, 1811. “Important examination.” Leeds Mercury, December 28, 1811. “Murder of Mr. Marr and family.” Caledonian Mercury, December 14, 1811. “Murder of Mr. Marr and family.” Hull Packet and East Riding Times, December 17, 1811. “Murder of Mr. Marr's family in Ratcliff Highway.” London Observer, December 15, 1811. “Murders in New Gravel Lane.” London Morning Chronicle, December 24, 1811. “Murders in New Gravel Lane, &c.” London Times, December 24, 1811. “The late murder in Ratcliffe Highway – examination of suspected persons.” Jackson's Oxford Journal, December 21, 1811. “The late murders.” Jackson's Oxford Journal, January 4, 1812. “The Marr's murder.” Exeter Flying Post, June 1, 1815. “Williams, the murderer.” Caledonian Mercury, January 4, 1812. “Williamson's murder.” Jackson's Oxford Journal, February 1, 1811. De Quincey, Thomas. “Postcript to 'On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts.'” On Murder. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. https://books.google.com/books?id=sww0kGQ5AFkC&pg=PA95&lpg=PA95&dq=postscript+to+murder+as+one+of+the+fine+arts&source=bl&ots=LZhKTGKaaB&sig=ACfU3U11QoFgOth13xjI_QQr-qRjmWEZKg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjdwPKYhNrnAhUaknIEHWPnDdE4FBDoATAAegQIChAB#v=onepage&q=postscript%20to%20murder%20as%20one%20of%20the%20fine%20arts&f=false The Literary Panorama, Vol. XI. London: Cox and Baylis, 1812. https://books.google.com/books?id=UZLfAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA359&lpg=PA359&dq=Roxburgh+Castle+(1809+ship)&source=bl&ots=KxKyfUQM-l&sig=ACfU3U1r4OtmDCpT60PvubrRTDn9PqSp2g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjX7tWbq9nnAhVslXIEHdV7DUYQ6AEwBXoECA0QAQ#v=onepage&q=Roxburgh%20Castle%20(1809%20ship)&f=false https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratcliff_Highway_murders https://www.murdermap.co.uk/historical-murders/mapping-the-ratcliffe-highway-murders/ http://www.thamespolicemuseum.org.uk/h_ratcliffehighwaymurders_8.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roxburgh_Castle_(1809_ship)

Mainly about witches: Reginald Scott's skepticism, James's motivated belief in them, the King's touch, the relation of witches to the soothsayer in A&C (vs. the one in JC), and some attention (again, as in other courses) to Dan Decker's Anatomy of a Screenplay and the insights it affords into Shakespeare's construction of scenes: the way soothsayers and messengers are similar and the way they differ.  At the end a brief consideration of what De Quincey means by sympathy.

Elements in Macbeth that were more or less likely to come from elsewhere.  Who played whom.  Robert Armin (and Will Kemp).  Johnson on whether the reference to Antony and Cleopatra (Macbeth's genius overmatched by Banquo's as Antony's is by Caesar) is an interpolation.  De Quincey on the knocking at the gate, and the effect that the juxtaposition of scenes has.

François-Xavier Fauvelle Collège de France Année 2019 - 2020 Introduction aux mondes africains médiévaux Comment l'Afrique ne fut pas découverte (2) Le Périple de la mer Erythrée : les voyages en Inde et en Afrique orientale (suite). La question de Rhapta, dernier emporion sur la côte orientale d'Afrique. Les périples libyques (phéniciens, égyptiens, perses). Le Périple d'Hannon. Les circumnavigations de l'Afrique : des récits bons à penser. Le périple des marins de Néchao (texte de Hérodote) : hypothèses. La « solution De Quincey » au problème de la position du soleil. Comparaison des navigations antiques et des navigations médiévales. Les « prédécouvertes » européennes des XIVe-XVesiècles. Les cartes-portulans. L'historiographie de la découverte portugaise de la route de contournement de l'Afrique. Le continent contourné. L' Afrique des Européens à l'ère moderne : une géographie de la méconnaissance.

François-Xavier Fauvelle Collège de France Année 2019 - 2020 Introduction aux mondes africains médiévaux Comment l'Afrique ne fut pas découverte (2) Le Périple de la mer Erythrée : les voyages en Inde et en Afrique orientale (suite). La question de Rhapta, dernier emporion sur la côte orientale d'Afrique. Les périples libyques (phéniciens, égyptiens, perses). Le Périple d'Hannon. Les circumnavigations de l'Afrique : des récits bons à penser. Le périple des marins de Néchao (texte de Hérodote) : hypothèses. La « solution De Quincey » au problème de la position du soleil. Comparaison des navigations antiques et des navigations médiévales. Les « prédécouvertes » européennes des XIVe-XVesiècles. Les cartes-portulans. L'historiographie de la découverte portugaise de la route de contournement de l'Afrique. Le continent contourné. L' Afrique des Européens à l'ère moderne : une géographie de la méconnaissance.

François-Xavier Fauvelle Collège de France Année 2019 - 2020 Introduction aux mondes africains médiévaux Comment l'Afrique ne fut pas découverte (2) Le Périple de la mer Erythrée : les voyages en Inde et en Afrique orientale (suite). La question de Rhapta, dernier emporion sur la côte orientale d'Afrique. Les périples libyques (phéniciens, égyptiens, perses). Le Périple d'Hannon. Les circumnavigations de l'Afrique : des récits bons à penser. Le périple des marins de Néchao (texte de Hérodote) : hypothèses. La « solution De Quincey » au problème de la position du soleil. Comparaison des navigations antiques et des navigations médiévales. Les « prédécouvertes » européennes des XIVe-XVesiècles. Les cartes-portulans. L'historiographie de la découverte portugaise de la route de contournement de l'Afrique. Le continent contourné. L' Afrique des Européens à l'ère moderne : une géographie de la méconnaissance.

François-Xavier Fauvelle Collège de France Année 2019 - 2020 Introduction aux mondes africains médiévaux Comment l'Afrique ne fut pas découverte (2) Le Périple de la mer Erythrée : les voyages en Inde et en Afrique orientale (suite). La question de Rhapta, dernier emporion sur la côte orientale d'Afrique. Les périples libyques (phéniciens, égyptiens, perses). Le Périple d'Hannon. Les circumnavigations de l'Afrique : des récits bons à penser. Le périple des marins de Néchao (texte de Hérodote) : hypothèses. La « solution De Quincey » au problème de la position du soleil. Comparaison des navigations antiques et des navigations médiévales. Les « prédécouvertes » européennes des XIVe-XVesiècles. Les cartes-portulans. L'historiographie de la découverte portugaise de la route de contournement de l'Afrique. Le continent contourné. L' Afrique des Européens à l'ère moderne : une géographie de la méconnaissance.

François-Xavier Fauvelle Collège de France Année 2019 - 2020 Introduction aux mondes africains médiévaux Comment l'Afrique ne fut pas découverte (2) Le Périple de la mer Erythrée : les voyages en Inde et en Afrique orientale (suite). La question de Rhapta, dernier emporion sur la côte orientale d'Afrique. Les périples libyques (phéniciens, égyptiens, perses). Le Périple d'Hannon. Les circumnavigations de l'Afrique : des récits bons à penser. Le périple des marins de Néchao (texte de Hérodote) : hypothèses. La « solution De Quincey » au problème de la position du soleil. Comparaison des navigations antiques et des navigations médiévales. Les « prédécouvertes » européennes des XIVe-XVesiècles. Les cartes-portulans. L'historiographie de la découverte portugaise de la route de contournement de l'Afrique. Le continent contourné. L' Afrique des Européens à l'ère moderne : une géographie de la méconnaissance.

François-Xavier Fauvelle Collège de France Année 2019 - 2020 Introduction aux mondes africains médiévaux Comment l'Afrique ne fut pas découverte (2) Le Périple de la mer Erythrée : les voyages en Inde et en Afrique orientale (suite). La question de Rhapta, dernier emporion sur la côte orientale d'Afrique. Les périples libyques (phéniciens, égyptiens, perses). Le Périple d'Hannon. Les circumnavigations de l'Afrique : des récits bons à penser. Le périple des marins de Néchao (texte de Hérodote) : hypothèses. La « solution De Quincey » au problème de la position du soleil. Comparaison des navigations antiques et des navigations médiévales. Les « prédécouvertes » européennes des XIVe-XVesiècles. Les cartes-portulans. L'historiographie de la découverte portugaise de la route de contournement de l'Afrique. Le continent contourné. L' Afrique des Européens à l'ère moderne : une géographie de la méconnaissance.

François-Xavier Fauvelle Collège de France Année 2019 - 2020 Introduction aux mondes africains médiévaux Comment l'Afrique ne fut pas découverte (2) Le Périple de la mer Erythrée : les voyages en Inde et en Afrique orientale (suite). La question de Rhapta, dernier emporion sur la côte orientale d'Afrique. Les périples libyques (phéniciens, égyptiens, perses). Le Périple d'Hannon. Les circumnavigations de l'Afrique : des récits bons à penser. Le périple des marins de Néchao (texte de Hérodote) : hypothèses. La « solution De Quincey » au problème de la position du soleil. Comparaison des navigations antiques et des navigations médiévales. Les « prédécouvertes » européennes des XIVe-XVesiècles. Les cartes-portulans. L'historiographie de la découverte portugaise de la route de contournement de l'Afrique. Le continent contourné. L' Afrique des Européens à l'ère moderne : une géographie de la méconnaissance.

François-Xavier Fauvelle Collège de France Année 2019 - 2020 Introduction aux mondes africains médiévaux Comment l'Afrique ne fut pas découverte (2) Le Périple de la mer Erythrée : les voyages en Inde et en Afrique orientale (suite). La question de Rhapta, dernier emporion sur la côte orientale d'Afrique. Les périples libyques (phéniciens, égyptiens, perses). Le Périple d'Hannon. Les circumnavigations de l'Afrique : des récits bons à penser. Le périple des marins de Néchao (texte de Hérodote) : hypothèses. La « solution De Quincey » au problème de la position du soleil. Comparaison des navigations antiques et des navigations médiévales. Les « prédécouvertes » européennes des XIVe-XVesiècles. Les cartes-portulans. L'historiographie de la découverte portugaise de la route de contournement de l'Afrique. Le continent contourné. L' Afrique des Européens à l'ère moderne : une géographie de la méconnaissance.

François-Xavier Fauvelle Collège de France Année 2019 - 2020 Introduction aux mondes africains médiévaux Comment l'Afrique ne fut pas découverte (2) Le Périple de la mer Erythrée : les voyages en Inde et en Afrique orientale (suite). La question de Rhapta, dernier emporion sur la côte orientale d'Afrique. Les périples libyques (phéniciens, égyptiens, perses). Le Périple d'Hannon. Les circumnavigations de l'Afrique : des récits bons à penser. Le périple des marins de Néchao (texte de Hérodote) : hypothèses. La « solution De Quincey » au problème de la position du soleil. Comparaison des navigations antiques et des navigations médiévales. Les « prédécouvertes » européennes des XIVe-XVesiècles. Les cartes-portulans. L'historiographie de la découverte portugaise de la route de contournement de l'Afrique. Le continent contourné. L' Afrique des Européens à l'ère moderne : une géographie de la méconnaissance.

François-Xavier Fauvelle Collège de France Année 2019 - 2020 Introduction aux mondes africains médiévaux Comment l'Afrique ne fut pas découverte (2) Le Périple de la mer Erythrée : les voyages en Inde et en Afrique orientale (suite). La question de Rhapta, dernier emporion sur la côte orientale d'Afrique. Les périples libyques (phéniciens, égyptiens, perses). Le Périple d'Hannon. Les circumnavigations de l'Afrique : des récits bons à penser. Le périple des marins de Néchao (texte de Hérodote) : hypothèses. La « solution De Quincey » au problème de la position du soleil. Comparaison des navigations antiques et des navigations médiévales. Les « prédécouvertes » européennes des XIVe-XVesiècles. Les cartes-portulans. L'historiographie de la découverte portugaise de la route de contournement de l'Afrique. Le continent contourné. L' Afrique des Européens à l'ère moderne : une géographie de la méconnaissance.

François-Xavier Fauvelle Collège de France Année 2019 - 2020 Introduction aux mondes africains médiévaux Comment l'Afrique ne fut pas découverte (2) Le Périple de la mer Erythrée : les voyages en Inde et en Afrique orientale (suite). La question de Rhapta, dernier emporion sur la côte orientale d'Afrique. Les périples libyques (phéniciens, égyptiens, perses). Le Périple d'Hannon. Les circumnavigations de l'Afrique : des récits bons à penser. Le périple des marins de Néchao (texte de Hérodote) : hypothèses. La « solution De Quincey » au problème de la position du soleil. Comparaison des navigations antiques et des navigations médiévales. Les « prédécouvertes » européennes des XIVe-XVesiècles. Les cartes-portulans. L'historiographie de la découverte portugaise de la route de contournement de l'Afrique. Le continent contourné. L' Afrique des Européens à l'ère moderne : une géographie de la méconnaissance.

François-Xavier Fauvelle Collège de France Année 2019 - 2020 Introduction aux mondes africains médiévaux Comment l'Afrique ne fut pas découverte (2) Le Périple de la mer Erythrée : les voyages en Inde et en Afrique orientale (suite). La question de Rhapta, dernier emporion sur la côte orientale d'Afrique. Les périples libyques (phéniciens, égyptiens, perses). Le Périple d'Hannon. Les circumnavigations de l'Afrique : des récits bons à penser. Le périple des marins de Néchao (texte de Hérodote) : hypothèses. La « solution De Quincey » au problème de la position du soleil. Comparaison des navigations antiques et des navigations médiévales. Les « prédécouvertes » européennes des XIVe-XVesiècles. Les cartes-portulans. L'historiographie de la découverte portugaise de la route de contournement de l'Afrique. Le continent contourné. L' Afrique des Européens à l'ère moderne : une géographie de la méconnaissance.

François-Xavier Fauvelle Collège de France Année 2019 - 2020 Introduction aux mondes africains médiévaux Comment l'Afrique ne fut pas découverte (2) Le Périple de la mer Erythrée : les voyages en Inde et en Afrique orientale (suite). La question de Rhapta, dernier emporion sur la côte orientale d'Afrique. Les périples libyques (phéniciens, égyptiens, perses). Le Périple d'Hannon. Les circumnavigations de l'Afrique : des récits bons à penser. Le périple des marins de Néchao (texte de Hérodote) : hypothèses. La « solution De Quincey » au problème de la position du soleil. Comparaison des navigations antiques et des navigations médiévales. Les « prédécouvertes » européennes des XIVe-XVesiècles. Les cartes-portulans. L'historiographie de la découverte portugaise de la route de contournement de l'Afrique. Le continent contourné. L' Afrique des Européens à l'ère moderne : une géographie de la méconnaissance.

François-Xavier Fauvelle Collège de France Année 2019 - 2020 Introduction aux mondes africains médiévaux Comment l'Afrique ne fut pas découverte (2) Le Périple de la mer Erythrée : les voyages en Inde et en Afrique orientale (suite). La question de Rhapta, dernier emporion sur la côte orientale d'Afrique. Les périples libyques (phéniciens, égyptiens, perses). Le Périple d'Hannon. Les circumnavigations de l'Afrique : des récits bons à penser. Le périple des marins de Néchao (texte de Hérodote) : hypothèses. La « solution De Quincey » au problème de la position du soleil. Comparaison des navigations antiques et des navigations médiévales. Les « prédécouvertes » européennes des XIVe-XVesiècles. Les cartes-portulans. L'historiographie de la découverte portugaise de la route de contournement de l'Afrique. Le continent contourné. L' Afrique des Européens à l'ère moderne : une géographie de la méconnaissance.

François-Xavier Fauvelle Collège de France Année 2019 - 2020 Introduction aux mondes africains médiévaux Comment l'Afrique ne fut pas découverte (2) Le Périple de la mer Erythrée : les voyages en Inde et en Afrique orientale (suite). La question de Rhapta, dernier emporion sur la côte orientale d'Afrique. Les périples libyques (phéniciens, égyptiens, perses). Le Périple d'Hannon. Les circumnavigations de l'Afrique : des récits bons à penser. Le périple des marins de Néchao (texte de Hérodote) : hypothèses. La « solution De Quincey » au problème de la position du soleil. Comparaison des navigations antiques et des navigations médiévales. Les « prédécouvertes » européennes des XIVe-XVesiècles. Les cartes-portulans. L'historiographie de la découverte portugaise de la route de contournement de l'Afrique. Le continent contourné. L' Afrique des Européens à l'ère moderne : une géographie de la méconnaissance.

François-Xavier Fauvelle Collège de France Année 2019 - 2020 Introduction aux mondes africains médiévaux Comment l'Afrique ne fut pas découverte (2) Le Périple de la mer Erythrée : les voyages en Inde et en Afrique orientale (suite). La question de Rhapta, dernier emporion sur la côte orientale d'Afrique. Les périples libyques (phéniciens, égyptiens, perses). Le Périple d'Hannon. Les circumnavigations de l'Afrique : des récits bons à penser. Le périple des marins de Néchao (texte de Hérodote) : hypothèses. La « solution De Quincey » au problème de la position du soleil. Comparaison des navigations antiques et des navigations médiévales. Les « prédécouvertes » européennes des XIVe-XVesiècles. Les cartes-portulans. L'historiographie de la découverte portugaise de la route de contournement de l'Afrique. Le continent contourné. L' Afrique des Européens à l'ère moderne : une géographie de la méconnaissance.

François-Xavier FauvelleCollège de FranceAnnée 2019 - 2020Introduction aux mondes africains médiévauxComment l'Afrique ne fut pas découverte (2)Le Périple de la mer Erythrée : les voyages en Inde et en Afrique orientale (suite). La question de Rhapta, dernier emporion sur la côte orientale d'Afrique. Les périples libyques (phéniciens, égyptiens, perses). Le Périple d'Hannon. Les circumnavigations de l'Afrique : des récits bons à penser. Le périple des marins de Néchao (texte de Hérodote) : hypothèses. La « solution De Quincey » au problème de la position du soleil. Comparaison des navigations antiques et des navigations médiévales. Les « prédécouvertes » européennes des XIVe-XVesiècles. Les cartes-portulans. L'historiographie de la découverte portugaise de la route de contournement de l'Afrique. Le continent contourné. L' Afrique des Européens à l'ère moderne : une géographie de la méconnaissance.

François-Xavier Fauvelle Collège de France Année 2019 - 2020 Introduction aux mondes africains médiévaux Comment l'Afrique ne fut pas découverte (2) Le Périple de la mer Erythrée : les voyages en Inde et en Afrique orientale (suite). La question de Rhapta, dernier emporion sur la côte orientale d'Afrique. Les périples libyques (phéniciens, égyptiens, perses). Le Périple d'Hannon. Les circumnavigations de l'Afrique : des récits bons à penser. Le périple des marins de Néchao (texte de Hérodote) : hypothèses. La « solution De Quincey » au problème de la position du soleil. Comparaison des navigations antiques et des navigations médiévales. Les « prédécouvertes » européennes des XIVe-XVesiècles. Les cartes-portulans. L'historiographie de la découverte portugaise de la route de contournement de l'Afrique. Le continent contourné. L' Afrique des Européens à l'ère moderne : une géographie de la méconnaissance.

François-Xavier Fauvelle Collège de France Année 2019 - 2020 Introduction aux mondes africains médiévaux Comment l'Afrique ne fut pas découverte (2) Le Périple de la mer Erythrée : les voyages en Inde et en Afrique orientale (suite). La question de Rhapta, dernier emporion sur la côte orientale d'Afrique. Les périples libyques (phéniciens, égyptiens, perses). Le Périple d'Hannon. Les circumnavigations de l'Afrique : des récits bons à penser. Le périple des marins de Néchao (texte de Hérodote) : hypothèses. La « solution De Quincey » au problème de la position du soleil. Comparaison des navigations antiques et des navigations médiévales. Les « prédécouvertes » européennes des XIVe-XVesiècles. Les cartes-portulans. L'historiographie de la découverte portugaise de la route de contournement de l'Afrique. Le continent contourné. L' Afrique des Européens à l'ère moderne : une géographie de la méconnaissance.

Sin duda uno de los escritores más influyentes de todo el siglo XX. De familia acomodada, vivió siempre entre libros. Con tan solo 6 años, Jorge Luis Borges, ya tenía muy claro que quería ser escritor. Recorrió toda Europa con su familia, residiendo en París, Milán, Venecia y Ginebra. También pasó unos años en España, donde conoció a Valle-Inclán, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Ortega y Gasset, Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Gerardo Diego, etc. Ernesto Sábato enumeró así la variedad del cosmos que Borges exploró en sus obras: “manuscritos de heresiarcas, naipes de truco, Quevedo y Stevenson, letras de tango, demostraciones matemáticas, Lewis Carroll, aporías eleáticas, Franz Kafka, laberintos cretenses, arrabales porteños, Stuart Mill, De Quincey y guapos de chambergo requintado”. “La mezcla” es aparente: son siempre las mismas ocupaciones metafísicas, con diferente ropaje: un partido de truco puede ser la inmortalidad, una biblioteca puede ser el eterno retorno. A Borges le gusta confundir al lector: uno cree estar leyendo un relato policial y de pronto se encuentra con Dios o el falso Basílides.” Como dijo su amigo Alfonso Reyes: “Borges es un mago de las ideas. Transforma todos los motivos que toca y los lleva a otro registro mental“. Solo el título de sus libros nos hace reflexionar sobre una nueva dimensión de las cosas. La poesía fue uno de los fundamentos de su trabajo literario, aunque fueron el ensayo y la narrativa los géneros que le reportaron el reconocimiento universal. La diferencia entre la prosa y la poesía reside, según Borges, en el lector, no en el texto: «Ante una página en prosa el lector espera noticias, información, razonamientos; en cambio, el que lee una página en verso sabe que tiene que emocionarse. En el texto no hay ninguna diferencia, pero en el lector sí, porque la actitud del lector es distinta». Su obra, compuesta de cuentos, poemas y ensayos breves, manifiesta un altísimo nivel de erudición y una capacidad de inventiva inigualable, que ha inspirado a creadores de todo el mundo. Murió de un enfisema pulmonar el 14 de junio de 1986, en Suiza, confesándose infeliz. "He cometido el peor de los pecados que un hombre puede cometer. No he sido feliz". CRÉDITOS (poema/voz/música): 1. Presentación : Manuel Alcaine / Astor Piazzolla 2. El remordimiento / Jose Sampietro / Astor Piazzolla 3. Las cosas / Néstor Barreto / Astor Piazzolla 4. 1964 / Elena Parra / Astor Piazzolla 5. A un gato / Jose Sampietro / Astor Piazzolla

Sin duda uno de los escritores más influyentes de todo el siglo XX. De familia acomodada, vivió siempre entre libros. Con tan solo 6 años, Jorge Luis Borges, ya tenía muy claro que quería ser escritor. Recorrió toda Europa con su familia, residiendo en París, Milán, Venecia y Ginebra. También pasó unos años en España, donde conoció a Valle-Inclán, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Ortega y Gasset, Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Gerardo Diego, etc. Ernesto Sábato enumeró así la variedad del cosmos que Borges exploró en sus obras: “manuscritos de heresiarcas, naipes de truco, Quevedo y Stevenson, letras de tango, demostraciones matemáticas, Lewis Carroll, aporías eleáticas, Franz Kafka, laberintos cretenses, arrabales porteños, Stuart Mill, De Quincey y guapos de chambergo requintado”. “La mezcla” es aparente: son siempre las mismas ocupaciones metafísicas, con diferente ropaje: un partido de truco puede ser la inmortalidad, una biblioteca puede ser el eterno retorno. A Borges le gusta confundir al lector: uno cree estar leyendo un relato policial y de pronto se encuentra con Dios o el falso Basílides.” Como dijo su amigo Alfonso Reyes: “Borges es un mago de las ideas. Transforma todos los motivos que toca y los lleva a otro registro mental“. Solo el título de sus libros nos hace reflexionar sobre una nueva dimensión de las cosas. La poesía fue uno de los fundamentos de su trabajo literario, aunque fueron el ensayo y la narrativa los géneros que le reportaron el reconocimiento universal. La diferencia entre la prosa y la poesía reside, según Borges, en el lector, no en el texto: «Ante una página en prosa el lector espera noticias, información, razonamientos; en cambio, el que lee una página en verso sabe que tiene que emocionarse. En el texto no hay ninguna diferencia, pero en el lector sí, porque la actitud del lector es distinta». Su obra, compuesta de cuentos, poemas y ensayos breves, manifiesta un altísimo nivel de erudición y una capacidad de inventiva inigualable, que ha inspirado a creadores de todo el mundo. Murió de un enfisema pulmonar el 14 de junio de 1986, en Suiza, confesándose infeliz. "He cometido el peor de los pecados que un hombre puede cometer. No he sido feliz". CRÉDITOS (poema/voz/música): 1. Presentación : Manuel Alcaine / Astor Piazzolla 2. El remordimiento / Jose Sampietro / Astor Piazzolla 3. Las cosas / Néstor Barreto / Astor Piazzolla 4. 1964 / Elena Parra / Astor Piazzolla 5. A un gato / Jose Sampietro / Astor Piazzolla

In this first audio essay, Thomas De Quincey, of a new series of monologues, Saints and Rascals, by Clark Carr, we hear De Quincey talk about his book, "Confessions of an Opium Eater," and of the terrible history of opium, the British/Chinese Opium Wars, and the evolution of the modern international drug crisis. What a tale! Told by someone who lived it...

North Americans are the world’s most compulsive and prolific users of legal opioids. In this lyrical update of Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, writer Carlyn Zwarenstein recounts her search for relief and release – with its euphoric ups, hallucinatory lows and desperate pharmacy visits. Along the way she traces the long tradition of opium’s influence on culture and imagination, from De Quincey to Frida Kahlo. Part memoir, part critique of modern medicine, Zwarenstein’s short but powerful book offers a “measured” and “urgent” (The Globe & Mail) entry-point to a critical contemporary discussion. From the reviews: “…a sensuous and compelling meditation on using opioids to treat chronic pain. It’s also a delicate ode to the drug’s history. Zwarenstein, whose writing is thoughtful, honest, and elegant, opens her life to us as she guides us expertly through history, citing resources from literary biographies to online drug forums. With a little wink, she even includes a “pain playlist” with songs by Neil Young, Elliott Smith, and The Velvet Underground.

Antonio Muñoz Molina es escritor y miembro de la Real Academia Española (ocupa el sillón “u” minúscula desde 1996), honorario de la Academia de Buenas Letras de Granada y Premio Príncipe de Asturias en 2013. Su última novela, "Un andar solitario entre la gente", es un recorrido, principalmente por Madrid y Nueva York, donde el protagonista va anotando en un cuaderno y a lápiz todo lo que ve y llega a sus oídos. Al tiempo que disfruta con todo lo que se va encontrando en su camino, rememora a otros grandes literatos que se inspiraron principalmente en lo que observaban en las calles, como De Quincey, Poe, Baudelaire y Walter Benjamin, entre otros. Vídeo de la entrevista: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOGCeQ1XXP0 Sinopsis del libro: Sinopsis de "Un andar solitario entre la gente": Un andar solitario entre la gente es la historia de un caminante que escribe siempre a lápiz, recortando y pegando cosas, recogiendo papeles por la calle, en la estela de artistas que han practicado el arte del collage, la basura y el reciclaje —como Diane Arbus o Dubuffet—, así como la de los grandes caminantes urbanos de la literatura: de Quincey, Baudelaire, Poe, Joyce, Walter Benjamin, Melville, Lorca, Whitman… A la manera de Poeta en Nueva York, de Lorca, la narración de Un andar solitario entre la gente está hecha de celebración y denuncia: la denuncia del ruido extremo del capitalismo, de la conversión de todo en mercancía y basura; y la celebración de la belleza y la variedad del mundo, de la mirada ecológica y estética que recicla la basura en fertilidad y arte. ----------------------------------------------- Algún día en alguna parte: Web: http://buff.ly/1KQot5O Fragmentos para olvidar: http://buff.ly/1KQot5P Facebook: http://buff.ly/1R7rT0A Twitter: http://buff.ly/1R7rT0B Google+: http://buff.ly/1R7rT0C Tumblr: http://buff.ly/1R7rR8J Pinterest: http://buff.ly/1R7rT0D Instagram: http://buff.ly/1KQouGJ Podcast: http://buff.ly/1R7rR8M Canal en ivoox: http://buff.ly/1R7rR8N * Suscríbete a mi canal de YouTube: http://buff.ly/1R7rTgS Email: contacto@algundiaenalgunaparte.com

"I began to feel very ill at ease. At first I thought it was simply the closeness of the room.... But then I felt a strange creeping within my clothes and understood that all the hairs on my back were standing up."   Have you ever felt the presence of evil? Is your intuition trustworthy? What exactly is evil, anyway?

Christian de Quincey, Ph.D., is a philosopher and author who teaches consciousness, spirituality and cosmology at universities and colleges in the United States and Europe. He is also an international speaker on consciousness Christian De Quincey is a professor of Philosophy and Consciousness Studies at John F. Kennedy University, Dean of Consciousness Studies and the […]

Professor of Philosophy Christian de Quincey exposes the "thought viruses" embedded in many of our conversations, blind spots veiling our authenticity and our abilities to think about things at a far deeper level.  Christopher is the author of the recently released book BlindSpots: 21 Good Reasons to Think before You Talk. Christian asserts that we all spread assumptions and conclusions that do not withstand scrutiny, things we say but may not actually believe.  This obscures the more expansive reality we can truly come to know and diminishes authenticity in the ways we live our lives, interact with others and deeply reflect upon our world. Christian de Quincey, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy and Consciousness Studies at John F. Kennedy University and Dean of Consciousness Studies at the University of Philosophical Research.  He is the award-winning author of Radical Nature and Radical Knowing, as well as Consciousness from Zombies to Angels and Deep Spirit: Cracking the Noetic Code.  He is the founder of Wisdom Academy and provides consciousness and writing coaching. Christian's web site:  ChristiandeQuincey.com Program music copyrighted by Grammy award winner Larry Seyer (LarrySeyer.com), included in this podcast with his permission. Visit FrontierBeyondFear.com to learn about the inspirational outreach of this program, now in its 6th year.

WITCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Suspiria Dario Argento Technicolor The full text of De Quincey’s Suspiria De Profundis Anno Dracula: Dracula Cha Cha Cha Robert Graves

Conférence du 27 avril 2013 - Cycle Samedis des savoirs : Debord en quelques mots - Dérive et psychogéographie par Emmanuel Guy, chargé de recherches documentaires, département des Manuscrits, BnF, commissaire de l'exposition Guy Debord, un art de la guerre. Héritée de De Quincey, de Baudelaire ou des surréalistes, le dérive se définit comme une « technique du déplacement sans but » visant à libérer les pas urbains de toute contrainte pour se laisser aller aux sollicitations du milieu, à ses « reliefs psychogéographiques » – ce qui n'est pas si facile : « les difficultés de la dérive sont celles de la liberté » rappelle Guy Debord en 1956. A la fois aventure urbaine, critique de l'urbanisme moderne et relation à la ville médiée par l'alcool, l'amitié et le littéraire, la dérive permet à Guy Debord et ses camarades, Ivan Chtcheglov au premier chef, de se réapproprier un temps l'espace urbain, alors que commencent les grands bouleversements modernisateurs des années 1950-1970. Les cartes psychogéographiques réalisées à la fin des années 1950 en conservent le souvenir. Mais qu'en reste-t-il en 1968 ? Et aujourd'hui, où chacun est filmé, géolocalisé, pisté à chaque pas, jamais perdu ?

Conférence du 27 avril 2013 - Cycle Samedis des savoirs : Debord en quelques mots - Dérive et psychogéographie par Emmanuel Guy, chargé de recherches documentaires, département des Manuscrits, BnF, commissaire de l'exposition Guy Debord, un art de la guerre. Héritée de De Quincey, de Baudelaire ou des surréalistes, le dérive se définit comme une « technique du déplacement sans but » visant à libérer les pas urbains de toute contrainte pour se laisser aller aux sollicitations du milieu, à ses « reliefs psychogéographiques » – ce qui n'est pas si facile : « les difficultés de la dérive sont celles de la liberté » rappelle Guy Debord en 1956. A la fois aventure urbaine, critique de l'urbanisme moderne et relation à la ville médiée par l'alcool, l'amitié et le littéraire, la dérive permet à Guy Debord et ses camarades, Ivan Chtcheglov au premier chef, de se réapproprier un temps l'espace urbain, alors que commencent les grands bouleversements modernisateurs des années 1950-1970. Les cartes psychogéographiques réalisées à la fin des années 1950 en conservent le souvenir. Mais qu'en reste-t-il en 1968 ? Et aujourd'hui, où chacun est filmé, géolocalisé, pisté à chaque pas, jamais perdu ?

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ENL130-1_2009-05-14

The Indus red with blood. The nephelim are allies underground. Murk causes misery for centuries. Shimmer, Old Shiver, and a third spirit rage across the earth for twenty-nine years. Only the kindly are left alive. Shimmer sleeps. Ahalya visits. Shimmer is taken back past the beginning of the universe. He kneels. De Quincey frets, but Peg has faith.

De Quincey dreams. The lives of kings, centuries of taking care of marshes and wading birds, a darkness out of which a soul is screaming: Shimmer is split in three. The three souls' trial reunion. The weaver. Frustration at the rise of misdirected worship. Life on muddy earth, and a stable, quiet peace, but Murk arrives.

De Quincey asks of Wordsworth: "Can it be I am reminded only of my childhood in these images I dream?" A half-in, half-out life, not exactly human. Ahalya rescued. She and Shimmer walk to the sources of the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra. They find the Valley of the Robed Ones, and there a respite for Ahalya.

Chapter 2. Chesowanja and Lesotho ascend to humanity: Shimmer as the digging-stick maker tells how. Birth of The Nation in Chesowanja; The Nation migrates south. Jack and Sally invent the raft and curragh. The Nation moves to Lake Tanganyika. De Quincey uncovers the roots of Deep British: drag, trudge, trek.

These tales are told as dreams to the English essayist Thomas De Quincey. Sita, Shimmer's other wife, dwells in Mary Wordsworth. Shimmer's lady ape discovers rawhide and invents the digging stick. She is murdered. Old Shiver strikes. Shimmer lives short lives, and De Quincey grieves.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of drugs. Throughout history people have taken them to alter their perceptions and change their moods. The attractions lie in the promise of instant pleasure and the possibility of heightened perceptions. Nietzsche said that no art could exist without intoxication and believed that a dream-like state was an essential precondition to superior vision and understanding. But artists and writers from De Quincey to Coleridge to Huxley have found drugs to be both a creative and a destructive force in their lives and work. Coleridge said in his poem about opium: Fantastic Passions! Maddening Brawl! And shame and terror over all! The world of drugs is a topsy-turvy world of ambivalence and paradox: a world of clarity and confusion; stimulation and stupefaction; medicine and poison; vitality and death.Can drugs really stimulate creativity? What is the impact of drugs on the body? And what role have narcotics and stimulants played in the history of medicine? With Richard Davenport-Hines, historian and author of The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics; Sadie Plant, author of Writing on Drugs; Mike Jay, historian and author of Emperors of Dreams, Drugs in the Nineteenth Century.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of drugs. Throughout history people have taken them to alter their perceptions and change their moods. The attractions lie in the promise of instant pleasure and the possibility of heightened perceptions. Nietzsche said that no art could exist without intoxication and believed that a dream-like state was an essential precondition to superior vision and understanding. But artists and writers from De Quincey to Coleridge to Huxley have found drugs to be both a creative and a destructive force in their lives and work. Coleridge said in his poem about opium: Fantastic Passions! Maddening Brawl! And shame and terror over all! The world of drugs is a topsy-turvy world of ambivalence and paradox: a world of clarity and confusion; stimulation and stupefaction; medicine and poison; vitality and death.Can drugs really stimulate creativity? What is the impact of drugs on the body? And what role have narcotics and stimulants played in the history of medicine? With Richard Davenport-Hines, historian and author of The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics; Sadie Plant, author of Writing on Drugs; Mike Jay, historian and author of Emperors of Dreams, Drugs in the Nineteenth Century.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideals, exponents and legacy of Romanticism. In the space of a few years around the start of the nineteenth century the Romantic period gave us: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Burns, two Shelleys, Keats, De Quincey, Carlyle, Byron, Scott… the list goes on and on. And the poems: The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, Ode to a Nightingale, Tintern Abbey, Ozymandias, Don Juan… they make up some of the best known and most enjoyed works of literature in the English language. How do we explain what seems to be an extraordinary explosion of talent? Were the Romantics really a movement with their own philosphy and ideals? And when its adherents often died so tragically young, and its poems often seem so steeped in nostalgia and so wrapped in the transcendental, is Romanticism really good for you in a modern world? With Jonathan Bate, Professor of English, University of Liverpool; Rosemary Ashton, Professor of English, University College London; Nicholas Roe, Professor of English, University of St Andrews.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideals, exponents and legacy of Romanticism. In the space of a few years around the start of the nineteenth century the Romantic period gave us: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Burns, two Shelleys, Keats, De Quincey, Carlyle, Byron, Scott… the list goes on and on. And the poems: The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, Ode to a Nightingale, Tintern Abbey, Ozymandias, Don Juan… they make up some of the best known and most enjoyed works of literature in the English language. How do we explain what seems to be an extraordinary explosion of talent? Were the Romantics really a movement with their own philosphy and ideals? And when its adherents often died so tragically young, and its poems often seem so steeped in nostalgia and so wrapped in the transcendental, is Romanticism really good for you in a modern world? With Jonathan Bate, Professor of English, University of Liverpool; Rosemary Ashton, Professor of English, University College London; Nicholas Roe, Professor of English, University of St Andrews.