tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post3467180537901305752..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Marguerite Yourcenar: On a Dream of Dürer'sUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-23433735756847992212013-03-22T05:46:31.019-07:002013-03-22T05:46:31.019-07:00Vassilis,
Yes, Walter Kaiser has surely been a fi...Vassilis,<br /><br />Yes, Walter Kaiser has surely been a fine invisible enabler of the delivery into English of more than one salient text.<br /><br />Ed,<br /><br />Thanks for reminding me that this post was writ by the the great Yourcenar, magisterial revenant of a hard, clear, scholarly historical classicism in a century that died of its own insanity. She was, as you've just reminded me, the first woman ever elected to the French Academy -- thought at the time to be an honour greater even than being elected to the Norton Anthology of Flarf & Fluff.<br /><br />Shortly before her death she was interviewed on video. The interview appeared four years after her death on Danish TV; in it she speaks in English. Of course she was not French at all, but Belgian, first, and then, curiously, almost American -- though calling Mt Desert Island, off the Maine coast, a part of America, might be a bit of a stretch.<br /><br />The interview is in six parts, all up on the net. I'd give all the links, but -- not that I'd mind the extra bother, I've been throwing my time away like this for years -- I'd have to be convinced, first, that anyone has looked at this first link. And then, well, at your service.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEYEuOGF1mA" rel="nofollow">Marguerite Yourcenar interview (part 1 of 6)</a>.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-88156322552234396142013-03-22T05:22:39.852-07:002013-03-22T05:22:39.852-07:00oh neat, Vassilis,
that translation of that book s...oh neat, Vassilis,<br />that translation of that book surely is a terrific opening to track back from and into Seferis' work. $4.95<br />for the first edition hard-back of this one worth 10 times the price-of-admition.Just the opening piece<br />is far beyond the pale:<br /><br />Leaves of rusted tin<br />for the poor brain that has seen the [end:<br />occasional glimmerings.<br />Leaves whirled with the gulls<br />angry at winter.<br /><br /><br />Just as a breast is freed<br />the dancers become trees,<br />a huge forest of bared trees.<br /><br />/ "an huge" .<br /><br />another good Seferis run/translated<br />done about 5ive years earlier: Rex Warner's: George Seferis POEMS<br /><br />Three Secret Poems is a MUST-READ<br />book that belongs in everybody's stash !Ed Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-82463636199367839752013-03-22T02:02:00.855-07:002013-03-22T02:02:00.855-07:00Another wonderful collaboration. BTW (but I'm ...Another wonderful collaboration. BTW (but I'm sure you already know), Walter Kaiser also did a great job of translating Seferis' <i> Three Secret Poems</i>.vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras)https://www.blogger.com/profile/14515165428574974933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-86959155037145035192013-03-21T16:19:29.138-07:002013-03-21T16:19:29.138-07:00By the by, WB, your posting of the great quarry ph...By the by, WB, your posting of the great quarry photos today -- "...you can see the remains of the Quarrymen's barracks. The rockfaces are scarred by their work in a number of places (that vast pile of abandoned slate is theirs); these scars show up as part of nature's scene now" -- called to mind some remarks Yourcenar made in an interview done by Mathieu Galey, in particular the analogy she draws in the second graph here between parts of a life and landforms in a landscape:<br /><br />“Quand je considère ma vie, je suis épouvanté de la trouver informe. L'existence des héros, celle qu'on nous raconte, est simple ; elle va droit au but comme une flèche. Et la plupart des hommes aiment à résumer leur vie dans une formule, parfois dans une vanterie ou dans une plainte, presque toujours dans une récrimination ; leur mémoire leur fabrique complaisamment une existence explicable et claire. Ma vie a des contours moins fermes...<br /><br />"Le paysage de mes jours semble se composer, comme les régions de montagne, de matériaux divers entassés pêle-mêle. J'y rencontre ma nature, déjà composite, formée en parties égales d'instinct et de culture. Ça et là, affleurent les granits de l'inévitable ; partout, les éboulements du hasard. Je m'efforce de reparcourir ma vie pour y trouver un plan, y suivre une veine de plomb ou d'or, ou l'écoulement d'une rivière souterraine, mais ce plan tout factice n'est qu'un trompe-l'oeil du souvenir. De temps en temps, dans une rencontre, un présage, une suite définie d'événements, je crois reconnaître une fatalité, mais trop de routes ne mènent nulle part, trop de sommes ne s'additionnent pas. Je perçois bien dans cette diversité, dans ce désordre, la présence d'une personne, mais sa forme semble presque toujours tracée par la pression des circonstances ; ses traits se brouillent comme une image reflétée sur l'eau. Je ne suis pas de ceux qui disent que leurs actions ne leur ressemblent pas. Il faut bien qu'elles le fassent, puisqu'elles sont ma seule mesure, et le seul moyen de me dessiner dans la mémoire des hommes, ou même dans la mienne propre ; puisque c'est peut-être l'impossibilité de continuer à s'exprimer et à se modifier par l'action que constitue la différence entre l'état de mort et celui de vivant. Mais il y a entre moi et ces actes dont je suis fait un hiatus indéfinissable. Et la preuve, c'est que j'éprouve sans cesse le besoin de les peser, de les expliquer, d'en rendre compte à moi-même. Certains travaux qui durèrent peu sont assurément négligeables, mais des occupations qui s'étendirent sur toute la vie ne signifient pas davantage. Par exemple, il me semble à peine essentiel, au moment où j'écris ceci, d'avoir été empereur..."<br /><br />Which brought me back to one of the most remarkable of Durer's watercolours, that detached, floating, unearthly-earthly landform known as <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_Quarry_-_WGA07366.jpg" rel="nofollow">The Quarry (1506)</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-57706664014413972622013-03-21T15:14:40.356-07:002013-03-21T15:14:40.356-07:00Apocalyptic dream, non-symbolic:
A year ago I cam...Apocalyptic dream, non-symbolic:<br /><br />A year ago I came to the gate of that other kingdom, riding in the back of an ambulance with two grown men in uniforms pressing hard, holding the side of my head on... felt the gate swing open... it was okay, though there was a strange, too-bright light coming from the other side... and next thing I knew I was back in the world, in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgYbIrbCFlQ" rel="nofollow">this place</a>.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-3270939032789236662013-03-21T14:51:19.146-07:002013-03-21T14:51:19.146-07:00"...pious formula..." doesn't quite ..."...pious formula..." doesn't quite catch it. The words are felt. It's a way of waking himself up. He has to make his way back into the conscious world and shut the door on that other kingdom.Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-54500000503331585772013-03-21T14:35:21.801-07:002013-03-21T14:35:21.801-07:00That absence of symbolism that Yourcenar draws out...That absence of symbolism that Yourcenar draws out is the fearful thing. It comes direct, in simplicity, on the level of sensation. Any interpretation would be a way of drawing it in to the Symbolic Order, making it managable. She has the good taste and judgement to avoid this. Proper criticism. You rarely see it these days.<br /><br />I only recall a dream with that kind of force once in my life - I was around nine years old - and I don't want to come close to the like again<br /><br />I'm with Ed on that last landscape.Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-14701109139677351892013-03-21T14:19:13.843-07:002013-03-21T14:19:13.843-07:00yeah
you're a post-modernist and I'm a po...yeah<br /><br />you're a post-modernist and I'm a post-toastie <br /><br />where is the reality, anyway ?<br /><br />you continue to do great "stuff"<br />which reminds me of that great <br />Zen advice:<br /><br /> keep on keepin' on<br /><br />I shld send you some of my "landscapes" however,<br />I deleted your email address as I noh<br />longer intrude.... anywhere.<br /><br />Ed Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-58680244965828292502013-03-21T14:10:09.138-07:002013-03-21T14:10:09.138-07:00Ed, Maybe it's because I am not a postmodernis...Ed, Maybe it's because I am not a postmodernist, but these days nothing reminds me of anything but itself.<br /><br />And so... day followed night... and <a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/margaret-yourcenar-zenos-ending-from.html" rel="nofollow">Night was in motion...</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-24606042734024741922013-03-21T08:36:54.129-07:002013-03-21T08:36:54.129-07:00that last water-color landscape.... magnificent.
...that last water-color landscape.... magnificent.<br /><br />another "perfect" landscape done in oils<br />is by Balthus<br /><br />I did a new landscape piece a couple of weeks ago<br />using crayons that reminds me....<br /><br />Ed Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.com