Rein Quotes - page 3
To thee of All Being /A te, de l'essere
The First Cause immense /Principio immenso,
Of matter and spirit, /Materia e spirito,
Of reason and sense /Ragione e senso;
Whilst in the full goblet /Mentre ne' calici
Shall sparkle the wine, /Il vin scintilla
So bright the pupil /Si'come l'anima
The souls of men shine, /Ne la pupilla
Whilst earth still is smiling, /Mentre sorridono
And the sun smiles above, /La terra e il sole
And men are exchanging /E si ricambiano
Their sweet words of love, /D'amor parole
Thrills mystic of Hymen /E corre un fremito
Through high mountains course, /D'imene arcano
And broad plains are heaving /Da' monti e palpita
With life's fertile force, /Fecondo il piano;
On thee in verse daring, /A te disfrenasi
From tight rein released, /Il verso ardito,
On thee I call, Satan, /Te invoco, o Satana
The King of the feast. /Re del convito.
Giosuè Carducci
The whole point of art, for me, is to give us tools to explore feelings or situations or dilemmas that defeat our other ways of making meaning. When a situation is so vertiginous, so ethically complex, so emotionally fraught, that I feel like I'm staring into an abyss-that's when I feel moved to make art, when I feel I need the peculiar tools of fiction to figure out what I think. I mean, to inhabit my bewilderment. I think art is the realm in which we can give full rein to the ambiguity, uncertainty, and doubt that we often feel we have to suppress in other kinds of expression-in our political speech, say. I think an ability to dwell in ambiguity, uncertainty, and doubt is a central virtue of humanness. I think it's crucial to any thinking that might adequately capture the complexity of reality.
Garth Greenwell