Oscar "De Profundis"

 

Oscar Wilde in New York in January 1882. (DeAgostini/Getty Images)

De Profundis by Oscar Wilde 

To see a world in a grain of sand...

 

by Raphaela Vaisseau

"In my work, I give you color to heal and bless you, images to inspire you and bring you joy, words to assist you in being aware of your innate self-worth, quotes to assist you in staying focused on your goals, and words to say what's in your heart to people you love."

I just found this homage to William Blake's styled illustration to this famous quote made by Raphaela Vaisseau.

Rudyard Kipling's message to Eddie Vedder

 Eddie tripped and fell in Italy and elegantly stood up and kept going.


"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!


Excerpts from the famous poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling who "was starved of love and attention and sent away by his parents; beaten and abused by his foster mother; and a failure at a public school which sought to develop qualities that were completely alien to Kipling. In later life the deaths of two of his children also affected Kipling deeply." (here)

A text-animation by Anatol Knotek

by Anatol Knotek. I can spend a bunch of minutes watching Anatol's text-animations. You'll not regret.

The Book of Thel by William Blake

At the Harvard University Library there is an online copy of The Book of Thel by William Blake.
Everything was done by Blake who was a poet, an illustrator and was responsible for the publication.

Richard Dover explains The Book of Thel:

"Dated 1789, but probably engraved between 1788 and 1791, The Book of Thel is an intriguing allegorical counterpart to the Songs of Innocence.

Here Thel, a mythological figure associated with the daugher of Venus (Desire), is a young virginal figure, intrigued by the world of sex and experience, but she is frightened by the prospect.

In the course of the 'Book' she confronts various forms of created life - the Lilly, the Cloud, the Worm, the Clod of Clay - and asks them about the mysteries of mortal life: what is it like to be mortal, to live and to experience, but also to have to face the prospect of disillusionment, depair and death.

At the end of the 'Book' Thel almost summons the courage to enter the world of the Real, but at the last minute her nerve gives way, and she runs shrieking back to the sanctuary of immortality. In allegorical terms The Book of Thel presents the State of Innocence, confronted by the world of Experience.

Thel is, in one sense, a virginal goddess, pure and untouched by material reality, about to embark on the passage from childhood to adult maturity. Yet she is also, in metaphorical and archetypal form, a symbol of a state of mind or, better still, "State of Soul", a platonic essence intrigued by, but apprehensive of the realities of experience.

Through mythological personification Blake is able to express, in symbolic terms, aspects of innocence and experience which are difficult to express in other terms. Thel's final failure of nerve is, the poem suggests, to be pitied rather than applauded: 'Innocence' may well be an idyllic state but, "Without Contraries there is no Progression".

The Book of Thel can, therefore, be read on a number of levels, from being a literal exploration of various forms of innocence and hesitance (the child's reluctance to grow up), to more abstract and metaphorical levels, an allegorical exploration of the relationship between Thought and Action, or between the Immortality of the Idea or Image, and the mortality of lived experience."

Brand new moon

by Ana
Picture: unknow

Change the color of the rain

 

change the color of the rain
_{to wash away your 
utmost abstruse pain.}
by ~Musical-Ink

I found this poem at DeviantArt and I liked it. I scroll down and there was a comment I left last March, 22 saying "Great". Funny cause I don't remember. I'm feeling that I have to do it: change the color of the rain so I searched for "rain" and found this great photographs by GhostlyGoblin who has a collection of photography classified as "still life". What a great effect the rain did. It looks like a painting. I'm glad I came across with both.

Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy and Paul Verlaine

I think that it is almost impossible not to be moved when listening to this song and I will always listen to it from time to time. Debussy did it to express Verlaine's poem:

Clair de lune Votre âme est un paysage choisi Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques. Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur L'amour vainqueur et la vie opportune, Ils n'ont pas l'air de croire à leur bonheur Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune, Au calme clair de lune triste et beau, Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau, Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres. From Fêtes galantes (1869)

Moonlight Your soul is like a landscape fantasy, Where masks and Bergamasks, in charming wise, Strum lutes and dance, just a bit sad to be Hidden beneath their fanciful disguise. Singing in minor mode of life's largesse And all-victorious love, they yet seem quite Reluctant to believe their happiness, And their song mingles with the pale moonlight, The calm, pale moonlight, whose sad beauty, beaming, Sets the birds softly dreaming in the trees, And makes the marbled fountains, gushing, streaming-- Slender jet-fountains--sob their ecstasies.

When an artist can touch many people it's like s/he was capable of expressing one aspect of human condition.

(Click at the video for one second to "see" each note of the music.)

Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe "portrayed" by Whistler

Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea: But we loved with a love that was more than love - I and my Annabel Lee; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her high-born kinsmen came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me - Yes! that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud one night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we - Of many far wiser than we - And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling -my darling -my life and my bride, In the sepulchre there by the sea - In her tomb by the sounding sea.

The picture is a pastel by Whistler done in 1890 for one of the most famous of Poe's poem Annabel Lee.

Henry Miller: a good companion when one is having a Season in Hell

I have to stop using the computer for some days because of back problems so I will share with you what I'm rereading by Henry Miller. No, not one of the "Tropics". It is a 163 pages book he wrote about Rimbaud: "Henry Miller's The Time of the Assassins : A Study of Rimbaud (1949 New Directions Publishing, 163 pp). It is not a critical essay and it has more to due with an autobiography and his moral and intellectual legacy. He makes some approximations between artists and dedicates a long part comparing Rimbaud and Van Gogh's lives taking into consideration not the craziness but a circumstance that few biographies remember, especially about Van Gogh ,: the poverty both lived and the impact it had on their way of being in the world.

I'm having a good time rereading it and finding some thoughts that although written sixty-one years ago reflect the same problems of today.

I hope I can update the blog. If not I will try to publish some excerpts I like:

"Rimbaud restored literature to life, I have endeavored to restore life to literature. In both of us the confessional quality is strong, the moral and spiritual preoccupation uppermost." "I think there are many Rimbauds in this world and that their number will increase with time. I think the Rimbaud type will displace, in the world to come, the Hamlet type and the Faustian type. The trend is toward a deeper split. Until the Until the old world dies out utterly, the "abnormal" individual will tend more and more to become the norm. The new man will find himself only when thewarfare between the collectivity and the individual ceases. Then we shall see the human type in its fullness and splendor." To get the full import of Rimbaud's Season in Hell, which lasted eighteen years, one has to read..." Henry Miller

And this is Rimbaud:

"I invented the colors of the vowels!- A black, I red, O blue, U green- I made rules for the form and movement of each consonant, and, and with instinctive rhythms, I flattered myself that I created a poetic language accessible, some day, to all the senses." -Une Saison en Enfer, "Délires II: Alchimie du Verbe"

A black, I red, O blue, U green Image: Preface of the book picture taken By Joe Camel published at Flickr

William Blake - "The Lamb" - Have a great December!

The poem The Tyger, post below, is more famous than The Lamb. I did choose The Lamb, from "Songs of Innocence", as a way to bless us all in this December.
Have a peaceful last month of the year.
  THE LAMB by William Blake



Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed
By the stream and o'er the mead;

Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
       
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee:

He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and he is mild;
He became a little child.

I a child, and thou a lamb.
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!

William Blake - "The Tyger" and "The Lamb" poems

I have received some visits to William Blake's post with two of his poems illustrated by him and I think that some people are searching for the poems. Since it is difficult to read them with Blake's handwriting here is The Tyger and in the post above is The Lamb:

The Tiger
by William Blake
1757-1827

TYGER, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Homage to Federico Garcia Lorca

He was an Andalusian poet and a dramatist who liked to draw, made friendship and worked with Buñuel and Dali, is one of Leonard Cohen greatest influence and had political views. Then he was killed.

"As I have not worried to be born, I do not worry to die." "Not for a moment, beautiful aged Walt Whitman, have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies." "There is nothing more poetic and terrible than the skyscrapers' battle with the heavens that cover them." "To see you naked is to recall the Earth."

"Oh please leave the ventana open, Federico Lorca is dead and gone." (The Clash)

William Blake - "The Tyger" and "The Lamb"

"William Blake (1757-1827), English artist, mystic and poet wrote Songs of Innocence (1789): a poetry collection written from the child’s point of view, of innocent wonderment and spontaneity in natural settings which includes “Little Boy Lost”, “Little Boy Found” and “The Lamb”;...." I will write the poems in another post because I first want to share the illustrations he did with the poems.