Two Views on the Nature of Language: Nietzsche and Auden
Originally posted on anenduringromantic:
“That for which we find words is already dead in our hearts,” says Nietzsche. “There is a kind of contempt in the act of speaking.” Language, then,…
Tag: auden
Silence and the limits of language
“That for which we find words in something already dead in our hearts. There always is a kind of contempt in the act of speaking.” – Nietzsche, The Twilight of…
“I have only once encountered pure evil in a person”: Auden on Yeats
Auden’s “In Memory of W B Yeats” is a great tribute poem, especially the closing lines: Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice…
“A culture is no better than its woods” – W H Auden, “Bucolics”
(Edit 22nd August 2018 – welcome if you have come here by Googling “a culture is no better than its woods”, you may also be interested in this post about…
Yeats on Kipling: “I dislike his works so much that I feel sure it must have something to teach me”
(edit 30th August 2018 – for more on the uneasy relationship between another poet and Yeats, see here. For a TLS letter which also features Kipling (in a perhaps less than…
Séamus Sweeney 