As one of those who believe that the literature of a country is for ever creating a new soul among its people, I do not like to think that literature with us must follow an inexorable law of sequence, and gain a spiritual character only after the bodily passions have grown weary and exhausted themselves. In the essay called The Autumn of the Body, Mr. Yeats seems to indicate such a sequence. Yet, whether the art of any of the writers of the decadence does really express spiritual things is open to doubt. The mood in which ...
Read More
As one of those who believe that the literature of a country is for ever creating a new soul among its people, I do not like to think that literature with us must follow an inexorable law of sequence, and gain a spiritual character only after the bodily passions have grown weary and exhausted themselves. In the essay called The Autumn of the Body, Mr. Yeats seems to indicate such a sequence. Yet, whether the art of any of the writers of the decadence does really express spiritual things is open to doubt. The mood in which their work is conceived, a distempered emotion, through which no new joy quivers, seems too often to tell rather of exhausted vitality than of the ecstasy of a new life. However much, too, their art refines itself, choosing, ever rarer and more exquisite forms of expression, underneath it all an intuition seems to disclose only the old wolfish lust, hiding itself beneath the golden fleece of the spirit. It is not the spirit breaking through corruption, but the life of the senses longing to shine with the light which makes saintly things beautiful: and it would put on the jeweled raiment of seraphim, retaining still a heart of clay smitten through and through with the unappeasable desire of the flesh: so Rossetti's women, who have around them all the circumstance of poetry and romantic beauty, seem through their sucked-in lips to express a thirst which could be allayed in no spiritual paradise. Art in the decadence in our time might be symbolized as a crimson figure undergoing a dark crucifixion: the hosts of light are overcoming it, and it is dying filled with anguish and despair at a beauty it cannot attain. All these strange emotions have a profound psychological interest. I do not think because a spiritual flaw can be urged against a certain phase of life that it should remain unexpressed. The psychic maladies which attack all races when their civilization grows old must needs be understood to be dealt with: and they cannot be understood without being revealed in literature or art. But in Ireland we are not yet sick with this sickness. As psychology it concerns only the curious.
Read Less
Add this copy of Imaginations and Reveries to cart. $6.03, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2018 by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.
Add this copy of Imaginations and Reveries to cart. $6.03, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2015 by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.
Add this copy of Imaginations and Reveries to cart. $17.13, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2007 by Coracle Press.
Add this copy of Imaginations and Reveries to cart. $19.72, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2009 by Book Jungle.
Add this copy of Imaginations and Reveries to cart. $23.68, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2018 by CreateSpace Independent Publis.
Add this copy of Imaginations and Reveries to cart. $23.68, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2015 by CreateSpace Independent Publis.
Add this copy of Imaginations and Reveries to cart. $25.16, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2011 by Tredition Classics.
Add this copy of Imaginations and Reveries to cart. $28.10, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2018 by Outlook Verlag.
Add this copy of Imaginations and Reveries to cart. $29.11, new condition, Sold by Ria Christie Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Uxbridge, MIDDLESEX, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2009 by Book Jungle.
Add this copy of Imaginations and Reveries to cart. $35.00, very good condition, Sold by R & M Gerber Books rated 3.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Lake Peekskill, NY, UNITED STATES, published 1915 by The Macmillan Company.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Offsetting to front pastedown, residue from removed pocket, deaccessioned Lotus Club of NY Library (stamp title page), 1 chip Contents page (no text affected), light wear to tips/spine ends, o/w very good, with bright gilt In Mylar. (ID:...
