Paul Robeson citations

Paul LeRoy Bustill Robeson est un acteur, athlète, chanteur et écrivain américain.

✵ 9. avril 1898 – 23. janvier 1976
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Paul Robeson: 22   citations 0   J'aime

Paul Robeson: Citations en anglais

“Sometimes great injustices may be inflicted on the minority when the majority is in the pursuit of a great and just cause.”

To his son Paul Jr regarding the execution of his friend Ignaty Kazahov, as quoted in "The Undiscovered Paul Robeson" (2001) by Paul Robeson Jr, p. 306

“But beyond the personal tragedy, the terrible agony of Othello, the irretrievability of his world, the complete destruction of all his trusted and sacred values — all these suggest the shattering of a universe.”

"Some Reflections on Othello and the Nature of Our Time." in The American Scholar (Autumn 1945); also quoted in Paul Robeson : The Whole World in His Hands (1981) by Susan Robeson, p. 150
Contexte: It was deeply fascinating to watch how strikingly contemporary American audiences from coast to coast found Shakespeare's Othello — painfully immediate in its unfolding of evil, innocence, passion, dignity and nobility, and contemporary in its overtones of a clash of cultures, of the partial acceptance of and consequent effect upon one of a minority group. Against this background, the jealousy of the protagonist becomes more credible, the blows to his pride more understandable, the final collapse of his personal, individual world more inevitable. But beyond the personal tragedy, the terrible agony of Othello, the irretrievability of his world, the complete destruction of all his trusted and sacred values — all these suggest the shattering of a universe.

“I am the son of an emancipated slave and the stories of old father are vivid on the tablets of my memory.”

Regarding the his work with the playwright Eugene O'Neill, as quoted in Paul Robeson: Artist and Citizen (1989) by Charles Musser, "The Troubled relations: Robeson, O'Neil and Micheaux", p. 94
Contexte: One does not need a very long racial memory to loose on oneself in such a part … As I act, civilization falls away from me. My plight becomes real, the horrors terrible facts. I feel the terror of the slave mart, the degradation of man bought and sold into slavery. Well, I am the son of an emancipated slave and the stories of old father are vivid on the tablets of my memory.

“If the American Negro is to have a culture of his own he will have to leave America to get it.”

As quoted in "Paul Robeson and Negro Music" in The New York Times (5 April 1931)

“Films make me into some cheap turn…You bet they'll never let me play a part in a film where a Negro is on top.”

As quoted in Paul Robeson : The Whole World in His Hands (1981) by Susan Robeson, p. 92

“I found it very offensive to my people. It makes the Negro childlike and innocent and is in the old plantation hallelujah shouter tradition… the same old story, the negro singing his way to glory.”

Regarding the film Tales of Manhattan, as quoted in Paul Robeson (1989) by Martin Duberman, " The Discovery of Africa", p. 259

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