“Being here: in a particular time and place. That is the existential position with particular implications for literature.”

Source: The Spire

from (1999). Ideology. Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture. Malden, Massachusetts. ISBN 0631212639.

Philosophy as Rigorous Science and Political Philosophy (1971)

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)
Context: Books should confuse. Literature abhors the typical. Literature flows to the particular, the mundane, the greasiness of paper, the taste of warm beer, the smell of onion or quince. Auden has a line: "Ports have names they call the sea." Just so will literature describe life familiarly, regionally, in terms life is accustomed to use — high or low matters not. Literature cannot by this impulse betray the grandeur of its subject — there is only one subject: What it feels like to be alive. Nothing is irrelevant. Nothing is typical.

Poetry and the World, Ecco Press,1988

Letter to M.V. Kiseleva (January 14, 1887)
Letters

On his advice to Latino poets in “Interview with Francisco Aragón: Latino Poetry From All Its Perspectives” https://www.sampsoniaway.org/literary-voices/2010/09/16/interview-with-francisco-aragon-latino-poetry-from-all-its-perspectives/ in Sampsonia Way (2010 Sept 16)

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God (2006)
Context: Projected upon the natural world... is the idea of privilege.... Ever since the invention of civilization, there have been privileged classes... some groups that oppress others and that work to maintain these heirarchies of power. The children of the privileged grow up expecting that, through no particular effort of their own, they will retain a privileged position.