Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) American linguist
Source: The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965 [1962]), Ch.VII Further Observations on Homer <!-- p.224, 1965 paper -->
"Indo-European Deities and the Rigveda," JIES 29 (2001), p. 257.
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) American linguist
Source: The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965 [1962]), Ch.VII Further Observations on Homer <!-- p.224, 1965 paper -->
Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist
"Legislators of the world" in The Guardian (18 November 2006) http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1950812,00.html <br class="br">Context: I'm both a poet and one of the "everybodies" of my country. I live with manipulated fear, ignorance, cultural confusion and social antagonism huddling together on the faultline of an empire. I hope never to idealise poetry — it has suffered enough from that. Poetry is not a healing lotion, an emotional massage, a kind of linguistic aromatherapy. Neither is it a blueprint, nor an instruction manual, nor a billboard. There is no universal Poetry, anyway, only poetries and poetics, and the streaming, intertwining histories to which they belong. There is room, indeed necessity, for both Neruda and César Valléjo, for Pier Paolo Pasolini and Alfonsina Storni, for both Ezra Pound and Nelly Sachs. Poetries are no more pure and simple than human histories are pure and simple. And there are colonised poetics and resilient poetics, transmissions across frontiers not easily traced.
Hermann Hesse book Peter Camenzind
Variant translation: In the beginning was the myth. Just as the great god composed and struggled for expression in the souls of the Indians, the Greeks and Germanic peoples, so to it continues to compose daily in the soul of every child.
Peter Camenzind (1904)
Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) French writer and philosopher
Introduction, sect. 2
La poétique de la rêverie (The Poetics of Reverie) (1960)
Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist
"Legislators of the world" in The Guardian (18 November 2006) http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1950812,00.html <br class="br">Context: I'm both a poet and one of the "everybodies" of my country. I live with manipulated fear, ignorance, cultural confusion and social antagonism huddling together on the faultline of an empire. I hope never to idealise poetry — it has suffered enough from that. Poetry is not a healing lotion, an emotional massage, a kind of linguistic aromatherapy. Neither is it a blueprint, nor an instruction manual, nor a billboard. There is no universal Poetry, anyway, only poetries and poetics, and the streaming, intertwining histories to which they belong. There is room, indeed necessity, for both Neruda and César Valléjo, for Pier Paolo Pasolini and Alfonsina Storni, for both Ezra Pound and Nelly Sachs. Poetries are no more pure and simple than human histories are pure and simple. And there are colonised poetics and resilient poetics, transmissions across frontiers not easily traced.
Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…
Dana Gioia (1950) American writer
"Paradigms Lost," interview with Gloria Brame, ELF: Eclectic Literary Forum (Spring 1995)
Interviews