“And it is the notions of reality and unreality themselves which finally become suspect when either one is mirrored in art, much less when both are mirrored together.”

Source: Neveryóna (1983), Chapter 3, “Of Markets, Maps, Cellars, and Cisterns” (p. 61)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "And it is the notions of reality and unreality themselves which finally become suspect when either one is mirrored in a…" by Samuel R. Delany?
Samuel R. Delany photo
Samuel R. Delany 131
American author, professor and literary critic 1942

Related quotes

Burt Reynolds photo
Yoko Ono photo

“Mirror becomes a razor when it's broken. A stick becomes a flute when it's loved.”

Yoko Ono (1933) Japanese artist, author, and peace activist

Source: Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings

Daniel Levitin photo
C. J. Cherryh photo

“When the legend is retold, it mirrors the reality of the time, and one can learn from studying how various authors have attempted to retell the story.”

C. J. Cherryh (1942) United States science fiction and fantasy author

The Camelot Project interview (1996)
Context: When the legend is retold, it mirrors the reality of the time, and one can learn from studying how various authors have attempted to retell the story. I don't think we have an obligation to change it radically. I think that if we ever move too far from the basic story, we would lose something very precious. I don't, for instance, approve of fantasy that attempts to go back and rewrite the Middle Ages until it conforms to political correctness in the twentieth century. That removes all the benefit from reading the story. If you don't understand other people in their time and why they did what they did, then you don't understand your own past. And when you lose your past, you lose some potential for your own future.

Jean Metzinger photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Carson McCullers photo
Bertolt Brecht photo

“Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

Mistakenly attributed to Vladimir Mayakovsky in The Political Psyche (1993) by Andrew Samuels, p. 9; mistakenly attributed to Brecht in Paulo Freire: A Critical Encounter (1993) by Peter McLaren and Peter Leonard, p. 80; variant translation: "Art is not a mirror held up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it."
First recorded in Leon Trotsky, Literature and Revolution (1924; edited by William Keach (2005), Ch. 4: Futurism, p. 120): "Art, it is said, is not a mirror, but a hammer: it does not reflect, it shapes."
Disputed

Vladimir Mayakovsky photo

“Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.”

Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930) Russian and Soviet poet, playwright, artist and stage and film actor

Attributed to Vladimir Mayakovsky in The Political Psyche (1993) by Andrew Samuels, p. 9; attributed to Bertolt Brecht in Paulo Freire : A Critical Encounter (1993) by Peter McLaren and Peter Leonard, p. 80
Variant translation: Art is not a mirror held up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.
Disputed

Nisargadatta Maharaj photo

Related topics