
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 282
"The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839).
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 282
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 124
1960s, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1964)
Context: This faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.
Par une de ces journées sombres qui attristent la fin de l'année, et que rend encore plus mélancoliques le souffle glacé du vent du Nord, écoutez, en lisant Ossian, la fantastique harmonie d'une harpe éolienne balancée au sommet d'un arbre dépouillé de verdure, et vous pourrez éprouver un sentiment profond de tristesse, un désir vague et infini d'une autre existence, un dégoût immense de celle-ci.
Hector Berlioz, Mémoires, ch. 39 http://www.hberlioz.com/Writings/HBM39.htm; Eleanor Holmes, Rachel Holmes and Ernest Newman (trans.) Memoirs of Hector Berlioz from 1803 to 1865 (New York: Dover, 1966) pp. 156-7.
Criticism
“Obscure they went through dreary shades, that led
Along the waste dominions of the dead.”
Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram,
Perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna.
Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book VI, Lines 268–269 (tr. John Dryden)
Canto XXVII, lines 28–30 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso
As quoted in Aaliyah's Vibe cover story: "What Lies Beneath"