
“Tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain.”
A Defence of Poetry http://www.bartleby.com/27/23.html (1821)
Hymn 66, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Book II.
Attributed from postum publications, Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1773)
“Tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain.”
A Defence of Poetry http://www.bartleby.com/27/23.html (1821)
as remembered by William S. Burroughs, in: Ted Morgan, Literary Outlaw. The Life and Times of William S. Burroughs. London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012, p. 61.
“Why do we have such a finite capacity for pleasure but an infinite one for pain?”
Source: The Other Side of the Story
"Advice to a Lady in Autumn", published in A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes. By Several Hands. Vol. I. (1763), printed by J. Hughs, for R. and J. Dodsley
Le mal n'est peut-être qu'un violent plaisir. Qui pourrait déterminer le point où la volupté devient un mal et celui où le mal est encore la volupté ? Les plus vives lumières du monde idéal ne caressent-elles pas la vue, tandis que les plus douces ténèbres du monde physique la blessent toujours.
The Wild Ass’s Skin (1831), Part I: The Talisman
“Our days and nights
Have sorrows woven with delights.”
To Cardinal Richelieu. Longfellow's translation.
“Grace, honour, praise, delight,
Here sojourn day and night.”
Source: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Gargantua (1534), Chapter 54 : The inscription set upon the great gate of Theleme.
Context: p>Grace, honour, praise, delight,
Here sojourn day and night.
Sound bodies lined
With a good mind,
Do here pursue with might
Grace, honour, praise, delight.Here enter you, and welcome from our hearts,
All noble sparks, endowed with gallant parts.
This is the glorious place, which bravely shall
Afford wherewith to entertain you all.
Were you a thousand, here you shall not want
For anything; for what you'll ask we'll grant.
Stay here, you lively, jovial, handsome, brisk,
Gay, witty, frolic, cheerful, merry, frisk,
Spruce, jocund, courteous, furtherers of trades,
And, in a word, all worthy gentle blades.</p
“A traveller from the cradle to the grave
Through the dim night of this immortal day.”
Demogorgon, Act IV, l. 549
Prometheus Unbound (1818–1819; publ. 1820)
Context: Man, who wert once a despot and a slave,
A dupe and a deceiver! a decay,
A traveller from the cradle to the grave
Through the dim night of this immortal day.