Arquivo de literature | Page 100 of 111

The Desire for Agreement

Few instincts are as pernicious to social relations and especially to the personality of the artist as the desire for agreement. Firstly, because this is a manifestation of vanity. Secondly, because of the natural implications: useless discussions, free antipathies and strengthening of attachment to one’s own ideas. All this is poison for someone who wants to cultivate friendly relationships and, worse, to give rise to artistic work. Living with the dissident is not only mandatory, but the world is better because two people do not think alike. And about the artist: what does he have to do with the opinion of others or with his own opinion? Wishing to agree will make him an egocentric, blinkered, inclined to use art to adorn his own convictions. As an artist, he will inevitably fail, since the desire for concordance is a stain that, in contact with art, impregnates and does not come out.

____________

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

I opened The Picture of Dorian Gray with great expectancy. The reason is that Oscar Wilde was one of the most intriguing personalities in history. I remember the words of Carpeaux: “His life was the work of genius; and to genius society has always paid dearly for the uniqueness of his nature”. So I opened the book, eager for the manifestation of genius. I found it. The Picture of Dorian Gray is a novel that can only be written by a great artist. To begin, with the plot: the story is instigating from the first to the last chapter. The three main characters in the book are very well developed; friends, they represent conflicting faces of a genius mind. Morals are put to the test, art in evidence, social relationships in check and psychological dramas in spark. Basil Hallward, like few others, portrays the personality of an artist. Lord Henry Wotton is a character with impressive vivacity. And Dorian Gray develops into an ingenious arc drawn by Wilde. The work is characterized by courage and psychological acuity: the author does not write in chains, he does not fear rejection. And so he manages to express himself with sincerity and power, delivering unique and real characters. It is obvious: Oscar Wilde will remain slandered forever. But he will never cease to be what he was: a great artist.

____________

The Rhythm of the Letters

In prose the punctuation, the extension of periods, the chaining of paragraphs; in poetry, besides punctuation, the distribution of tonics, the extension of verses and their relationships: these are the markers of the rhythm of the letters. As for the rhythm: sandy, treacherous terrain; indomitable beast; marvelous and irresolvable enigma; visible perfection but distant, very distant…

____________

The Fate of the Intellectual

The intellectual must be unpredictable, or he will not be worthy of the epithet. If the reader, in contact with the title of a work or a chronicle, can predict its content, then the author will be dead, plunged into disinterest. I say the obvious, is to confront the examples… Single-subject chroniclers remain, novelists with blinkers are majority. And if they achieve, these or those, the desired effects ever, the insistence only exposes their limitations. The intellectual must be dynamic, varied, unpredictable and comprehensive; otherwise, he should stop speaking…

____________