The Birth of Tragedy |
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived … I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms..." (Walden, 1854). |
One cannot doubt that little by little he had to admit to himself that he did not possess the special gifts for such a gestation of poetical ideas, and for transmuting them into coherent plastic images.
Not that his inner visions, in themselves, were ever commonplace or vulgar. They show indeed extraordinary dramatic force, a reckless daring born of intense inner conviction and above all a strangeness and unfamiliarity, which suggests something like hallucination.
P10
"Cezanne: a Study of His Development
by Fry, Roger
