Titus Andronicus is often cited as perhaps Shakespeare's weakest tragedy. Yet regardless of its place in the canon, perhaps no other single piece of writing has meant more to me in recent years. This affinity with certain themes in the text results largely from the most painful of personal experiences. These abysses are here given a voice (of sorts).
Saturday, 25 December 2010
Monday, 15 November 2010
The Loneliest Loneliness in Nietzsche
Posted on 16:59 by Unknown
This is an early and unpublished Nietzsche text:
"No one talks to me other than myself, and my voice comes to me as the voice of a dying man. With you, beloved voice, with you, the last vaporous remembrance of all human happiness, let me tarry an hour longer. With your help I shall deceive myself about my loneliness; I shall lie my way back into society and love. For my heart refuses to believe that love is dead, cannot bear the terror of the loneliest loneliness. It compels me to talk as though I were two."
These are among the most painful words I have ever read. Nominally, there is a highly conditional context to these words, but the essence behind them is visible throughout Nietzsche's text. This is a difficult, forbidding and ugly subject, but if one finds oneself drawn to these sentiments and conceptions (as I do), then it can come as no great surprise that this rubicon is approached, if not exactly crossed, far from the gaze of respectability and solidarity. I will subsequently expand on my thoughts regarding these lines.
"No one talks to me other than myself, and my voice comes to me as the voice of a dying man. With you, beloved voice, with you, the last vaporous remembrance of all human happiness, let me tarry an hour longer. With your help I shall deceive myself about my loneliness; I shall lie my way back into society and love. For my heart refuses to believe that love is dead, cannot bear the terror of the loneliest loneliness. It compels me to talk as though I were two."
These are among the most painful words I have ever read. Nominally, there is a highly conditional context to these words, but the essence behind them is visible throughout Nietzsche's text. This is a difficult, forbidding and ugly subject, but if one finds oneself drawn to these sentiments and conceptions (as I do), then it can come as no great surprise that this rubicon is approached, if not exactly crossed, far from the gaze of respectability and solidarity. I will subsequently expand on my thoughts regarding these lines.
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