In beauty of face no maiden ever equaled her. It was the radiance of an opium-dream - an airy and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the fantasies which hovered about the slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos.
Interpretation
This quote describes an unparalleled beauty that transcends reality, evoking a divine and dreamlike vision.
Edgar Allan Poe's quote captures the essence of extraordinary beauty, comparing it to a transcendent dream that lifts the spirit. The reference to an opium dream suggests a surreal and intoxicating experience, creating an image of beauty that is not just physical but also ethereal, akin to the fantasies that dwell in the subconscious of legendary figures. This portrayal emphasizes the power of beauty to inspire and move individuals profoundly.
In practice
In a discussion about artistic representations of beauty, this quote can be used to highlight the profound impact of aesthetic experiences.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch's high estate; (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow Shall dawn upon him desolate!) And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed, Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.
Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes.
...the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair.
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.
I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
Beauty, midnight, vision dies: Let the winds of dawn that blow Softly round your dreaming head Such a day of welcome show Eye and knocking heart may bless, Find our mortal world enough; Noons of dryness find you fed By the involuntary powers, Nights of insult let you pass Watched by every human love.
The stories are not autobiographical, but they're personal in that way. I seem to know only the things that I've learned. Probably some things through observation, but what I feel I know surely is personal.
Movies took you right up to the edge but kept you safe.
Picasso is what is going to happen and what is happening; he is posterity and archaic time, the distant ancestor and our next-door neighbor. Speed permits him to be two places at once, to belong to all the centuries without letting go of the here and now.
Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter.
Anybody that creates anything is just creating new compositions of things that have existed before. We're all creating something, we're all creating our own personal works of art in ourselves.
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