A Definition of Poetry (if that's even possible)

"[In poetry] there is always the communication of some new experience, or some fresh understanding of the familiar, or the expression of something we have experienced but have no words for, which enlarges our consciousness or refines our sensibility."

~T.S. Eliot, 'The Social Function of Poetry'

Classic

I just finished watching The Sound of Music with my younger sister. It's really incredible how amazing that film is. I haven't the time at present to express its beauty, but I simply couldn't pass by the opportunity to bring it to people's minds. Let's just say that I have confidence that Do-Re-Mi will always be one of people's favorite things.

Also, a goal: learn how to dance the Laendler really well before I die. It's such a beautiful dance.

Long Time, No Post

So, it's been a long, really long time since I've posted. Between final exams and a big research project, I've really been too busy to post on either of my blogs. But hopefully I'll be able to pick blogging back up this summer.

Anyway, enjoy the sunshine, turn on some beautiful music, read a good book, and thank God for life. It's such a beautiful thing, to be alive.

Supreme Katharsis

Is it right to let us see men dying? Yes. Is it a sacrilege? No. If our spirit be purged of curiosity and purified with awe the sight is hallowed. There is no sacrilege if we are fit for the seeing … I say it is regenerative and resurrective for us to see war stripped bare. Heaven knows that we need the supreme katharsis, the ultimate cleansing. We grow indifferent too quickly … These are dreadful sights but their dreadfulness is as wholesome as Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’. It shakes the kaleidoscope of war into human reality … I say that these pictures are good for us.

~ James Douglas, The Star, 25th September 1916

This quote is so powerful. What Douglas is here dealing with is one of the toughest issues man faces. He wrote this after a viewing of the 1916 film The Battle of the Somme, a battle which occurred the same year. Two cinematographers filmed during the war and made a movie out of it which was then released in the British Isles. It was very popular and its effect was enormous. Not until then had the reality of World War 1 hit the British peoples. This quote captures so much of that film, and so much of the issues which surround similar situations today. Why, some would ask, ought we to watch war films or death onscreen. This would be my reply. Not because it is good, but because we are bad and require a jolt to think outside our own reality.

Quotes for Seniors

I finished Dante's Paradise today, and I have many quotes to put on my blog. But these two quotes seemed to relate to my own position as a senior most, so I shall share them first. The first is what I would say to my mother, my teacher. In the second, I felt God speaking to me as one going into a new part of her life.

You are my sire. You give me confidence to speak. You raise my heart so high that I am more than I. My soul is overflowing with the joy that pours from many streams, and it rejoices that it endures and does not burst inside.

~Dante, Paradise, Canto 16

You shall be forced to leave behind those things you love most dearly, and this is the first arrow the bow of your exile will shoot. And you will know how salty is the taste of others' bread, how hard the road that takes you down and up the stairs of others' homes. But what will weigh you down the most will be the despicable, senseless company whom you shall have to bear in that sad vale; and all ungrateful, all completely mad and vicious, they shall turn on you, but soon their cheeks, not yours, will have to blush from shame. Proof of their bestiality will show through their own deeds! It will be to your honor to have become a party of your own.

~Dante, Paradise, Canto 17

I'm telling you...

All of life is a Pixar film.

Where to Begin

If men on earth were to pay greater heed to the foundation Nature has laid down, and build on that, they would build better men.

~Dante, Paradise, Canto 8