O.Wilde, Preface to 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'

The artist is the creator of beautiful things. (...)
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. (...)

No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. (...)
All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself...


O. Wilde (1854-1900),
Preface to 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'


Saturday, December 04, 2010

W.Wordsworth, The Daffodils





William Wordsworth, 1770-1850
    
 English Romantic poet
       
  (1st generation)




     The Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud         
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,                        
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.


Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance  
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.                       

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed-and-gazed but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
                                                                               William  Wordsworth


                 Italian translation .                           


I Narcisi                                


Erravo solo come una nuvola                          
Che alta fluttua su valli e colline,                    
Quando all'improvviso vidi una folla,            
Una moltitudine, di dorati narcisi;                
Lungo il lago, sotto gli alberi,                        
Svolazzando e danzando nella brezza.                      

Fitti come le stelle che brillano
E scintillano sulla via lattea,
Si stendevano in una linea senza fine
Lungo il margine di una baia:
Diecimila ne vidi con un solo sguardo,
Scuotendo le loro teste in un vivace ballo.

Le onde accanto ad essi ballavano; ma essi
Sorpassavano le scintillanti onde in allegria:
Un poeta non poteva che essere gaio,
In tale gioconda compagnia:
Guardavo fisso, guardavo fisso, ma poco pensavo
Che ricchezza lo spettacolo mi aveva portato:
 
Perché spesso, quando nel mio letto giaccio
Senza pensieri, o pensieroso,
Essi balenano su quell'occhio interiore
Che è la beatitudine della solitudine;
e allora il mio cuore si riempie di piacere
e balla con i narcisi.
                                                William  Wordsworth

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