Trauma is "a wound inflicted not upon the body but upon the mind" whereby "knowing and not knowing are entangled in the language of trauma" (Freud, qtd in Wolfreys's Trauma, Testimony, and Criticism).
Dialogue Between a Calender-Seller and a Passer-By
By Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837)
Translated from Italian by Patrick Gasperini
- February 2002 -
[Giacomo Leopardi was a Romantic poet marked by radical pessimism. This dialogue was written in 1832--probably in Florence--and appeared in the 1834 edition of his Operette Morali (Moral Tales).]
If many concepts in religion have their roots in pan-cultural symbolism, the reverse may
also be true. Some religious personalities may unexpectedly acquire a symbolic value, and become literary metaphors. John the Baptist can be a very valuable metaphor, especially in times of confusion and uncertainty. John the Baptist is the prophet par excellence, and this consideration has nothing to do with religious evaluation.
Vladimir Mayakovsky took his own life on April 14, 1930, when he was only 37 years old.
Here I am not going to praise his poetry, it would be so unfair in such a small and unsuitable place.
This is only a short meditation on his death. As a young boy, I used to regard suicide as an insane
mixture of cowardice and failure. An appalling act against reason and nature. But experience, or rather the slimy sense of injustice which seems to be lying at the bottom of mankind, has inevitably made me change my view.
Perhaps you don't know that in the 1940s, Salvador Dalì and Walt Disney worked together on a revolutionary animated film. Unfortunately, Dalì's art only materialized into an extraordinary 15-second-long sample. Towards the end of 1946 Disney decided to call the project off. When I read about that strange joined venture in a magazine, I was utterly astonished. What made me shudder was the reason why the project fell through. Commercial and financial reasons, of course.
