“When virtue is pictured as innocence and innocence equated with childlikeness, the implication is obviously that knowledge and experience are no longer media of goodness, but have become in themselves contaminating. This is a very despairing outlook, in its way as black as Augustine's original sin, for it supposes that original goodness will in all likelihood be defiled...It surrenders the attempt to represent virtue in a mature phase.” WayBlackSinVirtueMediaGoodnessOriginalsSurrenderInnocenceMaturePhasesOutlookImplicationsLikelihoodOriginal SinAugustineKnowledge And Experience Book:Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism Source: Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism
“Mythographer was suggested by the man who made my website, actually. I do write a lot about myth and I do feel it's a bit pompous to state it that way, but it does distinguish me from other writers. When it was first on the web, people began to use it in an ironical and satirical way. Now, however, people tend to use it straight.” PeopleMenWayFeelsWritingFirstsDoeMadeStatesUseBitsHe ManMythWebsiteSatiricalPompous Author:Marina Warner
“I do think that this represents a kind of shift towards myth, a recovery of myth, largely through the popularity of writers like Philip Pullman. Somehow myths have returned as a serious subject. It used to be scorned...really scorned. It was part of a nursery tradition, and it was also rather tainted - but not in an immovable way - by the association with right-wing ideologies after the World Wars.” ThinkingWorldWayKindWarUsedSubjectsSeriousTraditionWingsMythRecoveryUsed To BeIdeologyWar Of The WorldsAssociationPopularityRight WingNurseryPhilipTaintedScornedSerious Subjects Author:Marina Warner
“I always have done work on mythic relations since I started writing. I really want to be a novelist, or at least a writer of imaginative work... I do try to make my critical studies imaginative and try to write them in ways that are more like literature than philosophy, but I have disappointed myself because I am still so wedded to criticism.” WayWantWritingTryingStillsDonePhilosophyLiteratureStudyCriticismRelationCriticalNovelistsDisappointedImaginative Author:Marina Warner
“True to their history, the English are very domineering and have manipulated it in different ways. I wouldn't say that there was an original, but there is a lot of expurgation in some of the Victorian translations, and there's a lot of additional salacious nonsense in some of them, too. I also like the early French one, much-derided for being fanciful but which is actually very elegantly done. It's very big, very capacious.” WayDifferentDoneBigsOriginalsDifferent WaysNonsenseTranslationsVictorian Author:Marina Warner
“It seemed to me to be a parable of the exchange of goods, rather Marxist in some ways, in the new world of global forces. What the forgers do is write the brand name to try and change it, and it works! Loads of people buy fake Prada handbags, or Chanel sunglasses; they've been changed. They have been truly, really changed.” PeopleWorldWayWritingTryingHas BeensNamesForceChangedBrandsFakeGoodsNew WorldLoadMarxistParablesSunglassesHandbagsPradaBrand Names Author:Marina Warner
“If you want a good handbag and glasses, it's hard to get something without the brand name on it because it's so important to have the charmed inscription. The only way you do it... This handbag was the only one in the shop without a charmed inscription. It's just an ordinary bag. I went into the department store in Sloane Square, because I needed a new bag, because my old one lost its handles. Then I found this one, and I said "Why is it so cheap?" and the seller said, "Because it doesn't have a name!"” IfsWayWantSaidImportantHardFoundNamesLostNeededOrdinaryGlassesStoresHandleBrandsDepartmentShopsBagsSquaresSellersCharmedInscriptionsHandbagsDepartment StoresBrand Names Author:Marina Warner
“I am not a great believer in dialectical struggle. I am much more of a fusion person. I see it as a dialogue, or trialogue, or polylogue: many, many, many voices, going back a long way. The cultural picture is much more mutually enriching at many different levels, manufacturers...absolutely, design and calligraphy. It's an amazing amount of cross-interests between people.” PeopleWayPersonsLongDifferentVoiceInterestLevelsStruggleDesignAmountCrossesBelieverDialogueLong WayFusionDifferent LevelsEnrichingCalligraphy Author:Marina Warner
“There's a whole slew of wonderful speculation of flying in a fanciful way. Gulliver is one of the central examples; Swift has the hum of Arabian Nights in his ear with Gulliver's Travels. The difference is in scale - Gulliver as a kind of Sinbad kind of figure, the way he is picked up and carried. Just to finish up with Scheherazade, I do think that The Arabian Nights could be considered as a great book on women's position in the world.” ThinkingWorldWayKindBookWholeNightDifferencesWonderfulFiguresExamplePositionEarsFlyingScalesSpeculationGreat BookArabianGulliverArabian NightsGulliver's Travels Author:Marina Warner
“A society that doesn't know any longer how to observe every death with proper rituals, that does not know that death is not the end, but only part of the journey, has lost its way, has had the very heart of its humanity torn out.” KnowsWayHeartDoeEndsHumanityLostJourneyRitualTorn Book:The Leto bundle Source: The Leto bundle
“The price the Virgin demanded was purity, and the way the educators of Catholic children have interpreted this for nearly two thousand years is sexual chastity. Impurity, we were taught, follows from many sins, but all are secondary to the principal impulse of the devil in the soul--lust.” WayYearsChildrenTwoSoulSinTaughtThousandDevilCatholicLustImpulsePurityPrincipalThousand YearsVirginsEducatorChastityImpurityChastity Purity Book:Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary Source: Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary
