“When someone begins to the lose the glamour they had for us on our first meeting them, we tell ourselves that we have been deceived; that our fantasy cast a halo over them which they are unworthy to bear. It is always possible, however, that the reverse is the case: that our disappointment is due to a failure of our own sensibility which lacks the strength to maintain itself at the acuteness with which it began. People may really be what we first thought them, and what we subsequently think of as the disappointing reality may be the person obscured by the staleness of our senses.” LoveTragedySensesLove At First SightInfatuationFirst Impressions Author:W.H. Auden
“We wander on the earth, or err from bed to bed in search of home, and fail, and weep for the lost ages Before Because became As If, or rigid Certainty The Chances Are. The base hear us, and the violent Who long to calm our guilt with murder, and already Have not been slow to turn our wish to their advantage.” WarFateViolenceTragedyMeaning Book:Journey to a War Source: Journey to a War
“In comedy, if fate is to appear comic, it must be arbitrary and appear to behave like a person, and the people who are subject to fate should not be responsible for what occurs. In tragedy fate is not an arbitrary person - it is we who are responsible, and we bring our fate upon ourselves. Where fate plays too large a role, however, the effect is not tragic but pathetic. The effect of Greek tragedy can seem pathetic to us just in this way. The Greeks naively argue that the sign of guilt is misfortune and that therefore if there is misfortune, then there must be guilt. Comic fate is arbitrary and does not involve real suffering - whatever suffering in is presented in comic must be temporary and imaginary.” ComedyFateTragedy Book:Lectures on Shakespeare Source: Lectures on Shakespeare
“In a tragic contradiction between the normal and the exceptional, there is suffering, in a comic contradiction, none.” SufferingComedyNormalTragedyExceptional Book:Lectures on Shakespeare Source: Lectures on Shakespeare