Home / Quotes / Quote by Marina Warner

Quote by Marina Warner

“I consider it as a foreshadowing of modernity in many different respects, and the consistency of character is interesting to the emerging modern psychology. The emphasis on dream knowledge relates quite deeply to psychoanalysis, although I suppose psychoanalysis wouldn't like to say that... Freud was always saying he was a scientist.”

Quote by Marina Warner

Author

Marina Warner is a renowned British novelist known for her unique literary style and in-depth research into mythology and folklore. Her works often blend history, culture, and personal narrative, exploring themes of gender, identity, and memory. more

You May Also Like

“Many of the enchanted things in the book are lamps, carpets, sofas, gems, brass rings. It is a rather different landscape than the fairy tale landscape of the West. Though we have interiors and palaces, we don't have bustling cities, and there isn't the emphasis on the artisan making things. The ambiance from which they were written was an entirely different one. The Arabian Nights comes out of a huge world of markets and trade. Cairo, Basra, Damascus: trades and skills.”

“I do not think commodities are taken for granted. One of the convergences in time I noticed, and to me seemed very important, was the emergence of paper money. There had been permissionary notes, exchanging money by writing it, but there was no duplicated form of guaranteeing an exchange.”

Thinking Writing Important Form Taken Paper Notes Granted Commodity Emergence Taken For Granted Exchanging Convergence Paper Money

Author:Marina Warner

“The French Revolution printed money because they didn't have any, so they just printed it, and this was a revolutionary step which of course we are still reaping the huge consequences of today. It struck me that this was beginning to happen...there had been scandals where shares had been printed.”

Stills Happens Today Courses Steps Share Huge Revolution Consequence Revolutionary Scandal Printed French Revolution

Author:Marina Warner

“For example, John Law's Mississippi Company venture printed shares, and the money had gone up in smoke when it had been inscribed objects. The inscription made it magic and changed its meaning. That's how objects become charmed in The Arabian Nights, and they are often originally ordinary objects. The carpet is an ordinary, paltry object. The lamp is a rusty old lamp, and the bottles jinns are imprisoned within are old bottles. They are changed by the magic and the jinn's presence, and the jinn's presence is often embodied in the seal or inscription.”

Made Law Night Company Gone Magic Share Example Objects Changed Ordinary Made It Smoke Bottles Venture Lamps Carpet Printed Seals Mississippi Charmed Inscriptions Arabian Jinn Arabian Nights

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.”

People World Way Writing Trying Has Beens Names Force Changed Brands Fake Goods New World Load Marxist Parables Sunglasses Handbags Prada Brand 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!"”

Ifs Way Want Said Important Hard Found Names Lost Needed Ordinary Glasses Stores Handle Brands Department Shops Bags Squares Sellers Charmed Inscriptions Handbags Department Stores Brand Names

Author:Marina Warner

“I think that a true economics thinker or a Marxist thinker would make nonsense of my argument, although I have given massive seminars and no one has demolished it so far. I did think that this idea from an artisanal and trading perception of the auratic quality of goods when they are given character and inscription, made the stories of phantasmic wealth read more powerfully in the 18th and 19th centuries than the stories of Cinderella's wealth, because they are conjured out of nothing by these magic means.”

Thinking Mean Made Ideas Character Stories Given Wealth Quality Magic Century Perception Economics Argument Nonsense Massive Goods Thinker Trading 19th Century Marxist Inscriptions Seminars

Author:Marina Warner

“Our traditional stories are based on an aristocratic model without a middle class, whereas The Arabian Nights reflect people living in cities, traders, merchants, travelers, with a wide range of personalities.”

People Stories Night Cities Class Middle Personality Models Wide Traditional Range Middle Class Traveler Merchants Traders Arabian Aristocratic Living In The City Arabian Nights

Author:Marina Warner

“The Grimm brothers always said that their informants were women, which is possibly not true, women of the people. There is the constant evocation of women's voices, in the collecting and arrangement of these stories, and yet the message of so many of them is incredibly misogynist. I was very puzzled by that, and that book explores that contradiction.”

People Said Book Stories Voice Brother Messages Constant Contradiction Arrangements Collecting Puzzled Grimm Informants Brothers Grimm True Woman

Author:Marina Warner

“Scheherazade, of course, was always in the back of my mind, because she's also a storyteller identified as female who tells a lot of anti-female stories. There's a parade in The Arabian Nights of sorceresses, adulteresses, ghouls, sirens, harridans.”

Mind Stories Night Courses Female Storyteller Parades Of My Mind Ghouls Sirens Arabian Sorceress Arabian Nights

Author:Marina Warner