#cpb philosophy

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"The Metaphysical Poets" by T. S. Eliot (1921)

A philosophical theory which has entered into poetry is established, for its truth of falsity in one sense ceases to matter, and its truth in another sense is proved.

…It is not a permanent necessity that poets should be interested in philosophy, or any other subject. We can only say that it appears likely that poets in our civilization, as it exists at present, must be difficult.

Broadview Anthology, page 1545

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The Picture of Dorian Gray (Preface) by Oscar Wilde (1890)

No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.

Broadview Anthology, page 1163

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"To Benjamin Bailey / The Truth of Imagination" by John Keats (1817)

I am the more zealous in this affair, because I have never yet been able to perceive how any thing can be known for truth by consequitive reasoning - and yet it must be - Can it be that even the greatest Philosopher ever arrived at his goal without putting aside numerous objections - However it may be, O for a Life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts!

Longview Anthology, page 992

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A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf (1929)

Thus when I ask you to write more books I am urging you to do what will be for your good and for the good of the world at large. How to justify this instinct or belief I do not know, for philosophic words, if one has not been educated at a university, are apt to play one false. What is meant by 'reality'? It would seem to be something very erratic, very undependable—now to be found in a dusty road, now in a scrap of newspaper in the street, now a daffodil in the sun. It lights up a group in a room and stamps some casual saying. It overwhelms one walking home beneath the stars and makes the silent world more real than the world of speech—and then there it is again in an omnibus in the uproar of Piccadilly. Sometimes, too, it seems to dwell in shapes too far away for us to discern what their nature is. But whatever it touches, it fixes and makes permanent. That is what remains over when the skin of the day has been cast into the hedge; that is what is left of past time and of our loves and hates. Now the writer, as I think, has the chance to live more than other people in the presence of this reality. It is his business to find it and collect it and communicate it to the rest of us.

Part Six, Pages 83-4

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The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill (1869)

There was a time when the division of mankind into two classes, a small one of masters and a numerous one of slaves, appeared, even to the most cultivated minds, to be a natural, and the only natural, condition of the human race. No less an intellect, and one which contributed no less to the progress of human thought, than Aristotle, held this opinion without doubt or misgiving; and rested it on the same premises on which the same assertion in regard to the dominion of men over women is usually based, namely that there are different natures among mankind, free natures, and slave natures; that the Greeks were of a free nature, the barbarian races of Thracians and Asiatics of a slave nature.

Broadview Anthology, page 747

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A Vindication of the Rights of Men by Mary Wollstonecraft (1790)

You have convinced them that littleness and weakness are the very essence of beauty; and that the Supreme Being, in giving women beauty in the most supereminent degree, seemed to command them, by the powerful voice of Nature, not to cultivate the moral virtues that might chance to excite respect, and interfere with the pleasing sensations they were created to inspire. …lest pain should be blended with pleasure, and admiration disturb the soft intimacy of love.

Broadview Anthology, page 293

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Villette by Charlotte Bronte (1853)

“Now old Crusty—old Diogenes” (these were her familiar terms for me when we disagreed), “what is the matter now?”

Page 113

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Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson (1985)

My mother is very like William Blake; she has visions and dreams and she cannot always distinguish a flea's head from a king. Luckily she can't paint.

Page 5

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"A Far Cry from Africa" by Derek Walcott (1962)

The violence of beast on beast is read

As natural law, but upright man

Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain.

Broadview Anthology, page 1701

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"Church Going" by Phillip Larkin (1954)

A serious house on serious earth it is,

In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,

Are recognised, and robed as destinies.

And that much never can be obsolete,

Since someone will forever be surprising

A hunger in himself to be more serious,

Broadview Anthology, page 1681-2

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"Araby" by James Joyce (1914)

The former tenant of our house, a priest, had died in the back drawing-room. …He had been a very charitable priest; in his will he had left all his money to institutions and the furniture of his house to his sister.

Broadview Anthology, page 1435

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"Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloyster" by Robert Browning (1842)

If I trip him just a-dying,

   Sure of heaven as sure can be,

Spin him round and send him flying

   Off to hell, a Manichee?

Broadview Anthology, page 911

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The Right to Be Happy (Preface) by Dora Russell (1927)

THIS book attempts two things : first to demonstrate that happiness for all human beings is not only feasible, but the most satisfactory basis for social construction ; second to bring to the help of such construction modern theories of the nature of man and the universe.

Page V

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"Sonnet 43" from Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Browning (1845-7)

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

Broadview Anthology, page 795

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Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime excerpt by Immanuel Kant (1764, first trans. 1799)

The sight of a mountain whose snow-covered peaks rises above the clouds, the description of a raging storm, or Milton’s portrayal of the internal kingdom, arouse enjoyment but with horror; on the other hand, the sight of flower-strewn meadows, valleys with winding brooks and covered with grazing flocks, the description of Elysium, or Homer’s portrayal of the girdle of Venus, also occasion a pleasant sensation but one that is joyous and smiling. In order that the former impression could occur to us in due strength, we must have a feeling of the sublime, and, in order to enjoy the latter well, a feeling of the beautiful.

Broadview Anthology, page 290

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Philosophy

Philosophy broke down into references to philosophy in literary works, quotes from works generally accepted as part of the philosophical canon, and works commenting on how artists should approach philosophy. It shared the most overlap with the other two categories, so quotes that straddled Philosophy with Happiness or with Other World have been attributed to those other categories, but will be noted as belonging to both.

Philosophy References

Philosophical Canon Works