Translators From England

"The doctrines of Epictetus and Antoninus are the same, and Epictetus is the best authority for the explanation of the philosophical language of Antoninus and the exposition of his opinions."

"Epictetus addressed himself to his hearers in a continuous discourse and in a familiar and simple manner. Antoninus wrote down his reflections for his own use only, in short unconnected paragraphs, which are often obscure."

"Even among the earliest Stoics, Logic or Dialectic does not occupy the same place as in Plato: it is considered only as an instrument which is to be used for the other divisions of Philosophy."

"According to the subdivision of Cleanthes, Physic and Theology go together, or the study of the nature of Things, and the study of the nature of the Deity, so far as man can understand the Deity, and of his government of the universe. This division or subdivision is not formally adopted by Antoninus, for... there is no method in his book; but it is virtually contained in it."

"Epictetus wanted little, and it seems that he always had the little that he wanted, and he was content with it, as he had been with his servile station. But Antoninus after his accession to the empire sat on an uneasy seat. … what must be the trials, the troubles, the anxiety, and the sorrows of him who has the world's business on his hands with the wish to do the best that he can, and the certain knowledge that he can do very little of the good which he wishes."

"Great abilities are rare, and they are often accompanied by qualities which make the abilities useless to him who has them, and even injurious to society."

"I have heard it maintained that it is always the teacher's fault if a boy does not learn, even a stupid and idle boy; but I leave the decision of this matter to the "communis sensus," the common intelligence of mankind."

"In the wretched times from the death of Augustus to the murder of Domitian, there was nothing but the Stoic philosophy which could console and support the followers of the old religion under imperial tyranny and amidst universal corruption."

"There is no absolute virtue in iambic pentameter as such..however well they may be done. There is no immediate virtue to rhythm even. These things are merely a means to an end."

"Every man's Free verse is different"

"Writers who are also artist's only think of themselves as truly living when they are engaged in their sweet labour."

"Expression, child of soul! I fondly trace Thy strong enchantment, when the poet's lyre, The painter's pencil cathch thy sacred fire, And beauty wakes for thee her touching grace"

"Pale moon ! thy mild benignant light May glad some other's captive sight Where are the years with pleasure gay How bright their course ! How short their stay !"

"No riches from his scanty store My lover could impart He gave a boon I valued more— He gave me all his heart !"

"Devoted victim of the crimes accurst, By hatred cherish’d, and by av’rice nurs'd; Crimes that with Europe’s sordid sons began, The rude barbarian’s gift from polished man."

"All human archives in this truth accord, That feeble man is Ruin’s mighty lord; States rise and fall as ages roll away, But vice survives, the passions ne’er decay; New tyrants start, where conquest once has been, The drama constant, tho’ transposed the scene."

"On the same sod, where (Rapine’s helpless prey,) The plumed Indian, pin’d his life away, Enslav’d, degraded, doom’d to vile employ, Deploring still the rifled hive of joy, There the poor Negro, shackled with the chain, Rears, by his sweltering toil, the nectar’d cane; And, wretched exile from his brighter skies, Breathes o’er the native’s grave complaining sighs, Unconscious on what dust he treads, nor knows Whose place he takes, whose heritage of woes."

"To him the heavens a fearful aspect wear, Strange are the accents murmur’d in his ear. He steals no balm from pity’s lenient breath Hope sheds no gleam, but through the vale of death: An alien, far from nature’s bosom cast, He broods on wrongs, the present and the past; And asks what vengeance shall the wretches wait, Who bade him mourn within the stranger’s gate."

"The Theatre of the Absurd has renounced arguing about the absurdity of the human condition; it merely presents it in being — that is, in terms of concrete stage images. This is the difference between the approach of the philosopher and that of the poet; the difference, to take an example from another sphere, between the idea of God in the works of Thomas Aquinas or Spinoza and the intuition of God in those of St. John of the Cross or Meister Eckhart — the difference between theory and experience."

"The "poetic avant-garde" relies on fantasy and dream reality as much as the Theatre of the Absurd does; it also disregards such traditional axioms as that of the basic unity and consistency of each character or the need for a plot. Yet basically the "poetic avant-garde" represents a different mood; it is more lyrical, and far less violent and grotesque. Even more important is its different attitude toward language: the "poetic avant-garde" relies to a far greater extent on consciously "poetic" speech; it aspires to plays that are in effect poems, images composed of a rich web of verbal associations. The Theatre of the Absurd, on the other hand, tends toward a radical devaluation of language, toward a poetry that is to emerge from the concrete and objectified images of the stage itself. The element of language still plays an important part in this conception, but what happens on the stage transcends, and often contradicts, the words spoken by the characters. In Ionesco's The Chairs, for example, the poetic content of a powerfully poetic play does not lie in the banal words that are uttered but in the fact that they are spoken to an ever-growing number of empty chairs."

"The Theatre of the Absurd strives to express its sense of the senselessness of the human condition and the inadequacy of the rational approach by the open abandonment of rational devices and discursive thought. While Sartre or Camus express the new content in the old convention, the Theatre of the Absurd goes a step further in trying to achieve a unity between its basic assumptions and the form in which these are expressed. In some senses, the theatre of Sartre and Camus is less adequate as an expression of the philosophy of Sartre and Camus — in artistic, as distinct from philosophic, terms — than the Theatre of the Absurd."

"The Theatre of the Absurd attacks the comfortable certainties of religious or political orthodoxy. It aims to shock its audience out of complacency, to bring it face to face with the harsh facts of the human situation as these writers see it. But the challenge behind this message is anything but one of despair. It is a challenge to accept the human condition as it is, in all its mystery and absurdity, and to bear it with dignity, nobly, responsibly; precisely because there are no easy solutions to the mysteries of existence, because ultimately man is alone in a meaningless world. The shedding of easy solutions, of comforting illusions, may be painful, but it leaves behind it a sense of freedom and relief. And that is why, in the last resort, the Theatre of the Absurd does not provoke tears of despair but the laughter of liberation."

"The Theatre of the Absurd … can be seen as the reflection of what seems to be the attitude most genuinely representative of our own time.  The hallmark of this attitude is its sense that the certitudes and unshakable basic assumptions of former ages have been swept away, that they have been tested and found wanting, that they have been discredited as cheap and somewhat childish illusions. The decline of religious faith was masked until the end of the Second World War by the substitute religions of faith in progress, nationalism, and various totalitarian fallacies. All this was shattered by the war."

"In an age of increasing specialisation, he had a refreshing breadth of vision, while his penetrating mind could quickly comprehend when something new and important was happening in the arts. He could explain the complex in a straightforward and lucid manner, and his judgments were invaluable. His book The Theatre Of The Absurd was the most influential theatrical text of the 1960s."

" "Absurd" originally means "out of harmony," in a musical context. Hence its dictionary definition: "out of harmony with reason or propriety; incongruous, unreasonable, illogical." In common usage, "absurd" may simply mean "ridiculous," but this is not the sense in which Camus uses the word, and in which it is used when we speak of the Theatre of the Absurd. In an essay on Kafka, Ionesco defined his understanding of the term as follows: "Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose. . . . Cut from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless.""

"The "Theatre of the Absurd" has become a catch-phrase, much used and much abused. What does it stand for? And how can such a label be justified? Perhaps it will be best to attempt to answer the second question first. There is no organised movement, no school of artists, who claim the label for themselves. A good many playwrights who have been classed under this label, when asked if they belong to the Theatre of the Absurd, will indigniantly reply that they belong to no such movement — and quite rightly so. For each of the playwrights concerned seeks to express no more and no less his own personal vision of the world. Yet critical concepts of this kind are useful when new modes of expression, new conventions of art arise."

"Ah, dearer than my soul… Dearer than light, or life, or fame."

"I wear my Pen as others do their Sword. To each affronting sot I meet, the word Is Satisfaction: straight to thrusts I go, And pointed satire runs him through and through."

"While some no other cause for life can give But a dull habitude to live."

"Altho' your frailer part must yield to Fate, By every breach in that fair lodging made, Its blest inhabitant is more displayed."

"And should you visit now the seats of bliss, You need not wear another form but this."

"Curse on the man who business first designed, And by't enthralled a freeborn lover's mind!"

"Lord of myself, accountable to none, But to my conscience, and my God alone."

"The truth of what I have so often inculcated, that it is the "steady, painstaking, likely-to-do-good" man who in the long run wins the race against those who now and then give a brilliant flash and, as Shakespeare says, "straight are cold again"."

"His reverence for sacred things was so great that he was never known to relate a story which included a jest upon words from the Bible."

"It is necessary to be particularly on your guard with regard to the young ladies, into whose company you are introduced - it is perfectly well understood in society that ladies may shew to youths in the position of Private Pupils a sort of kindness and attention, which they would not think of shewing if these youths were a little older and more out of the world."

"The Translator has purposefully abstained from the use of any previous translation, in order to give his own view of the meaning unbiased."

"The two great principles, which have since that period stood in perpetual opposition to each other — Liberty of Opinion and Unity of Faith — which have formed the line of demarcation between the Dissenter and the Churchman, and have ever found a debateable border-ground within the Church itself, have now, upon that ground, been forced by circumstances into something like an open and regular conflict, each claiming alike the principles and the acts of the Reformed Church for its support."

"Swinburne gave the coup de grace to English rhyme."

"The natural cadence of our emotions are the driving force behind our poetic expressions."

"The history of English poetry in verse in the story of the exhaustion of the effects to be obtained from rhyme and meter of the exploitation of a mine in which the most lodes have at last given out."

"There is only one art of writing, and that is the art of poetry..whether it is in the form of prose or in rhyme and meter or in rhymed cadence."

"My three propositions to poetry are:"

"Prose will be used for the more objective branches of writing- novels, plays, essays..Cadence will be used for personal, emotional, lyrical utterances in which the phrasing goes with a stronger beat and the words live together with an intense flame."

"There is a natural physiological tendency to pronounce in one breath successive groups of rhythmic feet, and the rhythmic content in the average length of breathing can only be called a verse."

"My own unryhmed cadences , and those of other writers are a reversion to the real English tradition of Cynewulf."

"The point is that any piece of Impressionism, whether it be prose, verse or painting, or sculpture, is the record of the impression."

"I have followed my ear and my heart, which may be false. I hope not."

"Every speech is at once a language serving the purposes of will, expressing intimate desires and commands, and at same time expressing thoughts by a sequence of concepts."

"The poem, a harmonious flow of nuances, demands a musical rhythm, Vers libre."