The man has a theory. The woman has hipbones. Here comes Death.
Interpretation
This quote contrasts abstract theories with tangible physicality, reflecting on the inevitability of death.
In this quote, Anne Carson highlights the dichotomy between theoretical understanding and the physical realities of existence, particularly in relation to gender dynamics and mortality. The mention of 'theory' suggests a detached, intellectual perspective, while 'hipbones' represents physical presence and sensuality, pointing to the complexity of human relationships and the inevitability of death that transcends both concepts.
In practice
In a philosophical discussion about the relationship between body and mind.
Prowling the meanings of a word, prowling the history of a person, no use expecting a flood of light. Human words have no main switch. But all those little kidnaps in the dark. And then the luminous, big, shivering, discandied, unrepentant, barking web of them that hangs in your mind when you turn back to the page you were trying to translate.
[Short Talk on Sylvia Plath] Did you see her mother on television? She said plain, burned things. She said I thought it an excellent poem but it hurt me. She did not say jungle fear. She did not say jungle hatred wild jungle weeping chop it back chop it. She said self-government she said end of the road. She did not say humming in the middle of the air what you came for chop.
Novels institutionalize the ruse of eros. It becomes a narrative texture of sustained incongruence, emotional and cognitive. It permits the reader to stand in triangular relation to the characters in the story and reach into the text after the objects of their desire, sharing their longing but also detached from it, seeing their view of reality but also its mistakenness. It is almost like being in love.
To live past the end of your myth is a perilous thing.
I emphasize the distinction between brackets and no brackets because it will affect your reading experience, if you will allow it. Brackets are exciting. Even though you are approaching Sappho in translation, that is no reason you should miss the drama of trying to read a papyrus torn in half or riddled with holes or smaller than a postage stamp--brackets imply a free space of imaginal adventure.
Sometimes I dream a sentence and write it down. Itβs usually nonsense, but sometimes it seems a key to another world.
Only a very few can be learned, but all can be Christian, all can be devout, and β I shall boldly add β all can be theologians.
The future is a convenient place for dreams.
When I go to hell, I mean to carry a bribe: for look you, good gifts evermore make way for the worst persons.
I am a black American, I say, and thus announce my atavistic connection to all others who live as black Americans, to all who ever lived as black Americans. Religion, caste, class, gender and race can all be atavisms, and they are inherently anti-democratic because they exclude all outside the atavism.
One cannot prescribe to anyone whether he should follow an ethic of absolute ends or an ethic of responsibility.
A weed is a plant whose virtue is not yet known.
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