QuoteProject
Surrealism is not a poetry but a poetics, and even more, and more decisively, a world vision.
Octavio Paz
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Surrealism is more than just a form of poetry; it embodies a unique perspective on reality and existence.

Octavio Paz emphasizes that surrealism transcends poetry, representing a fundamental way of seeing and interpreting the world. It is an artistic movement that challenges conventional perceptions and explores the deeper, often irrational aspects of human experience, providing a distinct vision that reshapes our understanding of reality.

Themes

SurrealismArtPoeticsVisionCreativity

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about artistic movements, one might reference this quote to highlight the depth of surrealism.

More from Octavio Paz

Solitude lies at the lowest depth of the human condition. Man is the only being who feels himself to be alone and the only one who is searching for the Other.
Octavio PazRead
By suppressing differences and peculiarities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death
Octavio PazRead
The North American system only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality. Men and women are subjected from childhood to an inexorable process of adaptation certain principles, contained in brief formulas are endlessly repeated by the Press, the radio, the churches, and the schools, and by those kindly, sinister beings, the North American mothers and wives. A person imprisoned by these schemes is like a plant in a flowerpot too small for it he cannot grow or mature.
Octavio PazRead
Poetry is not a genre in harmony with the modern world; its innermost nature is hostile or indifferent to the dogmas of modern times, progress and the cult of the future.
Octavio PazRead
If we are a metaphor of the universe, the human couple is the metaphor par excellence, the point of intersection of all forces and the seed of all forms. The couple is time recaptured, the return to the time before time.
Octavio PazRead
Man, even man debased by the neocapitalism and pseudosocialism of our time, is a marvelous being because he sometimes speaks. Language is the mark, the sign, not of his fall but of his original innocence. Through the Word we may regain the lost kingdom and recover powers we possessed in the far-distant past.
Octavio PazRead

Similar quotes

For children of my generation, anime was an escape from Japan's loser complex following World War II. Anime wasn't foreign. It was our own.
Takashi MurakamiRead
The first thing I did with my very first camera was climb Mt. Fuji. Climbing Mt. Fuji is a lesson in determination and moderation. It would be fair to ask if I took the moderation part to heart. But it certainly was a lesson in respecting your camera. If I was going to live with this thing, I was going to have to think about what that meant. There were not going to be any pictures without it.
Annie LeibovitzRead
The great thing about jamming is that you come in with zero preconceptions. Someone might want to play something that suggests something else to you, and the next thing you know you're on a 20-minute adventure.
Chris ThileRead
I am uncompromising to the point of huge dissension in the studio. And it's served me very well. My theory and my philosophy is, 'Compromise breeds mediocrity.' Obviously, you have to pick your battles, and the more success an artist has, the more they want to be involved in their own career, which is not necessarily a good thing.
David FosterRead
Photography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed.
Garry WinograndRead
The idea that a poem was a made thing stayed with me, and I decided then that I wanted to be an artist, not just a diarist. So I put myself through a kind of apprenticeship in writing poetry, and I understood even then that my practice as a poet was deeply related to my reading.
Edward HirschRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.