Of the widow's countless death-duties there is really just one that matters: on the first anniversary of her husband's death the widow should think I kept myself alive.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
Tragedy is the highest form of art.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Tragedy reveals deep truths about the human experience and is therefore considered a profound artistic expression.
Joyce Carol Oates suggests that tragedy transcends other forms of art due to its ability to delve into the complexities of human existence and evoke powerful emotions. By presenting suffering, loss, and despair, tragedy allows audiences to confront and contemplate essential truths about life, ultimately elevating it to a significant artistic form.
Themes
TragedyArtHuman ExperienceExpressionEmotion
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on the significance of art in literature, this quote can highlight the impact of tragic narratives.
More from Joyce Carol Oates
All quotes βI never really knew I wanted to 'be' a writer, but I was always writing from a very young age. It became more conscious as an ideal when I was in my twenties.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
I'm drawn to write about upstate New York in the way in which a dreamer might have recurring dreams. My childhood and girlhood were spent in upstate New York, in the country north of Buffalo and West of Rochester. So this part of New York state is very familiar to me and, with its economic difficulties, has become emblematic of much of American life.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
My writing is often a way of 'bearing witness' for others who lack the education and the opportunity to tell their own stories, so I hope that my writing won't be affected too much by my personal life.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
. . . there is a wish in the heart of mankind to be distracted and confused. Truth is but one attraction, and not always the most powerful.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
Similar quotes
Nothing, of course, will ever take the place of the good old fashion of 'liking' a work of art or not liking it; the more improved criticism will not abolish that primitive, that ultimate, test.
Henry JamesRead
If I could say with words what my dances express, I wouldnβt have a reason to dance.
Mary WigmanRead
I don't want the viewer to be able to peel away the layers of my painting like the layers of an onion and find that all the blues are on the same level.
Chuck CloseRead
I'll tell you something, and this is true: I've never been able to write a film which I didn't respect. I just can't do it. I'm very happy about all the films I haven't done.
Harold PinterRead
No bad man can be a good poet.
Boris PasternakRead
Perhaps things are most beautiful when they are not quite real; when you look upon a scene as an outsider, and come to possess it in its entirety and forever; when you live in the present with the lucidity and feeling of memory; when, for want of connection, the world deepens and becomes art.
Mark HelprinRead