Limited Time Offer
Premium members can get their quote collection automatically imported into their Quotewise collections.
Like the intricately rational web of theology woven around the irrational mysteries of faith, the sober explanations of institutions for hoarding lit… - Dana Gioia
" "Like the intricately rational web of theology woven around the irrational mysteries of faith, the sober explanations of institutions for hoarding literary relics seem like elegant post-factum justifications for what is essentially a sense of sacred awe. An institution of learning seeks significant manuscripts because they possess qualities that scholarship cannot entirely reproduce — an authentic, holistic connection with the great writers of the past. It is not the intellectual content of the manuscript that is important but its material presence — ink spots, tobacco stains, pinworm holes, and foxing included.
English
Collect this quote
About Dana Gioia
Michael Dana Gioia (born December 24, 1950) is an American poet and critic. He has been chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts since January 2003.
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
Gioia, Dana
•
Michael Dana Gioia
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
Additional quotes by Dana Gioia
Unlimited Quote Collections
Organize your favorite quotes without limits. Create themed collections for every occasion with Premium.
America's first great surrealist artists were named Walt Disney, Max Fleischer, and Tex Avery. Their artistic medium was cartoon animation, though we must remember that cartoons of this era were seen not only by children but by a mixed audience, consisting mainly of adults. These men took — quite literally — the principles of surrealism and turned them into mass entertainment. As Fleischer's scantily clad Betty Boop ran through a phantasmagoric underground landscape to the driving beat of Cab Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher," moviegoers of the Thirties saw surrealist dream-logic unfold more powerfully than in any experimental poem created in Greenwich Village. To this day the greatest moment of North American surrealism is probably Dumbo's drunken nightmare choreographed to the demonic oom-pah-pah of "Pink Elephants on Parade" from Walt Disney's 1941 movie. When the surrealist style was so quickly assimilated into mass-media comedy, what avant-garde poet could consider it sufficiently chic?
Loading...