De Engelse schrijver en essayist William Hazlitt werd geboren op 10 april 1778 in Maidstone. Zie ook alle tags voor William Hazlitt op dit blog.
Uit: On poetry
The best general notion which I can give of poetry is, that it is the natural impression of any object or event, by its vividness exciting an involuntary movement of imagination and passion, and producing, by sympathy, a certain modulation of the voice, or sounds, expressing it.
In treating of poetry, I shall speak first of the subject-matter of it, next of the forms of expression to which it gives birth, and afterwards of its connexion with harmony of sound.
Poetry is the language of the imagination and the passions. It relates to whatever gives immediate pleasure or pain to the human mind. It comes home to the bosoms and businesses of men; for nothing but what so comes home to them in the most general and intelligible shape, can be a subject for poetry. Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else. It is not a mere frivolous accomplishment (as some persons have been led to imagine), the trifling amusement of a few idle readers or leisure hours — it has been the study and delight of mankind in all ages. Many people suppose that poetry is something to be found only in books, contained in lines of ten syllables, with like endings: but wherever there is a sense of beauty, or power, or harmony, as in the motion of a wave of the sea, in the growth of a flower that ‘spreads its sweet leaves to the air, and dedicates its beauty to the sun’, — there is poetry, in its birth. If history is a grave study, poetry may be said to be a graver: its materials lie deeper, and are spread wider.“
William Hazlitt (10 april 1778 – 18 september 1830)
Portret door William Bewick, 1889
De Vlaamse dichter en beeldhouwer Marcel van Maele werd geboren in Brugge op 10 april 1931. Zie ook alle tags voor Marcel van Maele op dit blog.
Zo gezegd
Als de dichter aan de toog gezeten
door de grote beer gebeten
aan het betogen gaat:
“Zonder tamtam, zonder blabla
ik heb tram tien gezien, voilà.”
Hij heeft zijn krukken weggegooid
en mag nu blijven zitten. Iemand sprak
over de hond van de man in de maan,
’t is van horen zeggen zou je zeggen.
Als de dichters naar elkaars pijpen dansen
en elkaar van verdichten betichten,
blauwkousen en zuurklompen,
draaikolken en windorgels.
Lok ze uit hun kelders de helden
want vandaag stappen ze mee in deze stoet.
De letterzetters en trendsetters van dienst
luisteren instemmend en knikken
elkaar bemoedigend toe.
Wat verbeelden die woorden zich wel?
Ze vergrijpen en verzetten zich,
Opgetutte lege dozen, ze zwijgen als vermoord.
Als het gedicht zichzelf dicteert
als de lezer dit gedicht betreedt
als de dichter het gedicht verlaat
en tomeloos ten onder gaat.
Marcel van Maele (10 april 1931 – 24 juli 2009)
De Amerikaanse schrijver Lew Wallace werd geboren in Brookville, Indiana, op 10 april 1827. Zie ook alle tags voor Lew Wallace op dit blog.
Uit: Ben-Hur
„When the dromedary lifted itself out of the last break of the wady, the traveller had passed the boundary of El Belka, the ancient Ammon. It was morning-time. Before him was the sun, half curtained in fleecy mist; before him also spread the desert; not the realm of drifting sands, which was farther on, but the region where the herbage began to dwarf; where the surface is strewn with boulders of granite, and gray and brown stones, interspersed with languishing acacias and tufts of camel-grass. The oak, bramble, and arbutus lay behind, as if they had come to a line, looked over into the well-less waste and crouched with fear.
Scene uit de film van William Wyler uit 1959
And now there was an end of path or road. More than ever the camel seemed insensibly driven; it lengthened and quickened its pace, its head pointed straight towards the horizon; through the wide nostrils it drank the wind in great draughts. The litter swayed, and rose and fell like a boat in the waves. Dried leaves in occasional beds rustled underfoot. Sometimes a perfume like absinthe sweetened all the air. Lark and chat and rock-swallow leaped to wing, and white partridges ran whistling and clucking out of the way. More rarely a fox or a hyena quickened his gallop, to study the intruders at a safe distance. Off to the right rose the hills of the Jebel, the pearl-gray veil resting upon them changing momentarily into a purple which the sun would make matchless a little later. Over their highest peaks a vulture sailed on broad wings into widening circles. But of all these things the tenant under the green tent saw nothing, or, at least, made no sign of recognition. His eyes were fixed and dreamy. The going of the man, like that of the animal, was as one being led.“
Lew Wallace (10 april 1827 – 15 februari 1905)
De Amerikaanse schrijver Eric Knight werd geboren op 10 april 1897 in Menston in Yorkshire, Engeland. Zie ook alle tags voor Eric Knight op dit blog.
Uit: Lassie Come-Home
“She was sable, black and snow white. Her amber eyes lit up the face of anyone who looked into them. All the viaage of Greenall Bridge said Lassie was the best colliethey’d ever seen.
One May morning , without telling anyone, Joe’s father sold Lassie for fifteen pounds, ten shillings. He sold her because he’d lost his job for good. This was more than tree weeks’ wages.
Lassie en Joe Carraclough (Roddy McDowall) in de film uit 1943
How would he tell his son,Joe? What would Joe do when he found Lassie not waiting for him as she always did afyer school?
When Joe saw the grassy corner of the schoolyard empty that afternoon at four, a panic rose in the back of his mouth. Greenall Bridge was a quiet village, and Joe knew perfectly well Lassie had neither been run over or stolen. Before he even ran to ask his mother what had hapened, a corner of his heart darkened.“
Eric Knight (10 april 1897 – 14 januari 1943)
De schrijver met Lassie op de set van de film, 1943
De Amerikaanse dichter Byron Forceythe Willson werd geboren op 10 april 1837 in Little Genesee, New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Forceythe Wilson op dit blog.
The Old Sergeant (Fragment)
“I have got my marching orders, and I ’m ready now to go;
Doctor, did you say I fainted?—but it could n’t ha’ been so,—
For as sure as I ’m a sergeant, and was wounded at Shiloh,
I ’ve this very night been back there, on the old field of Shiloh!
“This is all that I remember: the last time the Lighter came,
And the lights had all been lowered, and the noises much the same,
He had not been gone five minutes before something called my name:
‘ORDERLY SERGEANT—ROBERT BURTON!’—just that way it called my name.
“And I wondered who could call me so distinctly and so slow,
Knew it could n’t be the Lighter,—he could not have spoken so,—
And I tried to answer, ‘Here, sir!’ but I could n’t make it go;
For I could n’t move a muscle, and I could n’t make it go!
Forceythe Willson (10 april 1837 – 2 februari 1867)
Cover (Geen portret beschikbaar)