Labouring Under A Curse

Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it.  There are no longer problems of the spirit.  There is only the question:  When will I be blown up?  Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.
He must learn them again.  He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid;  and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed – love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.  Until he does so, he labors under a curse.  He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion.  His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars.  He writes not of the heart but of the glands.
—    William Faulkner’s Acceptance Speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1949
[For the full speech, you can go to my Poems page or click here.    —    kmab]
.
On This Day In:
2022	Are You Confused?
2021	Working On The Ordinary
	Smoothed My Jagged Edges
2020	Republican Senators Should Vote For Conviction Of #45
2019	Carry It
2018	Simple
2017	Knowledge Pays
2016	Brief Glimpses And Full Glances
2015	Pursuing Perspective
2014	Wearing Down?
2013	Labouring Under A Curse
2012	Listen To Yourself
2011	Career Tips (Part 1)
	No Captain Dunsel

Read Full Post »