Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz Lozano; March 31, 1914 – April 19, 1998) was a Mexican poet and diplomat. He is considered by many as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets of all time...
NationalityMexican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth31 March 1914
CityMexico City, Mexico
CountryMexico
constantly hard relations springs surprised united
It has always surprised me that in a world of relations as hard as that of the United States, cordiality constantly springs out like water from an unstanchable fountain.
becomes begins delay machine movement works
In the works of Duchamp, space begins to walk and take on form; it becomes a machine that spins arguments and philosophizes; it resists movement with delay and delay with irony.
built cannot center himself hostile inhuman man nor torn united
In the United States, man does not feel that he has been torn from the center of creation and suspended between hostile forces. He has built his own world, and it is built in his own image: it is his mirror. But now he cannot recognize himself in his inhuman objects, nor in his fellows.
agent change changed itself sensation turned verbal
In order for sensation to accede to the objectivity of things, it must itself be changed into a thing. The agent of change is language: the sensations are turned into verbal objects.
human reflects totally
Human writing reflects that of the universe; it is its translation, but also its metaphor: it says something totally different, and it says the same thing.
certain despite essays illusory itself nature people periods question revealing seems
Despite the often illusory nature of essays on the psychology of a nation, it seems to me there is something revealing in the insistence with which a people will question itself during certain periods of its growth.
aesthetic agent change meaning modern tastes
Changes in our aesthetic tastes have no value or meaning in and of themselves; what has value and meaning is the idea of change itself. Or, better stated: not change in and of itself, but change as an agent or inspiration of modern creations.
art destroys inherent obey returns
Art for Duchamp, all the arts, obey the same law: meta-irony is inherent in their very spirit. It is an irony that destroys its own negation and, hence, returns in the affirmative.
author effective unread
An unread author is an author who is a victim of the worst kind of censorship, indifference - a censorship more effective than the Ecclesiastical Index.
abstract attempts essential forms meanings pictorial pure seeks shared signs thus
Abstract painting seeks to be a pure pictorial language, and thus attempts to escape the essential impurity of all languages: the recourse to signs or forms that have meanings shared by everyone.
fated poet
To the poet fated to be a poet, self-expression is as natural and as involuntary as breathing is to us ordinary mortals.
The world stretches before me, the vast world of the big, the little, and the medium.
poetry
Surrealism is not a poetry but a poetics, and even more, and more decisively, a world vision.
bourgeois content manifest poetry society violation whatever
Poetry, whatever the manifest content of the poem, is always a violation of the rationalism and morality of bourgeois society.