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
criticism decay firsts
When a society decays, it is language that is first to become gangrenous. As a result, social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings
real criticism analysis
Cubism had been an analysis of the object and an attempt to put it before us in its totality; both as analysis and as synthesis, it was a criticism of appearance. Surrealism transmuted the object, and suddenly a canvas became an apparition: a new figuration, a real transfiguration.
criticism social grammar
Social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings.
art criticism age
What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism.
caresses familiar favorite jokes sleeps toys
The Mexican, in contrast, is familiar with death. (He) jokes about it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it. It is one of his favorite toys and his most steadfast love.
courts favorite hugs lasting plaything sleeps
...chases after it, mocks it, courts it, hugs it, sleeps with it; it is his favorite plaything and his most lasting love.
easily mexican shuns therefore
The Mexican succumbs very easily to sentimental effusions, and therefore he shuns them.
among beings condemned contain discover form metaphors paradoxes unite unless wit
Wit invents; inspiration reveals. The inventions of wit are conceits - metaphors and paradoxes - that discover the secret correspondences that unite beings and things among and with themselves; inspiration is condemned to dissipate its revelations - unless a form can be found to contain them.
across cultural distant indian pure time
We twentieth-century Mexicans, even those of pure Indian descent, look on the pre-Columbian world as a world on the other side, not only distant in time but across the cultural divide.
century favor freedom man
For a man of my generation, our century has been a long intellectual and political struggle in favor of freedom.
areas discovered discovery invention lies novel unfamiliar unknown value work worlds
To us, the value of a work lies in its newness: the invention of new forms, or a novel combination of old forms, the discovery of unknown worlds or the exploration of unfamiliar areas in worlds already discovered - revelations, surprises.
historical history image mexico period plateau separated surrounded tall truth
The truth is that the history of Mexico is a history in the image of its geography: abrupt and tortuous. Each historical period is like a plateau surrounded by tall mountains and separated from the other plateaus by precipices and divides.
cause ease fact games less minds perverse relations rhetoric twisted
The relations between rhetoric and ethics are disturbing: the ease with which language can be twisted is worrisome, and the fact that our minds accept these perverse games so docilely is no less cause for concern.
archaic belong centuries distant letting permits picasso places posterity time
Picasso is what is going to happen and what is happening; he is posterity and archaic time, the distant ancestor and our next-door neighbor. Speed permits him to be two places at once, to belong to all the centuries without letting go of the here and now.