JE
Jane Ellen Harrison
10quotes
Quotes by Jane Ellen Harrison

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We know from tradition that in Athens ritual became art, a dromenon became the drama, and we have seen that the shift is symbolized and expressed by the addition of the theatre, or spectator-place, to the orchestra, or dancing-place.

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When we say art is unpractical, we mean that art is cut loose from immediate action.

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We seem to have come to a sort of impasse, the spirit of the dromenon is dead or dying, the spectators will not stay long to watch a doing doomed to monotony.

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An agon, or contest, or wrangling, there will probably be, because Summer contends with Winter, Life with Death, the New Year with the Old. A tragedy must be tragic, must have its pathos, because the Winter, the Old Year, must die.

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Old age, believe me, is a good and pleasant time. It is true that you are quietly shouldered off the stage, but then you are given such a comfortable front seat as spectator, and if you have really played your part you are more content to sit down and watch.

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Paganism is the worship of life itself in its supreme mysteries of ecstasy and love.

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Then Ruskin came. I showed him our small library. He looked at it with disapproving eyes. “ Each book ”, he said gravely, “ that a young girl touches should be bound in white vellum.” I thought with horror of the red moroccos and Spanish leather that had been my choice. A few weeks later the old humbug sent us his own works bound in dark blue calf!


