"Still it would be marvelous
to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,
or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.
It would be great
to go through the streets with a green knife
letting out yells until I died of the cold."
--Neruda
Friday, December 10, 2010
Surrealism
I would have liked to compare this passage from "Walking Around" to Francis Bacon's "Pope Screaming," which is an adaptation of Velasquez's "Pope Innocent X." Do these depictions of religious symbols offend you at all? DO you think both artists had the same intention?
"Still it would be marvelous
to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,
or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.
It would be great
to go through the streets with a green knife
letting out yells until I died of the cold."
--Neruda
"Still it would be marvelous
to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,
or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.
It would be great
to go through the streets with a green knife
letting out yells until I died of the cold."
--Neruda
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I definitely feel like there are striking similarities between the tones of the two. The most obvious would be the line "or kill a nun with a blow to the ear" but there are plenty of references to an opposition to establishment, or maybe what people normally perceive as moral.
ReplyDeletePersonally I'm not offended, because my idea of religion does not need popes or nuns, or anything of the sort. I could see how others would be offended.
I think that you could definitely make an argument for the similarity between the two. They're both very dark, and both have a harsher view of religion. If you write it carefully, I think you can do it without being offensive. There's definitely a feeling of oppression in both. I'm a fan of surrealism, so this looks really cool.
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