Without Lifting A Finger

What I've been getting around to saying all this time: want to quote from Yeats book something that struck me*: re Dryden's translation of Lucretius: "The tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul." "Sexual intercourse is an attempt to solve the eternal antinomy, doomed to failure because it takes place only on one side of the gulf." Swedenborg: "The sexual intercourse of angels is a conflagration of the whole being..." *** Of course angel sex is hard to pin down re details. Here's Milton's slant ( Paradise Lost , Book VIII, Lines 617 to 629): To whom the angel, with a smile that glowed Celestial rosy-red, love's proper hue, Answered: 'Let it suffice thee that thou know'st Us happy, and without love no happiness. Whatever pure thou in the body enjoy'st (And pure thou wert created) we enjoy In eminence, and obstacle find none Of membrane, joint, or limb, exclusive bars; Easier than...

Johan August Strindberg (   pronounced   ( help · info ) ; 22 January 1849 – 14 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography, history, cultural analysis, and politics. [ 4 ] A bold experimenter and iconoclast throughout, he explored a wide range of dramatic methods and purposes, from naturalistic tragedy , monodrama , and history plays, to his anticipations of expressionist and surrealist dramatic techniques. [ 5 ] [ 6 ] From his earliest work, Strindberg developed forms of dramatic action, language, and visual composition so innovative that many were to become technically possible to stage only with the advent of film. [ 7 ] He is considered the "father" of modern Swedish literature and his The Red Room (1879) has ...

Heaven and Hell is the common English title of a book written by Emanuel Swedenborg in Latin , published in 1758. The full title is Heaven and its Wonders and Hell From Things Heard and Seen , or, in Latin: De Caelo et Ejus Mirabilibus et de inferno, ex Auditis et Visis. Introduction This book is a detailed description of the afterlife , how people live after the death of the physical body . The book owes its appeal to that subject matter. Whatever is uncertain in this world, one thing is certain - we all shall die, and there are few who have not, at some time, meditated on this inevitable change. [ 1 ] Some topics are discussed below. For a full listing of the book’s coverage see its Table of Contents [ 2 ] An article about Swedenborg [ 3 ] includes a list of biographies about him, with a brief analysis of each biographer's point of view. [ 4 ] Some of the things he claims to have experienced are that there are Jews , Muslims and people of pre-Christian times ("...

Louis Lambert is an 1832 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), included in the Études philosophiques section of his novel sequence La Comédie humaine . Set mostly in a school at Vendôme , it examines the life and theories of a boy genius fascinated by the Swedish philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772). Balzac wrote Louis Lambert during the summer of 1832 while he was staying with friends at the Château de Saché , and published three editions with three different titles. The novel contains a minimal plot, focusing mostly on the metaphysical ideas of its boy-genius protagonist and his only friend (eventually revealed to be Balzac himself). Although it is not a significant example of the realist style for which Balzac became famous, the novel provides insight into the author's own childhood. Specific details and events from the author's life – including punishment from teachers and social ostracism – suggest a fictionalized autobiogr...