William Styron, Renée Vivien
Der amerikanische Schriftsteller William Clark Styron, Jr. wurde am. Juni 1925 in Newport News, Virginia, geboren, nicht weit entfernt von dem Schauplatz der Sklavenrebellion von 1831, die später das Thema seines berühmtesten und am meisten diskutierten Romans wurde. Nach dem Studium kämpfte er während des Zweiten Weltkrieges im Marinekorps. Styron schrieb für viele amerikanische Magazine Essays und Kritiken und verfasste zahlreiche gesellschaftskritische Romane, die in der Erzähltradition des Südens von William Faulkner und Thomas Wolfe stehen. Für den Roman Die Bekenntnisse des Nat Turner wurde er 1968 mit dem Pulitzer-Preis ausgezeichnet. William Styron starb am 1. November 2006 auf der Insel Martha’s Vineyard im US-Staat Massachusetts an einer Lungenentzündung.
Aus: Darkness Visible
„I was feeling in my mind a sensation close to, but indescribably different from, actual pain. This leads me to touch again on the elusive nature of such distress. That the word “indescribable” should present itself is no fortuitous, since it has to be emphasized that if the pain were readily describable most of the countless sufferers from this ancient affliction would have been able to confidently depict for their friends and loved ones (even their physicians) some of the actual dimensions of their torment, and perhaps elicit a comprehension that has been generally lacking; such incomprehension has usually been due not to a failure of sympathy but to the basic inability of healthy people to imagine a form of torment so alien to everyday experience. For myself, the pain is most closely connected to drowning or suffocation—but even these images are off the mark. William James, who battled depression for many years, gave up the search for an adequate portrayal, implying it near-impossibility when he wrote in The Varieties of Religious Experience: “It is a positive and active anguish, a sort of psychical neuralgia wholly unknown to normal life.”
The pain persisted during my museum tour and reached crescendo in the next few hours when, back at the hotel, I fell onto the bed and lay gazing at the ceiling, nearly immobilized and in a trance of supreme discomfort. Rational thought was usually absent from my mind at such times, hence trance. I can think of no more apposite word for this state of being, a condition of helpless stupor in which cognition was replaced by that “positive and active anguish.” And one of the most unendurable aspects of such an interlude was the inability to sleep. It had been my custom of a near-lifetime, to settle myself into a soothing nap in the late afternoon, but the disruption of normal sleep patterns is a notoriously devastating feature of depression; to the injurious sleeplessness with which I had been afflicted each night was added the insult of this afternoon insomnia, diminutive by comparison but all the more horrendous because it struck during the hours of the most intense misery.“
William Styron (11. Juni 1925 – 1. November 2006)
Die amerikanische Dichterin Renée Vivien (eig. Pauline Mary Tarn) wurde am 11. Juni 1877 in London geboren. Renée Vivien war die Tochter eines schottischen Vaters und einer amerikanischen Mutter. Nach ihrer Schulzeit, welche sie in New York, Paris und London absolvierte, ließ sie sich in Paris als Schriftstellerin nieder. Bereits während ihrer Schulzeit fiel sie durch ihre Zuneigung zu ihrer Jugendfreundin Violet Shillito auf. Sie war bekannt für ihren exzentrischen Kleidungsstil und für ihr offenes Bekenntnis zu ihren lesbischen Neigungen. So hatte sie beispielsweise mit Natalie Clifford Barney eine langjährige Beziehung. Sie war sehr kultiviert und reiste viel. Viele ihre Werke veröffentlichte Renée Vivien unter dem Pseudonym Paule Riversdale. 1908 unternahm Renée Vivien während eines Aufenthalts in London einen Selbstmordversuch, der allerdings fehlschlug. Als sie dann im darauffolgenden Jahr im Alter von 32 Jahren am 10. November 1909 in Paris starb, vermutete man ebenfalls einen Suizid. Aber da sie zu dieser Zeit bereits schwer an Magersucht (Anorexia nervosa) erkrankt und durch Alkoholmissbrauch geschwächt war, könnten auch das die Todesursachen gewesen sein.
Prolong the Night
Prolong the night, Goddess who sets us aflame!
Hold back from us the golden-sandalled dawn!
Already on the sea the first faint gleam
Of day is coming on.
Sleeping under your veils, protect us yet,
Having forgotten the cruelty day may give!
The wine of darkness, wine of the stars let
Overwhelm us with love!
Since no one knows what dawn will come,
Bearing the dismal future with its sorrows
In its hands, we tremble at full day, our dream
Fears all tomorrows.
Oh! keeping our hands on our still-closed eyes,
Let us vainly recall the joys that take flight!
Goddess who delights in the ruin of the rose,
Prolong the night!
Roses Rising
My brunette with the golden eyes, your ivory body, your amber
Has left bright reflections in the room
Above the garden.
The clear midnight sky, under my closed lids,
Still shines....I am drunk from so many roses
Redder than wine.
Leaving their garden, the roses have followed me....
I drink their brief breath, I breathe their life.
All of them are here.
It's a miracle....The stars have risen,
Hastily, across the wide windows
Where the melted gold pours.
Now, among the roses and the stars,
You, here in my room, loosening your robe,
And your nakedness glistens
Your unspeakable gaze rests on my eyes....
Without stars and without flowers, I dream the impossible
In the cold night.
Renée Vivien (11. Juni 1877 – 10. November 1909)
Aus: Darkness Visible
„I was feeling in my mind a sensation close to, but indescribably different from, actual pain. This leads me to touch again on the elusive nature of such distress. That the word “indescribable” should present itself is no fortuitous, since it has to be emphasized that if the pain were readily describable most of the countless sufferers from this ancient affliction would have been able to confidently depict for their friends and loved ones (even their physicians) some of the actual dimensions of their torment, and perhaps elicit a comprehension that has been generally lacking; such incomprehension has usually been due not to a failure of sympathy but to the basic inability of healthy people to imagine a form of torment so alien to everyday experience. For myself, the pain is most closely connected to drowning or suffocation—but even these images are off the mark. William James, who battled depression for many years, gave up the search for an adequate portrayal, implying it near-impossibility when he wrote in The Varieties of Religious Experience: “It is a positive and active anguish, a sort of psychical neuralgia wholly unknown to normal life.”
The pain persisted during my museum tour and reached crescendo in the next few hours when, back at the hotel, I fell onto the bed and lay gazing at the ceiling, nearly immobilized and in a trance of supreme discomfort. Rational thought was usually absent from my mind at such times, hence trance. I can think of no more apposite word for this state of being, a condition of helpless stupor in which cognition was replaced by that “positive and active anguish.” And one of the most unendurable aspects of such an interlude was the inability to sleep. It had been my custom of a near-lifetime, to settle myself into a soothing nap in the late afternoon, but the disruption of normal sleep patterns is a notoriously devastating feature of depression; to the injurious sleeplessness with which I had been afflicted each night was added the insult of this afternoon insomnia, diminutive by comparison but all the more horrendous because it struck during the hours of the most intense misery.“
William Styron (11. Juni 1925 – 1. November 2006)
Die amerikanische Dichterin Renée Vivien (eig. Pauline Mary Tarn) wurde am 11. Juni 1877 in London geboren. Renée Vivien war die Tochter eines schottischen Vaters und einer amerikanischen Mutter. Nach ihrer Schulzeit, welche sie in New York, Paris und London absolvierte, ließ sie sich in Paris als Schriftstellerin nieder. Bereits während ihrer Schulzeit fiel sie durch ihre Zuneigung zu ihrer Jugendfreundin Violet Shillito auf. Sie war bekannt für ihren exzentrischen Kleidungsstil und für ihr offenes Bekenntnis zu ihren lesbischen Neigungen. So hatte sie beispielsweise mit Natalie Clifford Barney eine langjährige Beziehung. Sie war sehr kultiviert und reiste viel. Viele ihre Werke veröffentlichte Renée Vivien unter dem Pseudonym Paule Riversdale. 1908 unternahm Renée Vivien während eines Aufenthalts in London einen Selbstmordversuch, der allerdings fehlschlug. Als sie dann im darauffolgenden Jahr im Alter von 32 Jahren am 10. November 1909 in Paris starb, vermutete man ebenfalls einen Suizid. Aber da sie zu dieser Zeit bereits schwer an Magersucht (Anorexia nervosa) erkrankt und durch Alkoholmissbrauch geschwächt war, könnten auch das die Todesursachen gewesen sein.
Prolong the Night
Prolong the night, Goddess who sets us aflame!
Hold back from us the golden-sandalled dawn!
Already on the sea the first faint gleam
Of day is coming on.
Sleeping under your veils, protect us yet,
Having forgotten the cruelty day may give!
The wine of darkness, wine of the stars let
Overwhelm us with love!
Since no one knows what dawn will come,
Bearing the dismal future with its sorrows
In its hands, we tremble at full day, our dream
Fears all tomorrows.
Oh! keeping our hands on our still-closed eyes,
Let us vainly recall the joys that take flight!
Goddess who delights in the ruin of the rose,
Prolong the night!
Roses Rising
My brunette with the golden eyes, your ivory body, your amber
Has left bright reflections in the room
Above the garden.
The clear midnight sky, under my closed lids,
Still shines....I am drunk from so many roses
Redder than wine.
Leaving their garden, the roses have followed me....
I drink their brief breath, I breathe their life.
All of them are here.
It's a miracle....The stars have risen,
Hastily, across the wide windows
Where the melted gold pours.
Now, among the roses and the stars,
You, here in my room, loosening your robe,
And your nakedness glistens
Your unspeakable gaze rests on my eyes....
Without stars and without flowers, I dream the impossible
In the cold night.
Renée Vivien (11. Juni 1877 – 10. November 1909)
froumen - 11. Jun, 19:01
