“Keats writes about the tendency of poets to annihilate their own identities by the chameleon-like absorption of other, more ‘poetic’ identities. Emily Dickinson delights in the meeting of another Nobody: ‘I’m Nobody! Who are you? / Are You—Nobody—Too?’ Walt Whitman asks—and answers—with self-assurance, ‘Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.)’ T. S. Eliot sees poetry as ‘an escape from personality.’ Faulkner wishes for a ‘markless’ life that could be summarized in one sentence, ‘He made his books and died.’”— Katia Mitova, from “The Pessoa Syndrome”
Italian dagger with agate hilt, silver hilt and sheath, 16th century.
from The State Hermitage Museum (Russia)
