“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Friday, February 11, 2011

Revolution of the Golden City

Blake, “Glad Day”: Vitruvian man exploding out of a field of rainbow lights

Shelley writes somewhere that poetry comes from the future. Thanks to Egyptians for reminding us all what the heck universal freedom means. Beyond “the West,” beyond race, class and gender, the soaring openness of (yes) Kantian inner space—the old correlationist at least got that right. The kind of openness you can find in my old home, Romantic poetry. Like this one by Shelley, The Revolt of Islam, or, The Revolution of the Golden City. Shelley imagined it would be nonviolent. It was. You can accomplish a lot by standing in the space of openness, Tahrir Squares both mental and physical. “What is now proved was once only imagin'd” (Blake).

Empire is no more! And now the lion & wolf shall cease (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, check out Ulver's version)

UPDATE: Graham has this beautiful post on it. Planet feels small today.

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