art that has changed my very being in-the-world
The Illiad & The Odyssey
by Homer
The longing for a home; one’s own little space in this world where one belongs, and, finally, dwells. — The cliffs, the dangerous waters, the monsters, the power of gods, the mortality of men, the thinking of the heart, the faithful woman, the islands. From my childhood onwards, Homer has contributed to and formed my imagination long before I actually read him. Indeed, no word captures him better: imagination.
The Aeneid
By Virgil
“Tears of things.” The tragedy occurring between Aeneas and queen Dido, yes Book IV has always been my favourite. Her great bursts of rage and contempt after she realises her lover is leaving to found his own, eternal city, Rome. Fate’s way of striking into our lives, only She decides; even the gods’ future.
THE NARROW road TO THE DEEP NORTH
By BASHŌ
“Days and months are travellers of eternity. So are the years that pass by. Those who steer a boat across the sea, or drive a horse over the earth till they succumb to the weight of years, spend every minute of their lives travelling. There are a great number of ancients, too, who died on the road. I myself have been tempted for a long time by the cloud-moving wind — filled with a strong desire to wander.”
DREAM OF THE RED CHAMBER
By CAO XUEQIN
No one with a heart cannot but shed tears for Lin Daiyu whilst reading this book, really. One of the most beautiful as well as tragic descriptions of ancient China. The sophistication and talent, but also the cruelty of a too rigid society where love struggles to assert itself in concrete relations of I and thou. … This book I have never been able to shake of me; it is too interwoven with my own life-experiences, illusions, in the once culturally Central Kingdom.
Out of gabrielis' letters to and from the home
By frederik christian sibbern
Far from being a masterpiece the story’s humanity nonetheless gets it right. That is to say, the Romantic spirit and its highest ideals, a way of being-in-the-world which roots us in poetry-life (Livspoesi). Though, as Sibbern reminds us, such a life demands true spirituality or religiosity from each single person, if he is to live it by letting it take residence in us.
Death, the moonlight, God.
Niels Lyhne
By Jens Peter Jacobsen
The crippled Northern European man. I believe this is the purest description of him. Written in the perhaps most refined Danish prose ever to grace the yellow-white paper. Another book that haunts me and has made me question profoundly the country is was born into. A country which has inflicted so much suffering and alienation upon me.
Out of gabrielis' letters to and from the home
By frederik christian sibbern
Far from being a masterpiece, this book nonetheless gets it right. That is, the Romantic spirit and its high ideals. A way of being-in-the-world which roots us in poetry-life (Livspoesi). However, such a life demands true spirituality or religiosity from us, if we are to live it. Death, the moonlight.
Niels Lyhne
By Jens Peter Jacobsen
The crippled Northern European man. I believe this is the purest description of him. Written in the perhaps most refined Danish prose ever to grace the yellow-white paper. Another book that haunts me and has made me question profoundly the country is was born into. A country which has inflicted so much suffering and alienation upon me.