Vita Sackville-Westová citáty

Viktorie „Vita“ Sackville-Westová byla britská spisovatelka, která se proslavila jak svou barvitou a současně konzervativní poezií a beletrií, tak bouřlivými vztahy s Violet Trefusisovou a Virginií Woolfovou. Narodila se v sídle Knole v hrabství Kent jako jediné dítě třetího barona Sackvilla a Viktorie, nemanželské dcery španělské tanečnice flamenga Pepity de Oliva.

Již od mládí se u ní projevovaly dvě hlavní tendence, které měly později řídit její dospělý život: začala psát a objevila svou citovou bisexualitu. Přesvědčení, že její „původ po matce jen těžko něco předčilo v malebnosti“, ji vedlo k rozhodnutí ujmout se role rodinného historika – napsala knihu Knole and the Sackvilles a životopis Pepity . Láska ke Knolu a jeho legendám umocnila její pocit ztráty, když jí bylo znemožněno zdědit toto rodinné sídlo kvůli „technické chybě“, totiž že byla žena. V díle The Heir dala alžbětinskému paláci sbohem, ale umístěním dějiště svého nejúspěšnějšího románu The Edwardians své vlastnictví získala pomyslně zpět. Její pouto k rodinnému sídlu bylo obohacené o láskyplnou hrdost na anglický venkov, jíž dala volný průchod jak ve své poezii – Collected poems , The Land , The Garden – tak při vytváření své slavné zahrady u Sissinghurtského zámku.

Roku 1913 se Sackville-Westová vdala za mladého diplomata Harolda Nicolsona, s nímž měla dva syny. V roce 1918 začal její tříletý poměr s bývalou spolužačkou Violet Trefusisovou, ale nakonec se vrátila k Nicolsonovi, „jedinému člověku, na nějž myslím s neutuchající něhou“. Sackville-Westová přenesla tento vášnivý tajný vztah na stránky svého románu The Challenge , který se však později rozhodla nevydat a její autobiografie mapující tyto traumatické roky byla publikována až po Viktoriině smrti jejím synem Nigelem Nicolsonem v díle Portrait of a Marriage . Roku 1926 si začala „sapfický“ románek s Virginií Woolfovou, jíž byl inspirací k napsání Orlanda . Ačkoli byly obě otevřeně bisexuální, zastávala ona i Nicolson tradiční postoje k manželství, jak dokazovala jejich vyjádření k tomuto tématu ve vysílání rádia BBC roku 1929. Sackville-Westová zřídkakdy opustila svůj aristokratický konzervatismus a pouze v All passion spent , příběhu stárnoucí vdovy hledající osvobození od společenských předsudků, se zabývala tématy feminismu. Wikipedia  

✵ 9. březen 1892 – 2. červen 1962
Vita Sackville-Westová foto
Vita Sackville-Westová: 39   citátů 0   lajků

Vita Sackville-Westová: Citáty anglicky

“You're safe; that's gone, that wild caprice,
But tell me once before I cease,
Which does your Church esteem the kinder role,
To kill the body or destroy the soul?”

"And so it ends" quoted in V. Sackville-West : A Critical Biography (1974) by Michael Stevens, p. 91
Kontext: Darling, I thought of nothing mean;
I thought of killing straight and clean.
You're safe; that's gone, that wild caprice,
But tell me once before I cease,
Which does your Church esteem the kinder role,
To kill the body or destroy the soul?

“Here the old Bacchic piety endures,
Here the sweet legends of the world remain.”

"Tuscany" in The Best Poems of 1923 (1924) edited by Thomas Moult
Kontext: The dusk is heavy with the wine's warm load;
Here the long sense of classic measure cures
The spirit weary of its difficult pain;
Here the old Bacchic piety endures,
Here the sweet legends of the world remain.

“There was nothing, nothing there,
Nothing there to see.”

"Leopards at Knole", p. 143
Collected Poems (1933)
Kontext: Often on the painted stair,
As I passed abstractedly,
Velvet footsteps, two and three,
Padded gravely after me.
— There was nothing, nothing there,
Nothing there to see.

“I saw within the wheelwright’s shed
The big round cartwheels, blue and red”

"Making Cider", p. 100
The Land (1926)
Kontext: I saw within the wheelwright’s shed
The big round cartwheels, blue and red;
A plough with blunted share;
A blue tin jug; a broken chair;
And paint in trial patchwork square
Slapping up against the wall;
The lumber of the wheelwright’s trade,
And tools on benches neatly laid,
The brace, the adze, the awl;

“It was a real event in my life and my heart to be with you the other day. We do matter to each other, don't we? however much our ways may have diverged.”

Letter to http://www.sappho.com/letters/vitas-w.html Violet Trefusis (3 September 1950), published in The Other Woman : A Life of Violet Trefusis, including previously unpublished correspondence with Vita Sackville-West (1985) edited by Philippe Jullian and John Nova Phillips, p. 235
Kontext: It was a real event in my life and my heart to be with you the other day. We do matter to each other, don't we? however much our ways may have diverged. I think we have got something indestructible between us, haven't we? … It has been a very strange relationship, ours; unhappy at times, happy at others; but unique in its way, and infinitely precious to me and (may I say?) to you.
What I like about it is that we always come together again however long the gaps in our meetings may have been. Time seems to make no difference.

“The country habit has me by the heart,
For he's bewitched for ever who has seen,
Not with his eyes but with his vision, Spring
Flow down the woods and stipple leaves with sun,
As each man knows the life that fits him best,
The shape it makes in his soul, the tune, the tone”

"Winter", p. 5
The Land (1926)
Kontext: The country habit has me by the heart,
For he's bewitched for ever who has seen,
Not with his eyes but with his vision, Spring
Flow down the woods and stipple leaves with sun,
As each man knows the life that fits him best,
The shape it makes in his soul, the tune, the tone,
And after ranging on a tentative flight
Stoops like the merlin to the constant lure.

“Growth is exciting; growth is dynamic and alarming.”

Twelve Days (1928) p. 9; part of this appears to have also become paraphrased in the form:
Kontext: It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? for the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop. Growth is exciting; growth is dynamic and alarming. Growth of the soul, growth of the mind; how the observation of last year seems childish, superficial; how this year — even this week — even with this new phrase — it seems to us that we have grown to a new maturity. It may be a fallacious persuasion, but at least it is stimulating, and so long as it persists, one does not stagnate.
I look back as through a telescope, and see, in the little bright circle of the glass, moving flocks and ruined cities.

“Days I enjoy are days when nothing happens,
When I have no engagements written on my block,
When no one comes to disturb my inward peace”

"Days I enjoy", quoted in Vita and Virginia: The Work and Friendship of V. Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf (1993) by Suzanne Raitt, p. 89
Kontext: Days I enjoy are days when nothing happens,
When I have no engagements written on my block,
When no one comes to disturb my inward peace,
When no one comes to take me away from myself
And turn me into a patchwork, a jig-saw puzzle,
A broken mirror that once gave a whole reflection,
Being so contrived that it takes too long a time
To get myself back to myself when they have gone.

“She walks among the loveliness she made,
Between the apple-blossom and the water”

She walks among the patterned pied brocade,
Each flower her son, and every tree her daughter.
"The Island", in Bulletin of the Garden Club of America (1929), p. 1, also in Collected Poems (1934), p. 54

“I have some weeks in which to steel
My heart and teach myself to feel
Only a sober tenderness
Where once was passion's loveliness.”

"And so it ends", a poem cited as probably directed to her sister-in-law, Gwen St. Aubyn, in V. Sackville-West : A Critical Biography (1974) by Michael Stevens, p. 91
Kontext: And so it ends,
We who were lovers may be friends.
I have some weeks in which to steel
My heart and teach myself to feel
Only a sober tenderness
Where once was passion's loveliness.

“I came from nowhere, and shall be
Strong, steadfast, swift, eternally”

"The Greater Cats"
Kings Daughter (1929)
Kontext: I came from nowhere, and shall be
Strong, steadfast, swift, eternally:
I am a lion, a stone, a tree,
And as the Polar star in me
Is fixed my constant heart on thee.
Ah, may I stay forever blind
With lions, tigers, leopards, and their kind.

“I shared with ships good joys and fortunes wide
That might befall their beauty and their pride”

"Sailing Ships", p. 162
Collected Poems (1933)
Kontext: While many a lovely ship below sailed by
On unknown errand, kempt and leisurely;
And after each, oh, after each, my heart
Fled forth, as, watching from the Downs apart,
I shared with ships good joys and fortunes wide
That might befall their beauty and their pride…

“It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.”

Twelve Days (1928) p. 9; part of this appears to have also become paraphrased in the form:
Kontext: It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? for the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop. Growth is exciting; growth is dynamic and alarming. Growth of the soul, growth of the mind; how the observation of last year seems childish, superficial; how this year — even this week — even with this new phrase — it seems to us that we have grown to a new maturity. It may be a fallacious persuasion, but at least it is stimulating, and so long as it persists, one does not stagnate.
I look back as through a telescope, and see, in the little bright circle of the glass, moving flocks and ruined cities.

“Why should a poet pray thus? poets scorn
The boundaried love of country, being free
Of winds, and alien lands, and distances,
Vagabonds of the compass, wayfarers,
Pilgrims of thought, the tongues of Pentecost
Their privilege”

Winter, p. 4
The Land (1926)
Kontext: Why should a poet pray thus? poets scorn
The boundaried love of country, being free
Of winds, and alien lands, and distances,
Vagabonds of the compass, wayfarers,
Pilgrims of thought, the tongues of Pentecost
Their privilege, and in the peddler's pack
The curious treasures of their stock-in-trade,
Bossy and singular, the heritage
Of poetry and science, polished bright,
Thin with the rubbing of too many hands;
Myth, glamour, hazard, fables dim as age,
Faith, doubt, perplexity, grief, hope, despair,
Wings, and great waters, and Promethean fire,
Man's hand to clasp, and Helen's mouth to kiss.
Why then in little meadows hedge about
A poet's pasture? shed a poet's cloak
For fustian? cede a birthright, thus to map
So small a corner of so great a world?

“You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don't love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don't really resent it.”

Letter to Virginia Woolf (21 January 1926), quoted in Love Letters : A Romantic Treasury (1996) by Rick Smith, p. 78
Kontext: It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan't make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this — But oh my dear, I can't be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don't love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don't really resent it.

“The greater cats with golden eyes
Stare out between the bars.
Deserts are there, and the different skies,
And night with different stars.”

"The Greater Cats"
Kings Daughter (1929)
Kontext: The greater cats with golden eyes
Stare out between the bars.
Deserts are there, and the different skies,
And night with different stars.
They prowl the aromatic hill,
And mate as fiercely as they kill,
To roam, to live, to drink their fill;
But this beyond their wit know I:
Man loves a little, and for long shall die.

“Of course I have no right whatsoever to write down the truth about my life involving as it naturally does the lives of so many other people, but I do so urged by a necessity of truth-telling, because there is no living soul who knows the complete truth”

Autobiographical sketch (23 July 1920), published in Portrait of a Marriage : Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson (1998), p. 3
Kontext: Of course I have no right whatsoever to write down the truth about my life involving as it naturally does the lives of so many other people, but I do so urged by a necessity of truth-telling, because there is no living soul who knows the complete truth; here, may be one who knows a section; and there, one who knows another section: but to the whole picture not one is initiated.

“But this beyond their wit know I:
Man loves a little, and for long shall die.”

"The Greater Cats"
Kings Daughter (1929)
Kontext: The greater cats with golden eyes
Stare out between the bars.
Deserts are there, and the different skies,
And night with different stars.
They prowl the aromatic hill,
And mate as fiercely as they kill,
To roam, to live, to drink their fill;
But this beyond their wit know I:
Man loves a little, and for long shall die.

“It is incredible how essential to me you have become.”

Letter to Virginia Woolf (21 January 1926), quoted in Love Letters : A Romantic Treasury (1996) by Rick Smith, p. 78
Kontext: It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan't make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this — But oh my dear, I can't be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don't love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don't really resent it.

“A man and his land make a man and his creed.”

"A Saxon Song" (1923)
Varianta: A man and his loves make a man and his life.