If anyone notices what [the playwright's] purpose is, he will fail to achieve it. He will stop writing dialogue and instead will preach.- Denis Diderot, quoted in Dukore, ed. Dramatic Theory and Criticism p. 293 (Noted Jan. 17, 1994)   more »

The ancient system of tragedy . . . had the advantage of making its audiences see . . . it was equally insance to aspire to the state of royalty as to endure its existence.
-Jean Francois Marmontel   more »

For in comedy, everything will be found of such a sort that in listening to it, everything becomes evident. - Lope de Vega, quoted in Dukore, ed., Dramatic Theory and Criticism, p. 204. (Noted Jan. 8, 1994)   more »

Comparing U.S. and Canadian experiences in an age of global and hegemonic electronic cultgure and communication, Ferguson argues:
"...first, that national/cultural identities are open to influence but they are not necessarily shaped by their electronic media reflection or construction and, second, that assumptions about an undifferntiated global culture as a ...   more »

Men must learn by suffering
Drop by drop in sleep upon the heart
Falls the laborious memory of pain
Against one's will comes wisdom.
-Aeschylus Agamemnon, Transl. by Louis MacNiece (Noted Nov 16, 1993)   more »

The immigrant needs to grow a memory and grow it fast.
- Jonathan Raban, "The Next Last Frontier", p. 31, (Noted Nov. 1993)   more »

"The notion of the decentred subject [is] one of the fattest pieces of rotten French cheese swallowed whole by American academics . . ." (p 180)

"The number one problem today is not ignorant students by ignorant professors who have substituted narrow 'expertise' and 'theoretical sophistication' for breadth and depth ...   more »

"Elsewhere greatness is recognized by acclamation. In canada, it comes by appointment."
- Louis Dudek,   more »

"The arts are only viable and only justifiable if they serve values that are neither economic nor political. Their real contributions to society have nothing to do with paying taxes or creating jobs or providing propaganda for causes like national unity. They have their justification in irradiating our lives by ...   more »

"The problem is to make space speak, to feed and furnish it, like mines laid in a rock which all of a sudden turns into geysers and bouqets of stone." (p. 98)

"From the point of view of the mind, cruelty signifies rigour, implacable intention and decision, irreversible and absolute ...   more »