Like the poetry of Wallace Stevens, Henryck Górecki 's music seems cerebral almost to the point of insularity. Stevens wrote: "Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves." Of course, no art exists in a vacuum, carrying as it does an inherent quality of communication. Yet, there are those artist

20th-century music, Contemplative, Dreamy, Ethereal, Melancholy, Mythic, Pathos, Religious

Andrew Sarris served as film critic for the Village Voice for almost 30 years and as the editor of the English-language version of the influential French film magazine Cahiers du Cinema, but he is best known as the primary spokesman for the "politique des auteurs" -- or auteur theory. Prior to the

Clever, Contemplative, Pioneering, Witty

The term hermeneutics comes from the name of the Greek messenger of the gods, Hermes. Over the past millenia, hermeneutics has referred to the practice of theological interpretation. But for Gadamer, who re-introduced the term hermeneutics into contemporary discussion, the hermeneutic process is not

Contemplative, Dense, Event, Hermeneutics, Repetition, Sincere

The essay did not always exist. Nor was the idea of recording one's personal introspections, whether in private diary or public form, always valued. It took centuries of evolution, from Seneca's philosophical epistles to the Christian confessional and beyond, before twentieth-century students would b

Contemplative, Essays, Repetitive, Self-reflection, Tranquil, Witty