Imagination

Question 1

Barthes, From Work to Text, 1964

Answer 1

“the Text is experienced only in activity, in a production. It follows that the text cannot stop (for example, at a library shelf); its constitutive moment is traversal”

Question 2

In the Cage, Henry James, 1898

Answer 2

“How did our obscure little public servant know that, for the lady of the telegrams, this was a bad moment? How did she guess all sorts of impossible things, such as… the presence of drama, at a critical stage”

Question 3

Loitering with Intent, Muriel Spark, 1981

Answer 3

“Sir Quentin was conforming more and more to the character of my Warrender Chase; it was amazing, I could have invented him, I could have invented all of them”

Question 4

In the Cage 2

Answer 4

“she became aware that something of which the infinite possibilities had for so long peopled her dreams was at last prodigiously upon her”

Question 5

Loitering 2

Answer 5

“I felt sure, now, that not only was Sir Quentin exerting his influence to suppress my ‘Warrender Chase’ but he was using, stealing, my myth”

Question 6

Barthes, The Death of the Author, 1968

Answer 6

“life never does more than imitate the book, and the book itself is only a tissue of signs, an imitation that is lost, infinitely deferred.”