One task of literature is to formulate questions and construct counterstatements to the reigning pieties. And even when art is not oppositional, the arts gravitate toward contrariness. Literature is dialogue: responsiveness. Literature might be described as the history of human responsiveness to what is alive and what is moribund as cultures evolve and interact with one another.
Susan SontagModern discussions of the possibility of tragedy are not exercises in literary analysis; they are exercises in cultural diagnostics, more or less disguised.
Susan SontagIn every society, the definitions of sanity and madness are arbitrary - are, in the largest sense, political.
Susan Sontag'Camp' is a vision of the world in terms of style - but a particular style. It is the love of the exaggerated.
Susan Sontag