If it really was Queen Elizabeth who demanded to see Falstaff in a comedy, then she showed herself a very perceptive critic. But even in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff has not and could not have found his true home because Shakespeare was only a poet. For that he was to wait nearly two hundred years till Verdi wrote his last opera. Falstaff is not the only case of a character whose true home is the world of music; others are Tristan, Isolde and Don Giovanni.
W. H. AudenThe trees encountered on a country stroll Reveal a lot about that country's soul ... A culture is no better than its woods.
W. H. AudenWithout Art, we should have no notion of the sacred; without Science, we should always worship false gods.
W. H. AudenWe would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.
W. H. AudenBeauty, midnight, vision dies: Let the winds of dawn that blow Softly round your dreaming head Such a day of welcome show Eye and knocking heart may bless, Find our mortal world enough; Noons of dryness find you fed By the involuntary powers, Nights of insult let you pass Watched by every human love.
W. H. Auden