Octavio Paz

9-10th grade

"In The Double Flame, Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz explores the intimate connection between sex, eroticism, and love - themes that have been a constant in his writing, from his first published poems to the great works of his maturity. Beginning with Plato's Symposium, he gives a short history of love and eroticism in literature throughout the ages: from the influence of the great cities Alexandria and Rome on the development of love poetry, to courtly love in Heian Japan and twelfth-century France, to love in modern novels such as Madame Bovary and Ulysses. Rich in scope, The Double Flame examines everything from taboo to repression, Carnival to Lent, Sade to Freud, Original Sin to artificial intelligence."--BOOK JACKET. In The Double Flame, Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz explores the intimate connection between sex, eroticism, and love - themes that have been a constant in his writing, from his first published poems to the great works of his maturity. Beginning with Plato's Symposium, he gives a short history of love and eroticism in literature throughout the ages: from the influence of the great cities Alexandria and Rome on the development of love poetry, to courtly love in Heian Japan and twelfth-century France, to love in modern novels such as Madame Bovary and Ulysses. Rich in scope, The Double Flame examines everything from taboo to repression, Carnival to Lent, Sade to Freud, Original Sin to artificial intelligence.

"In The Double Flame, Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz explores the intimate connection between sex, eroticism, and love - themes that have been a constant in his writing, from his first published poems to the great works of his maturity. Beginning with Plato's Symposium, he gives a short history of love and eroticism in literature throughout the ages: from the influence of the great cities Alexandria and Rome on the development of love poetry, to courtly love in Heian Japan and twelfth-century France, to love in modern novels such as Madame Bovary and Ulysses. Rich in scope, The Double Flame examines everything from taboo to repression, Carnival to Lent, Sade to Freud, Original Sin to artificial intelligence."--BOOK JACKET.

Octavio Paz (1914-1998) poeta, escritor, ensayista y diplomático mexicano, ganador del Premio Miguel de Cervantes (1981) y del Premio Nobel de Literatura (1990). Se le considera uno de los más grandes escritores del siglo XX y uno de los grandes poetas hispanos de todos los tiempos. Escritor prolífico, su obra abarca distintos géneros, desde el ensayo a la poesía. Entre sus ensayos destacan El laberinto de la soledad (1950), El arco y la lira (1956), y Los hijos del limo (1974). El ensayo «Los signos en rotación» fue publicado por Sur (Buenos Aires), en 1965, y añadido como colofón a la edición de El arco y la lira de 1967.

A Tale of Two Gardens collects the poetry from over 40 years of Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz's many and various commitments to India - as Mexican ambassador, student of Indian philosophy, and above all, as poet. Despite having written many acclaimed non-fiction books on the region, he has always considered those writings to be footnotes to the poems. From the long work "Mutra," written in 1952 and accompanied here by a new commentary by the author, to the celebrated poems of East Slope, and his recent adaptations from the classical Sanskrit, Paz scripts his India with a mixture of deft sensualism and hands-on politics.

It's a powerful combination of the world's best literature and superior reading and skills instruction. "Prentice Hall Literature Timeless Voices, Timeless Themes" helps students grasp the power and beauty that lies within the written word, while the program's research-based reading approach ensures that no child is left behind.

Paz looks at the people and landscapes of India, based on his years with the Mexican embassy, offering a collection of essays on Indian history, culture, art, politics, language, and philosophy.

When, as a young man in postwar Paris, Octavio Paz first encountered the writings of the Marquis de Sade, his reaction was one of "astonishment and horror, curiosity and disgust, admiration and recognition.". In an early poem and two subsequent essays written over a span of five decades, Paz pierces through the narrow image of Sade as pornographer and examines his work in the context of the paradox of human freedom and civilized man. He insists that Sade is worth reading, that the danger lies not in his books but in the passions of his readers.

Selections from the works of more than thirty Mexican poets, chosen to represent each historical period from 1521 to 1910. Translated by S. Beckett.

Contains almost 200 collected poems in both Spanish and English.

10th grade