# DP in literature



## resinoptes (Jan 15, 2011)

It's surprisingly common if you know where to look.

"My mind compelled me to view all things occurring in such conversations from an uncanny closeness. As once, through a magnifying glass, I had seen a piece of skin on my little finger look like a field full of holes and furrows, so I now perceived human beings and their actions. I no longer suc­ceeded in comprehending them with the simplifying eye of habit. For me everything disintegrated into parts, those parts again into parts; no longer would anything let itself be en­compassed by one idea. Single words floated round me; they congealed into eyes which stared at me and into which I was forced to stare back-whirlpools which gave me vertigo and, reeling incessantly, led into the void."

The letter in English:
http://depts.washington.edu/vienna/documents/Hofmannsthal/Hofmannsthal_Chandos.htm

in German:

http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/ein-brief-997/1

Hugo von Hoffmannsthal wrote this in 1902. It is in the form of a letter dated August 1603 from a writer named Lord Philip Chandos (a fictional character) to Francis Bacon, and describes Chandos' crisis of language.


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