Selected Works of Voltairine de Cleyre
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text · 1 illegible passages, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~150,000 words · 723 passages
Cite this work
- APAVoltairine de Cleyre. (n.d.). Selected Works of Voltairine de Cleyre. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/voltairine-de-cleyre/selected-works-of-voltairine-de-cleyre
- MLAVoltairine de Cleyre. "Selected Works of Voltairine de Cleyre." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/voltairine-de-cleyre/selected-works-of-voltairine-de-cleyre.
- ChicagoVoltairine de Cleyre. Selected Works of Voltairine de Cleyre. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/voltairine-de-cleyre/selected-works-of-voltairine-de-cleyre.
What it is about
The posthumous collection, edited by Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman in 1914, of Voltairine de Cleyre's essays, lectures and poems.
Context and history
The most quoted piece is 'Anarchism without Adjectives', which argues that there is no need to decide in advance whether a free society will be communist, mutualist or individualist: experience should settle that, and insisting on it divides the movement prematurely. There are also 'Sex Slavery', on marriage as an economic institution, and 'Direct Action', which examines the question of violence. De Cleyre came out of freethought, became an anarchist after the execution of the Haymarket men, and lived poor and ill until she was forty-five. Goldman called her the most gifted woman American anarchism had produced; both are in the corpus, and reading them together repays the effort, because they did not think alike.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
THE BURIAL OF MY PAST SELF Poor Heart, so weary with thy bitter grief! So thou art dead at last, silent and chill! The longed-for death-dart came to thy relief, And there thou liest, Heart, forever still. Dead eyes, pain-pressed beneath their black-fringed pall! Dead cheeks, dark-furrowed with so many tears! So thou art passed far, far beyond recall, And all thy hopes are past, and all thy fears. Thy lips are closed at length in the long peace! Pale lips! so long they have thy woe repressed, They seem even now when life has run its lease All dumbly pitiful in their mournful rest. And now I lay thee in thy silent tomb, Printing thy brow with one last solemn kiss; Laying upon thee one fair lily bloom, A symbol of thy rest;--oh, rest is bliss. No, Heart, I would not call thee back again; No, no; too much of suffering hast thou known; But yet, but yet, it was not all in vain-- Thy unseen tears, thy solitary moan! For out of sorrow joy comes uppermost; Where breaks the thunder soon the sky smiles blue; A better love replaces what is lost, And phantom sunlight pales before the true! The seed must burst before the germ unfolds, The stars must fade before the morning wakes; Down in her depths the mine the diamond holds; A new heart pulses when the old heart breaks. And now, Humanity, I turn to you; I consecrate my service to the world! Perish the old love, welcome to the new-- Broad as the space-aisles where the stars are whirled! =Greenville, Mich., 1885.= NIGHT ON THE GRAVES O'er the sweet, quiet homes in the silent grave-city, Softly the dewdrops, the night-tears, fall; Broadly about, like the wide arms of pity, The silver-shot darkness lies over all. Heroes, asleep 'neath the red-hearted rose-wreaths, Leaf-crowned with honor, flower-crowned with rest, Gently above you each moon-