The self

A quote from a book I just finished. I'm storing it here for safe-keeping as the book is due back to the library in a few days' time and I want access to this again at some point in the future:

"...The men of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries withdrew from their inner conflicts by living on two planes at once, one real and one imaginary. Perhaps the most surprising feature of Baroque art... is how men who in thought and deed created new worlds could indulge in childish games of make-believe. One might pretend to be Apollo, Rinaldo, the Grand Turk, or even Confucius, but never simply oneself; as if the art of living consisted in flight from the self... the idea was put forward that one might even disguise oneself as oneself."