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John Drinkwater Biography

Poet

John Drinkwater, a prominent British poet, was born on June 1, 1882, and passed away on March 25, 1937. His poetry is known for its unique style and profound emotional expression, which has had a significant impact on subsequent poets.

Sleep Silence Wonder Moon Apples Corridors Orchard

Author:John Drinkwater

“When you defile the pleasant streams, And the wild bird's abiding place, You massacre a million dreams, And cast your spittle in God's face”

Dream Faces Nature Millions Environment Creation Bird Casts Streams Pleasant Conservation Abiding Natural Environment Massacres Save Mother Earth Nature Conservation Wild Birds

Book:Poems, 1908-1919

Source: Poems, 1908-1919

“Poetry is the communication through words of certain experiences that can be communicated in no other way.”

Way Certain Communication Poetry Is

Book:The Lyric: An Essay

Source: The Lyric: An Essay

“It is commonly asserted and accepted that Paradise Lost is among the two or three greatest English poems; it may justly be taken as the type of supreme poetic achievement in our literature.”

May Two Three Literature Lost Taken Type Achievement Accepted Supreme Paradise Poetic

Book:The Lyric: An Essay

Source: The Lyric: An Essay

“If it is an imperfect word, no external circumstance can heighten its value as poetry.”

Ifs Values Circumstances Imperfect

Book:The Lyric: An Essay

Source: The Lyric: An Essay

“A lyric, it is true, is the expression of personal emotion, but then so is all poetry, and to suppose that there are several kinds of poetry, differing from each other in essence, is to be deceived by wholly artificial divisions which have no real being.”

Kind Real Emotion Expression Essence Division Artificial Deceived

Book:The Lyric: An Essay

Source: The Lyric: An Essay

“Grant us the wil1 to fashion as we feel, Grant us the strength to labor as we know, Grant us the purpose, ribbed and edged with steel, To strike the blow.”

Knows Feels Purpose Fashion Strength Labor Blow Strikes Grants Steel

Book:Poems, 1908-1919

Source: Poems, 1908-1919

“There can be no proof that Blake's lyric is composed of the best words in the best order; only a conviction, accepted by our knowledge and judgment, that it is so.”

Order Judgment Conviction Proof Accepted Blake

Book:The Lyric: An Essay

Source: The Lyric: An Essay

“This be my pilgrimage and goal Daily to march and find The secret phrases of the soul, The evangels of the mind.”

Mind Soul Goal Secret Phrases March Pilgrimage

Author:John Drinkwater

“So it is in poetry. All we ask is that the mood recorded shall impress us as having been of the kind that exhausts the imaginative capacity; if it fails to do this the failure will announce itself either in prose or in insignificant verse.”

Ifs Kind Asks Failing Capacity Mood Prose Verses Impress Insignificant Imaginative

Book:The Lyric: An Essay

Source: The Lyric: An Essay

“And not a girl goes walking Along the Cotswold lanes But knows men's eyes in April Are quicker than their brains.”

Knows Men Eye Girl Brain Walking Know Me April Lanes

Book:Poems, 1908-1919

Source: Poems, 1908-1919

“Any long work in which poetry is persistent, be it epic or drama or narrative, is really a succession of separate poetic experiences governed into a related whole by an energy distinct from that which evoked them.”

Long Whole Energy Drama Narrative Related Poetry Is Poetic Epic Persistent Succession

Book:The Lyric: An Essay

Source: The Lyric: An Essay

“Great men are rare, poets are rarer, but the great man who is a poet, transfiguring his greatness, is the rarest of all events.”

Men Poetry Events Greatness Poet Great Men

Book:The Lyric: An Essay

Source: The Lyric: An Essay

“The written word is everything.”

Written Written Word

Book:The Lyric: An Essay

Source: The Lyric: An Essay

“But in the finished art of the song the use of words has no connection with the use of words in poetry.”

Art Use Song Connections Finished

Book:The Lyric: An Essay

Source: The Lyric: An Essay

“For while the subjects of poetry are few and recurrent, the moods of man are infinitely various and unstable. It is the same in all arts.”

Men Art Subjects Various Mood Unstable

Book:The Lyric: An Essay

Source: The Lyric: An Essay

“It should here be added that poetry habitually takes the form of verse.”

Should Form Verses

Book:The Lyric: An Essay

Source: The Lyric: An Essay

“When the poet makes his perfect selection of a word, he is endowing the word with life.”

Perfect Poet Selection

Book:The Lyric: An Essay

Source: The Lyric: An Essay

“Poetry being the sign of that which all men desire, even though the desire be unconscious, intensity of life or completeness of experience, the universality of its appeal is a matter of course.”

Men Matter Desire Courses Appeals Unconscious Poetry Is Intensity Completeness Universality

Book:The Lyric: An Essay

Source: The Lyric: An Essay

“The musician - if he be a good one - finds his own perception prompted by the poet's perception, and he translates the expression of that perception from the terms of poetry into the terms of music.”

Ifs Term Poet Expression Perception Musician Translate

Book:The Lyric: An Essay

Source: The Lyric: An Essay

“The poet's perfect expression is the token of a perfect experience; what he says in the best possible way he has felt in the best possible way, that is, completely.”

Way Felt Perfect Poet Expression Tokens

Book:The Lyric: An Essay

Source: The Lyric: An Essay

“To know anything of a poet but his poetry is, so far as the poetry is concerned, to know something that may be entertaining, even delightful, but is certainly inessential.”

Knows May Poet Concerned Poetry Is Entertaining Delightful

Book:The Lyric: An Essay

Source: The Lyric: An Essay

“To take an analogy: if we say that a democratic government is the best kind of government, we mean that it most completely fulfills the highest function of a government - the realisation of the will of the people.”

People Ifs Kind Mean Government Highest Function Democratic Analogies Realisation Democratic Government

Book:The Lyric: An Essay

Source: The Lyric: An Essay

“We recognise in the finished art, which is the result of these conditions, the best words in the best order - poetry; and to put this essential poetry into different classes is impossible.”

Art Different Order Results Class Impossible Conditions Essentials Finished Recognise

Book:The Lyric: An Essay

Source: The Lyric: An Essay

About the Author

Born: June 1, 1882
Died: March 25, 1937
Known for: Poet
Quotes: 24

Books & Sources

The Lyric: An EssayRelated source material

Poems, 1908-1919Related source material

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