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Quote by Seamus Heaney

“Im a firm believer in learning by heart.”

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Seamus Heaney was an Irish poet born on April 13, 1939, and passed away on August 30, 2013. He is renowned for his profound humanistic concerns and exquisite poetic skills, being one of the most influential poets of the 20th century. more

“If it really was Queen Elizabeth who demanded to see Falstaff in a comedy, then she showed herself a very perceptive critic. But even in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff has not and could not have found his true home because Shakespeare was only a poet. For that he was to wait nearly two hundred years till Verdi wrote his last opera. Falstaff is not the only case of a character whose true home is the world of music; others are Tristan, Isolde and Don Giovanni.”

Ifs World Years Two Character Home Lasts Found Waiting Cases Comedy Wife Poet Hundred Critics Queens Opera Merry Queen Elizabeth True Home Windsor Falstaff Verdi

Author:W. H. Auden

“When someone between twenty and forty says, apropos of a work of art, 'I know what I like,' he is really saying 'I have no taste of my own but accept the taste of my cultural milieu.”

Knows Art My Own Accepting Taste Twenties Forty Works Of Art Milieu

Author:W. H. Auden

“Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the differences between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity.”

Age Process Differences Duty Twenties Limitation Engaged Who We Are Forty Discovering Impunity

Author:W. H. Auden

“An honest self-portrait is extremely rare because a man who has reached the degree of self-consciousness presupposed by the desire to paint his own portrait has almost always also developed an ego-consciousness which paints himself painting himself, and introduces artificial highlights and dramatic shadows.”

Men Self Desire Consciousness Honest Painting Ego Degrees Shadow Paint Dramatic Artificial Introducing Portraits Highlights Self Consciousness Self Portrait

Author:W. H. Auden

“Organic growth is a cyclical process; it is just as true to say that the oak is a potential acorn as it is to say the acorn is a potential oak. But the process of writing a poem, of making any art object, is not cyclical but a motion in one direction toward a definite end.”

Writing Art Ends Process Growth Objects Definite Oaks One Direction Acorns

Author:W. H. Auden

“Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell, But on earth indifference is the least We have to dread from man or beast. How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me. Admirer as I think I am Of stars that do not give a damn, I cannot, now I see them, say I missed one terribly all day. Were all stars to disappear or die, I should learn to look at an empty sky And feel its total dark sublime, Though this might take me a little time.”

“Every poet has his dream reader: mine keeps a look out for curious prosodic fauna like bacchics and choriambs.”

Looks Dream Mines Poet Reader Curious

Author:W. H. Auden

“To read is to translate, for no two persons' experiences are the same. A bad reader is like a bad translator: he interprets literally when he ought to paraphrase and paraphrases when he ought to interpret literally.”

Persons Two Ought Reader Translate Translators Paraphrase

Author:W. H. Auden

“The element of craftsmanship in poetry is obscured by the fact that all men are taught to speak and most to read and write, while very few men are taught to draw or paint or write music.”

Men Writing Facts Speak Taught Elements Draws Paint Poetry Is Craftsmanship

Author:W. H. Auden

Quote by Seamus Heaney

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