Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Octavio Paz

Quote by Octavio Paz

“Two opposing forces inhabit the poem: one of elevation or up-rooting, which pulls the word from the language: the other of gravity, which makes it return. The poem is an original and unique creation, but it is also reading and recitation: participation. The poet creates it; the people, by recitation, re-create it. Poet and reader are two moments of a single reality.”

Quote by Octavio Paz

Work

The Bow and the Lyre: The Poem, The Poetic Revelation, Poetry and History

The work delves into the significance of poetry as a historical document, analyzing how it reflects and shapes societal values, beliefs, and experiences over time. more

Author

Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz

Octavio Paz (March 31, 1914 - April 19, 1998) was a renowned Mexican poet, essayist, and diplomat. He is considered one of the greatest Spanish-language poets of the 20th century, known for his unique poetic style and profound intellectual depth. more

You May Also Like

“A work of (whatever) art can be either 'received' or 'used'. ...'Using' is inferior to 'reception' because art, if used rather than received, merely facilitates, brightens, relieves or palliates our life, and does not add to it ... When the art in question is literature a complication arises, for to 'receive' significant words is always, in one sense, to 'use' them, to go through and beyond them to an imagined something which is not itself verbal.”

“It is the unspecified 'you' of modern love poems that I am mostly concerned with here. At least, the addressee is commonly a lover, and the very fact that the name is withheld is offered as a guarantee of the closeness and significance of the relationship.”