“Isn't it curious how one has only to open a book of verse to realise immediately that it was written by a very fine poet, or else that it was written by someone who is not a poet at all. In the case of the former, the lines, the images, though they are inherent in each other, leap up and give one this shock of delight. In the case of the latter, they lie flat on the page, never having lived.” GivingBookLyingPoetryLinesCasesWrittenPoetFinePagesDelightCuriousFormerShockLatterFlatsLeapRealisingInherentVerses Author:Edith Sitwell
“Poets and men of action differ: the former yield to their feelings in order to reproduce them in lively colors, and therefore judge only ex post facto; the latter feel and judge at one and the same time.” MenFeelsFeelingsActionOrderColorPoetJudgingFormerPostsLatterYieldExesLively Author:Honore de Balzac
“A poet is a combination of an instrument and a human being in one person, with the former gradually taking over the latter. The sensation of this takeover is responsible for timbre; the realization of it, for destiny.” HumansPersonsPoetryHuman BeingsDestinyPoetResponsibleInstrumentsRealizationFormerCombinationLatterSensationsTakeoversTimbre Book:Less Than One: Selected Essays Source: Less Than One: Selected Essays
“There is a great difference, whether the poet seeks the particular for the sake of the general or sees the general in the particular. From the former procedure there ensues allegory, in which the particular serves only as illustration, as example of the general. The latter procedure, however, is genuinely the nature of poetry; it expresses something particular, without thinking of the general or pointing to it.” ThinkingDifferencesExampleParticularPoetSakeFormerLatterPointingProceduresIllustrationAllegory Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe