“Every true poet, I thought, must be original and originality a condition of poetic genius; so that each poet is like a species in nature (not an individuum genericum or specificum ) and can never recur. That nothing shd. be old or borrowed however cannot be.” ConditionsPoetGeniusOriginalsSpeciesPoeticOriginalityBorrowedVery True Book:Delphi Complete Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins (Illustrated) Source: Delphi Complete Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins (Illustrated)
“originality" is everyone's aim, and novel techniques are as much prized as new scientific discoveries. [T.S.] Eliot states it with surprising naïveté: "It is exactly as wasteful for a poet to do what has been done already as for a biologist to rediscover Mendel's discoveries.” Has BeensStatesDoneNovelPoetDiscoveryAimTechniqueSurprisingOriginalityBiologistScientific DiscoveryVetsEliotMendel Author:Randall Jarrell
“All the poets are indebted more or less to those who have gone before them; even Homer's originality has been questioned, and Virgil owes almost as much to Theocritus, in his Pastorals, as to Homer, in his Heroics; and if our own countryman, Milton, has soared above both Homer and Virgil, it is because he has stolen some feathers from their wings.” IfsHas BeensGonePoetWingsOriginalityFeathersStolenCountrymenPlagiarismMiltonIndebted Author:Charles Caleb Colton
“Wherein lies a poet's claim to originality? That he invents his incidents? No. That he was present when his episodes had their birth? No. That he was first to repeat them? No. None of these things has any value. He confers on them their only originality that has any value, and that is his way of telling them.” WayFirstsLyingValuesPoetBirthClaimsRepeatsOriginalityEpisodesIncidents Author:Mark Twain