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Poetry Quotes

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Poetry Quotes

“What was the function of poetry if not to improve the petty, cautious minds of evasive children?”

Ifs Mind Children Poetry Function Petty Cautious

Book:The Middleman and Other Stories

Source: The Middleman and Other Stories

“The function of poetry is to point out that the sign is not identical to the referent.”

Art Poetry Function Poetry Is Identical

Book:To honor Roman Jakobson: Essays on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, 11 October 1966

Source: To honor Roman Jakobson: Essays on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, 11 October 1966

“No longer do we accept the 'sublimation model' according to which 'the function of art is to sublimate or transform experience, raising it from ordinary to extraordinary, from commonplace to unique, from low to high'.”

Art Poetry Accepting Unique Models Lows Ordinary Art Is Function Extraordinary Commonplace

Author:Rosalind E. Krauss

“The primary function of poetry, as of all the arts, is to make us more aware of ourselves and the world around us. I do not know if such increased awareness makes us more moral or more efficient. I hope not. I think it makes us more human, and I am quite certain it makes us more difficult to deceive.”

Ifs Thinking Knows World Humans Art Poetry Certain Difficult Moral Awareness Art Is Function Primaries Efficient Deceiving

Author:W. H. Auden

“The poem is not only the point of origin for all the language and narrative arts, the poem returns us to the very social function of art as such.”

Art Poetry Language Social Return Function Narrative Narrative Art

Author:Ron Silliman

“Art's effect is due to the tension resulting from the clash of the collocation of elements of two (or more) systems of interpretation. This conflict has the function of breaking down automatism of perception and occurs simultaneously on the many levels of a work of art ... All levels may carry meaning.”

May Art Two Poetry Levels Effects Conflict Elements Perception Function Dues Tension Interpretation Works Of Art Breaking Down Clash

Author:Yuri Lotman

“The poetic function is the set towards the message itself, focus on the message for its own sake which by promoting the palpability of signs, deepens the fundamental dichotomy of signs and objects.”

Art Poetry Focus Objects Messages Function Fundamentals Sake Poetic Promoting Dichotomy

Author:Roman Jakobson

“Functions of technical information, historic record, analytic argument, which are integral and obvious to Dante's use of verse are now almost completely a part of the 'prosaic'.”

Use Poetry Literature Records Information Argument Function Obvious Verses Historic Analytics

Author:George Steiner

“Poetry, at all times, exercises two distinct functions: it may reveal, it may unveil to every eye, the ideal aspects of common thingsor it may actually add to the number of motives poetic and uncommon in themselves, by the imaginative creation of things that are ideal from their very birth.”

May Two Eye Poetry Imagination Common Numbers Creativity Creation Poet Birth Exercise Aspect Ideals Function Add All Time Motive Poetic Imaginative Uncommon

Author:Walter Pater

“I think the poet is the last person who is still speaking the truth when no one else dares to. I think the poet is the first person to begin the shaping and visioning of the new forms and the new consciousness when no one else has begun to sense it; I think these are two of the most essential human functions.”

“The great function of poetry is to give back to us the situations of our dreams.”

Giving Dream Poetry Situation Function Poetry Is Our Dreams Giving Back

Author:Gaston Bachelard