Poetry unites Truth and Pleasure
An island that breaks away from the main
Excerpted from A Whirld of Words: A Reader's Commonplace Dictionary. Find the LINK to the Introduction below.
poetry
apparent pictures of unapparent natures: Zoroastrian definition of poetry
English Traits (Emerson 2000) p. 583
every cause whereby anything proceeds from that which is not, into that which is
Plato, Symposium (Shelley 1965) p. 32
poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history; for while poetry is concerned with universal truths, history treats of particular facts
Aristotle (Aristotle et al. 1965) p. 43
poesy is an art of imitation; for so Aristotle termeth it in the word μίμησις [mimesis]; that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth: to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture; with this end, to teach and delight
(Sidney 1860) p. 70
poetry wants to instruct or else to delight: as for instruction, make it succinct
(Horace 2001) p. 175
poetry presents the thing in order to convey the feeling. It should be precise about the thing and reticent about the feeling, for as soon as the mind responds and connects with the thing the feeling shows in the words; this is how poetry enters deeply into us
Wei T'ai (eleventh century) (Graham 1965) frontis
poetry, it is easier to create it than to understand it. It does not persuade our judgment, it ravishes and overwhelms it
(Montaigne 1958) p. 171
a witty madness, or mad wit
Epitaph of Thomas Randolph, d. 1635 (Grigson 1977) p. 46
poesy serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality and delectation. And therefore it was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto the nature of things
(Bacon 1990) p. 39
one of the Fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum daemonum (the wine of devils [St Augustine calls poetry the 'wine of error'; St Jerome, the 'food of devils') because it filleth the imagination and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie
(Bacon 1985) p. 62
thoughts that voluntary move / Harmonious numbers
Milton (Hazlitt 1991) p. 321
I doubt if any kind of philosophy has ever been, in all its implications, more hostile to poetry than that of Locke and his school
(Willey 1964) p. 192
now this is the threefold labor of great poetry: to invent sublime fables suited to the popular understanding; to perturb to excess, with a view to the end proposed; to teach the vulgar to act virtuously, as the poets have taught themselves
(Vico 1972) p. 75
by the very nature of poetry it is impossible for anyone to be at the same time a sublime poet and a sublime metaphysician, for metaphysics abstracts the mind from the senses, and the poetic faculty must submerge the whole mind in the senses; metaphysics soars up to universals, and the poetic faculty must plunge deep into particulars
(Vico 1972) p. 261
to circumscribe poetry by a definition will only shew the narrowness of the definer
(Boswell 1952) p. 936 ; (Johnson 1955) v. 2, p. 328
poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason
(Johnson 1955) v.1, p. 117
the essence of poetry is invention
(Johnson 1955) v.1, p. 203
the universal possession of mankind, revealing itself everywhere and at all times
(Goethe and Eckermann 1984) p. 133
poetry has its own language, suitable only to the great motions of the soul; poesy descended from heaven, the first poets were prophets
Gibbon (Craddock 1982) p. 192, 213
poetry owes its origin almost entirely to genius, holds the first rank among all the arts. It expands the mind by giving freedom to the imagination
(Kant 1990) p. 535
poetry is passion: it is the history or science of feelings
(Wordsworth 2002) p. 686
the image of man and nature
Wordsworth (Shelley 1965) p. 35
Aristotle, I have been told, has said, that Poetry is the most philosophic of all writing; it is so: its object is truth, not individual and local, but general and operative; not standing upon external testimony, but carried alive into the heart by passion, truth which is its own testimony, which gives competence and confidence to the tribunal to which it appeals, and receives them from the same tribunal. Poetry is the image of man and nature
(Wordsworth 2002) p. 655
poetry gives most pleasure when only generally, and not perfectly understood
Coleridge (Holmes 1990) p. 217
during the first year that Mr Wordsworth and I were neighbors our conversations turned frequently on the two cardinal points of poetry, the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying colors of imagination
(Coleridge 1975) p. 168
the great end
Of poesy, that it should be a friend
To sooth the cares, and lift the thoughts of man
(Keats 2001) p. 40
we hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us – and if we do not agree, seems to put its hand in its breeches pocket. Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself but with its subject. I think Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by Singularity – it should strike the Reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a Remembrance; if Poetry comes not as naturally as the Leaves to a tree it had better not come at all
(Keats 2001) p. 377, 380
the mental rattle that awakened the attention of intellect in the infancy of civil society
Thomas Love Peacock (Shelley 1965) p. 18
the image of life expressed in its eternal truth; something divine, at once the center and circumference of knowledge
(Shelley 1965) p. 35, 70
the language of the imagination and the passions
(Hazlitt 1991) p. 309
‘Per week. Yes. As to the amount of strain upon the intellect now. Was you thinking at all of poetry?’ Mr Wegg inquired, musing. ‘Would it come dearer?’ Mr Boffin asked. ‘It would come dearer,’ Mr Wegg returned. ‘For when a person comes to grind off poetry night after night, it is but right he should expect to be paid for its weakening effect on his mind.’
(Dickens 1967) p. 51
‘my stall and I are for ever parted. The collection of ballads will in future be reserved for private study, with the object of making poetry tributary’—Wegg was so proud of having found this word, that he said it again, with a capital letter—‘Tributary, to friendship’
(Dickens 1967) p. 188
the art of bringing into play the power of imagination through words
(Schopenhauer 1966) p. 424
the most ancient form of history
(Burckhardt 1979) p. 110
putting the infinite within the finite
Robert Browning (Marshall 1966) p. 195
the language of a state of crisis
Mallarmé (Auden and Kronenberger 1962) p. 283
I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat
A. E. Housman (Jones 1984) 3/26/1859
the fusion of sound and sense is the magic of the greatest poetry
Robert Bridges (Brooks and Warren 1960) p. 152
identity between the matter and the manner
G.K. Chesterton (Wills 1961) p. 60
a verbal statement of emotional values
(Pound 1959) p. xv
That exquisite nocturne, with which we explain
The night and moonshine; music which we seize
To body forth our own vacuity
Conversation Galante (Eliot 1952) p. 19
all poetry has always said something and implied the rest
Robert Frost (H. Bloom 2002) p. 358
the supreme fiction
Wallace Stevens (Paglia 2005) p. 125
the thing behind the name of the thing
(Ciardi 1959) p. 77
a performance; the natural language of man's most exalted thoughts; the best words in the best order; man's best means of perceiving most profoundly the action and the consequence of his own emotions
(Ciardi 1960) p. 668, 678, 786, 850
memorable speech
W.H. Auden (Pockell 2001) p. xii
magic
(Auden 1976) p. 17
poetry seems to have to keep reverting to its naked condition, where it touches on all that is unrealized
W.S. Merwin (Berg and Mezey 1969) p. 271
poetry expresses the essence of what cannot be possessed
(Cioran 1998) p. 98
intensifies and exalts experience
(Rexroth 1986) p. 95
poetry is a fifth column. Poetry and literature offer an inward landscape
(Warren et al. 1980) p. 25, 203
news
from the frontiers
of consciousness ...
the street talk
of angels and devils ...
an insurgent knock
on the door of the unknown
(Ferlinghetti 2000)
a riprap on the slick rock of metaphysics
Gary Snyder (Berg and Mezey 1969) p. 346
poetry is the most powerful form of rhetoric
(A. D. Bloom and Jaffa 1981) p. 6
poetry is becoming a distant satellite, Parnassus has turned into a kind of Cape Canaveral, and soon we shall need elaborate radar equipment to tune in on the strange beeps the poets are emitting
(Bellow and Botsford 2001) p. 10
the best words in the best order; the mode of expression in which the surface is the depth; a special way of imagining the world
(Alter 1985) pp. x, 205
as soon as we perceive that a verbal sequence has a sustained rhythm, that it is formally structured according to a continuously operating principle of organization, we know that we are in the presence of poetry
Barbara Herrnstein Smith (Alter 1985) p. 6
perhaps the greatest peculiarity of biblical poetry among the literatures of the ancient Mediterranean world is its seeming avoidance of narrative. The Hebrew writers used verse for celebratory song, dirge, oracle, oratory, prophecy, reflective and didactic argument, liturgy, and often as a heightening or summarizing inset in the prose narratives – but only marginally and minimally to tell a tale
(Alter 1985) p. 27
poetry is heightened speech
(Alter 1981) p. 4
poetry, working through a system of complex linkages of sound, image, word, rhythm, syntax, theme, idea, is an instrument for conveying densely patterned meanings, and sometimes contradictory meanings, that are not readily conveyable through other kinds of discourse. Poetry is a way of using language strongly oriented toward the creation of minute, multiple, heterogeneous, and semantically fruitful interconnections in the text
(Alter 1985) p. 113
poetry is our best human model of intricately rich communication, not only solemn, weighty, and forceful but also densely woven with complex internal connections, meanings, and implications
(Alter 1985) p. 141
poetry is not just a set of techniques for saying impressively what could be said otherwise. Rather, it is a particular way of imagining the world. Poetry has its own logic, its own ways of making connections and engendering implications
(Alter 1985) p. 151
poetry and fiction involve a condensation of meanings, a kind of thickening of discourse, in which multiple and even mutually contradictory perceptions of the same object can be used within a single linguistic structure. Poetry, with its resonances, emphases, significant symmetries, and forceful imageries
(Alter 1981) p. 153, 155
poetry in all eras works through allusion
(Alter 2007) p. 366
poetry in all cultures serves a mnemonic function
(Alter 2010) p. 186
the articulation of perception, the translation of that perception into the heritage of language
(Brodsky 1986) p. 104
an island that breaks away from the main
Nobel Lecture (Walcott 1993)
most contemporary verse is a poetry of asides, most modern poems could be in parentheses
(Walcott 1998) p. 143
poetry is still treason
because it is truth
(Walcott 1997) p.64
poetry, in a way, is a quarrel with God, one which I imagine God understands. I have never separated the writing of poetry from prayer
(Walcott and Baer 1996) p. 84, 99
a patterned intensity of language
Ursula Le Guin (Laozi 1997) p. ix
the connecting link between body and mind
(Paglia 1991) p. 18
a contemplative form
(Paglia 2005) p. xiv
Doctor: A good plumber is worth twenty poets
(Stoppard 2003) p. 86
poetry is lonely. There's little margin for error in poetry. Frost once remarked that poetry was a way of taking life by the throat. So much contemporary poetry has a self-enthralled quality to it. The criterion for great poetry – that sense of inevitability, of perfected utterance. Even the most earth-bound poets I know cling to some ghost of the notion that poetry is a means to other orders of existence
(Wiman 2007) p. 68, 110, 145, 155, 171, 186
some of the aesthetic elements that lead to distinction in poetry – metaphorical intelligence, a sense of linguistic rhythm, enough wit and wide life to suggest that some whole person is addressing you
(Wiman 2007) p. 63
one of poetry's chief strengths: how little of it there is
(Wiman 2007) p. 124
encompassing compression and lucid paradox are hallmarks of poetry
(Wiman 2013) p. 48
poetry itself – like life, like love, like any spiritual hunger – thrives on longings that can never be fulfilled, and dies when the poet thinks they have been
(Wiman 2018) p. 9
LINK to the Introduction to A Whirld of Words: A Reader's Commonplace Dictionary.
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