“A Chinese poet many centuries ago noticed that to re-create something in words is like being alive twice.”

— Frances Mayes , book Under the Tuscan Sun

Source: Under the Tuscan Sun

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A Chinese poet many centuries ago noticed that to re-create something in words is like being alive twice." by Frances Mayes?

Frances Mayes 9

American university professor and writer 1940

Related quotes

“Constellations shine with light that was emitted aeons ago, and I wait for something to come to me, words that a poet might use to illuminate life's mysteries. But there is nothing.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Wedding

Source: The Wedding

“I like to play with words. In English, there's only one or two ways to say something; in Chinese there are 30 ways.”

Geling Yan (1958) Chinese writer and screenwriter

Source: "Turning Loss into Beauty: The Tragedies of Geling Yan" in The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB930264290705115630 (25 June 1999)

“At present I'm re-reading Traherne's Centuries of Meditations which I think almost the most beautiful book (in prose, I mean, excluding poets) in English.”

Thomas Traherne (1636–1674) English poet

C. S. Lewis, letter to Arthur Greeves in December 1941. http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=978
Criticism

“The great thing about being a writer is that you are always re-creating yourself.”

Martin Cruz Smith (1942) American writer

“Many people are alive but don't touch the miracle of being alive.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation

“To the European poet the relation between man and woman is a thing of supreme importance and mystery. To the Chinese, it is something commonplace, obvious—a need of the body, not a satisfaction of the emotions.”

Arthur Waley (1889–1966) British academic

A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1919), Introduction, p. 18

“The poet's matter being the hitherto experience of the world, and his own, increases with every century.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

Letter to Arthur Hugh Clough (December 1847/early 1848)
Context: Had Shakespeare and Milton lived in the atmosphere of modern feeling, had they had the multitude of new thoughts and feelings to deal with a modern has, I think it likely the style of each would have been far less curious and exquisite. For in a man style is the saying in the best way what you have to say. The what you have to say depends on your age. In the 17th century it was a smaller harvest than now, and sooner to be reaped; and therefore to its reaper was left time to stow it more finely and curiously. Still more was this the case in the ancient world. The poet's matter being the hitherto experience of the world, and his own, increases with every century.