“Will the great poet come who shall settle the boundaries of belief and render it eternal, the poet who will be, not a fool, not an ignorant orator, but a wise man, the great inexorable poet?”
The Inferno (1917), Ch. XIV
Context: I thought of all those wise men, poets, artists before me who had suffered, wept, and smiled on the road to truth. I thought of the Latin poet who wished to reassure and console men by showing them truth as unveiled as a statue. A fragment of his prelude came to my mind, learned long ago, then dismissed and lost like almost everything that I had taken the pains to learn up till then. He said he kept watch in the serene nights to find the words, the poem in which to convey to men the ideas that would deliver them. For two thousand years men have always had to be reassured and consoled. For two thousand years I have had to be delivered. Nothing has changed the surface of things. The teachings of Christ have not changed the surface of things, and would not even if men had not ruined His teachings so that they can no longer follow them honestly. Will the great poet come who shall settle the boundaries of belief and render it eternal, the poet who will be, not a fool, not an ignorant orator, but a wise man, the great inexorable poet? I do not know, although the lofty words of the man who died in the boarding-house have given me a vague hope of his coming and the right to adore him already.
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Henri Barbusse 197
French novelist 1873–1935Related quotes
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Poet
“Great poets are great copy editors.”
Life Is Poetry http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/life-is-poetry/
From the poems written in English
“Poets are all who love, who feel great truths,
And tell them; and the truth of truths is love.”
Scene XVI, The Hesperian Sphere
Festus (1839)
“To have great poets,
there must be great audiences.”
“I think a poet is anybody who wouldn't call himself a poet.”
Quoted in Robert Shelton's No Direction Home https://books.google.com/books?id=-IefAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22I+think+a+poet+is+anybody+who+wouldn%27t+call+himself+a+poet.%22&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22I+think+a+poet+is+anybody+who+wouldn%27t+call+himself+a+poet.+Anybody+who+could+possibly+call+himself+a+poet+just+cannot+be+a+poet.%22 (1986), p. 353
Context: I think a poet is anybody who wouldn't call himself a poet. Anybody who could possibly call himself a poet just cannot be a poet.