“Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”

— T.S. Eliot

Last update Nov. 4, 2024. History

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T.S. Eliot 270

20th century English author 1888–1965

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“It is a test (a positive test, I do not assert that it is always valid negatively), that genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

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“I was the living proof of T. S Eliot's assertion that poetry can communicate before it is understood. the conscious, analytical part of my response was lulled into a kind of stupor by the rhythms and richness of the imagery of the poetry I was reading.”

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“In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite”

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“In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in the case of poetry, it's the exact opposite!”

Paul Dirac (1902–1984) theoretical physicist

As quoted in Brighter Than a Thousand Suns : A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists (1958) by Robert Jungk, as translated by James Cleugh, p. 22
Anecdotally, when Oppenheimer was working at Göttingen, Dirac supposedly came to him one day and said: "Oppenheimer, they tell me you are writing poetry. I do not see how a man can work on the frontiers of physics and write poetry at the same time. They are in opposition. In science you want to say something that nobody knew before, in words which everyone can understand. In poetry you are bound to say... something that everybody knows already in words that nobody can understand."