“To have great poets,
there must be great audiences.”

—  Walt Whitman

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "To have great poets, there must be great audiences." by Walt Whitman?
Walt Whitman photo
Walt Whitman 181
American poet, essayist and journalist 1819–1892

Related quotes

Walt Whitman photo

“Poetry (like a grand personality) is a growth of many generations — many rare combinations.
To have great poets, there must be great audiences too.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Complete Prose Works (1892), III. Notes Left Over 3. Ventures, on an Old Theme, p.324 http://books.google.com/books?id=UJA1AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA324
Context: If the United States haven't grown poets, on any scale of grandeur, it is certain that they import, print, and read more poetry than any equal number of people elsewhere — probably more than the rest of the world combined.
Poetry (like a grand personality) is a growth of many generations — many rare combinations.
To have great poets, there must be great audiences too.

Frank Lloyd Wright photo

“Every great architect is — necessarily — a great poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

The Future of Architecture (1953)

Thomas Dekker photo

“ONAELIA: What sort of poets are there?
POET: Two sorts lady: The great poets and the small poets.
ONAELIA: Great and small! Which do you call the great? The fat ones?”

Thomas Dekker The Noble Spanish Soldier

The Noble Spanish Soldier (1622)

“He was a great poet" They lamented.

No, he was not a great poet," said Theo, "He was a good poet, he could have been better. That's the real loss don't you see?”

Lloyd Alexander book The Kestrel

Source: The Kestrel

Dejan Stojanovic photo

“Great poets are great copy editors.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

Life Is Poetry http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/life-is-poetry/
From the poems written in English

Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo

“Metaphisics is a word that you, my dear Sir! are no great friend to / but yet you will agree, that a great Poet must be, implicitè if not explicitè, a profound Metaphysician.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

Letter to William Sotheby (13 July 1802).
Letters
Context: Metaphisics is a word that you, my dear Sir! are no great friend to / but yet you will agree, that a great Poet must be, implicitè if not explicitè, a profound Metaphysician. He may not have it in logical coherence, in his Brain & Tongue; but he must have it by Tact / for all sounds, & all forms of human nature he must have the ear of a wild Arab listening in the silent Desart, the eye of a North American Indian tracing the footsteps of an Enemy upon the Leaves that strew the Forest —; the Touch of a Blind Man feeling the face of a darling Child.

“Great marketers engage their audiences.”

Vladimer Botsvadze
Henri Barbusse photo

“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?”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

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.

“…just as great men are great disasters, overwhelmingly good poets are overwhelmingly bad influences.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens”, p. 66
The Third Book of Criticism (1969)

Related topics