Spooky Action at a Distance (2015), Ch. 4 : The Great Debate
“I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”
Preface.
Source: Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800)
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William Wordsworth 306
English Romantic poet 1770–1850Related quotes

“In emotional vibrancy experience is recollected not in tranquility… but in excitement.”
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

“In tranquility one recollects them with affection, their instinct is good, crazy family good.”
Superman Comes to the Supermarket (1960)

Mettez un lieu commun en place, nettoyez-le, frottez-le, éclairez-le de telle sorte qu'il frappe avec sa jeunesse et avec la même fraîcheur, le même jet qu'il avait à sa source, vous ferez œuvre de poète. Tout le reste est littérature.
"Le Secret Professionnel" (originally published 1922); later published in Collected Works Vol. 9 (1950)
A Call to Order (1926)
“If you did not suffer from emotions, from feelings, you could be as powerful as we are.”
David Zellaby (Martin Stephens), Village of the Damned, (speaking to his father) (1960)

Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)
Context: The bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious. Both errors tend to make him "personal." Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.
“Poetry carries its history within it, and it is oral in its origins, its transmission was oral.”
An Introduction to English Poetry, Viking Penguin, London 2002 ISBN 0141004398

“Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.”
Quoted in New York Post (29 February 1960)
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