Source: 1970s and later, Explorations in the functions of language, 1973, p. 41 cited in: Sin-wai Chan (2004) A dictionary of translation technology. p. 113.
“All words at every level of prose and poetry and all devices of language and speech derive their meaning from figure / ground relation.”
quoted in McLuhan: A Guide for the Perplexed by W. Terrence Gordon, 2010, p. 167
1980s
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Marshall McLuhan 416
Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor … 1911–1980Related quotes
Source: 1930s- 1950s, Landmarks of Tomorrow: A Report on the New 'Post-Modern' World (1959), p. 115
“Prose uses the medium of language whilst poetry serves language and explores it.”
The Great Modern Poets, London, 2006
Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 121
Source: Science and Sanity (1933), p. 20.
Context: The only link between the verbal and objective world is exclusively structural, necessitating the conclusion that the only content of all "knowledge" is structural. Now structure can be considered as a complex of relations, and ultimately as multi-dimensional order. From this point of view, all language can be considered as names for unspeakable entities on the objective level, be it things or feelings, or as names of relations. In fact... we find that an object represents an abstraction of a low order produced by our nervous system as the result of a sub-microscopic events acting as stimuli upon the nervous system.
“Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best order.”
12 July 1827.
Table Talk (1821–1834)
Variant: Poetry: the best words in the best order.
Context: I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; poetry = the best words in their best order.
12 July 1827
Table Talk (1821–1834)
English Prose Style (1928)
Literary Quotes
“All words, in every language, are metaphors.”
Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 120
"Finnegans Wake", in James, Seamas & Jacques: Unpublished Writings (London: Macmillan, 1964) p. 161.