“The poet is a king in his realm. His is empire of imagination, in which there are unlimited mansions.”

—  Elfriede Jelinek , book Wonderful, Wonderful Times

P 179
Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The poet is a king in his realm. His is empire of imagination, in which there are unlimited mansions." by Elfriede Jelinek?
Elfriede Jelinek photo
Elfriede Jelinek 50
Austrian writer 1946

Related quotes

Wallace Stevens photo

“For the poet, the imagination is paramount, and... he dwells apart in his imagination, as the philosopher dwells in his reason, and as the priest dwells in his belief … The imagination is the power of the mind over the possibilities of things.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

The Necessary Angel (1951), Imagination as Value

“No poet, in his greatest imaginings, could conceive of anything greater than the real;”

Donald Miller (1971) American writer

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

“In theory, there were no legal limits to the monarch’s power over his realm. In practice, however, the king was bound by the laws and customs of the land, and exercising his authority depended on the agreement of France’s elite: the nobility and the clergy.”

Darius von Guttner Sporzynski (1971) Historian

The French Revolution (Nelson Modern History) p. 17 (Melbourne, 2016)

Alasdair MacIntyre photo

“The manager treats ends as given, as outside his scope; his concern is with technique, with effectiveness … The therapist also treats ends as given, as outside his scope; his concern also is with technique, with effectiveness … Neither manager nor therapist, in their roles as manager and therapist, do or are able to engage in moral debate. They … purport to restrict themselves to the realms in which rational agreement in possible—that is, … to the realm of fact, the realm of means, the realm of measurable effectiveness.”

Alasdair MacIntyre book After Virtue

Source: After Virtue (1981), p. 30.

Colin Wilson photo

“And the central assertion of his philosophy is that this inner realm is the 'spiritual world' and that once man has learned to enter this realm, he realizes that it is not a mere imaginative reflection of the external world, but a world that possesses its own independent reality.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Rudolf Steiner: The Man and His Vision (1985), p. 161

“How very bright this empire of stars, he mused. Which poet had said that?”

Stephen R. Lawhead (1950) American writer

Source: The Bone House (2011), p. 55

Bertrand Russell photo

“It is we who create value and our desires which confer value. In this realm we are kings”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1920s, What I Believe (1925)
Context: We are and irrefutable arbiters of value, and in the world of value Nature is only a part. Thus in this world we are greater than Nature. In the world of values, Nature in itself is neutral, neither good nor bad deserving of neither admiration nor censure. It is we who create value and our desires which confer value. In this realm we are kings, and we debase our kingship if we bow down to Nature. It is for us to determine our good life, not for Nature – not even for Nature personified as God.

“[Robert Lowell] is a poet of both Will and Imagination, but his Will is always seizing his Imagination by the shoulders and saying to it in a grating voice: “Don’t sit there fooling around; get to work!” — and his poor Imagination gets tense all over and begins to revolve determinedly and familiarly, like a squirrel in a squirrel-cage. Goethe talked about the half-somnambulistic state of the poet; but Mr. Lowell too often is either having a nightmare or else is wide awake gritting his teeth and working away at All The Things He Does Best. Cocteau said to poets: Learn what you can do and then don’t do it; and this is so—we do it enough without trying. As a poet Mr. Lowell sometimes doesn’t have enough trust in God and tries to do everything himself: he proposes and disposes — and this helps to give a certain monotony to his work.”

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

“Three Books”, p. 236
Poetry and the Age (1953)

Arthur Schopenhauer photo

“The poet presents the imagination with images from life and human characters and situations, sets them all in motion and leaves it to the beholder to let these images take his thoughts as far as his mental powers will permit.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

Vol. 2 "On Philosophy and the Intellect" as translated in Essays and Aphorisms (1970), as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims
Context: The poet presents the imagination with images from life and human characters and situations, sets them all in motion and leaves it to the beholder to let these images take his thoughts as far as his mental powers will permit. This is why he is able to engage men of the most differing capabilities, indeed fools and sages together. The philosopher, on the other hand, presents not life itself but the finished thoughts which he has abstracted from it and then demands that the reader should think precisely as, and precisely as far as, he himself thinks. That is why his public is so small.

“Not a virgin or a rupee was safe in his realm.”

Mulk Raj Anand book The Private Life of an Indian Prince

Source: The Private Life of an Indian Prince (1969), p. 60

Related topics