“Poetry, unlike oratory, should not aim at clarity… but be dense with meaning, 'something to be chewed and digested'…”
Preface to Ovid's Banquet of Sense (1595)
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George Chapman 60
English dramatist, poet, and translator 1559–1634Related quotes
“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”
Essays (1625)
Context: Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
Of Studies
Amanda, Scene One
The Glass Menagerie (1944)
“Unlike stories, real life, when it has passed, inclines toward obscurity, not clarity.”
Source: The Story of the Lost Child
Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)
Context: Clarity or Decision.... without it there is uncertainty, hesitation, obscurity, instability... incomparable with good art. The meaning and object of the design should be clear... it should be frank, as the French say.
Source: The Akhmatova Journals, Volume I: 1938-1941