
“Poetry is a form of necessary speech.”
How to Read a Poem And Fall in Love with Poetry (1998)
On how he views the art of poetry in “Daljit Nagra: ‘Poetry is an espresso shot of thought’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/14/daljit-nagra-poetry-espresso-shot-of-thought-interview in The Guardian (2017 Jul 14)
“Poetry is a form of necessary speech.”
How to Read a Poem And Fall in Love with Poetry (1998)
“The symbol and the metaphor are as necessary to science as to poetry.”
Part 2: "The Habit of Truth", §6 (p. 36)
Science and Human Values (1956, 1965)
'Phases of English Poetry' Hogarth Press (1928)
Phases in English Poetry (1928)
Source: The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod
English Prose Style (1928)
Literary Quotes
Aphorism 7
Les Caractères (1688), Des Ouvrages de l'Esprit
Context: There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence. What torture it is to hear a frigid speech being pompously declaimed, or second-rate verse spoken with all a bad poet's bombast!
“Poetry — No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself.”
January 26, 1840
Journals (1838-1859)
Context: Poetry — No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself. The most accurate analysis by the rarest wisdom is yet insufficient, and the poet will instantly prove it false by setting aside its requisitions. It is indeed all that we do not know. The poet does not need to see how meadows are something else than earth, grass, and water, but how they are thus much. He does not need discover that potato blows are as beautiful as violets, as the farmer thinks, but only how good potato blows are. The poem is drawn out from under the feet of the poet, his whole weight has rested on this ground. It has a logic more severe than the logician's. You might as well think to go in pursuit of the rainbow, and embrace it on the next hill, as to embrace the whole of poetry even in thought.