“Mervyn Peake is a finer poet than Edgar Allan Poe, and he is therefore able to maintain his world of fantasy brilliantly through three novels. It (Gormenghast trilogy) is a very, very great work … a classic of our age.”

—  Mervyn Peake

Robertson Davies

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 "Mervyn Peake is a finer poet than Edgar Allan Poe, and he is therefore able to maintain his world of fantasy brilliantl…" by Mervyn Peake?
Mervyn Peake photo
Mervyn Peake 91
English writer, artist, poet and illustrator 1911–1968

Related quotes

Sidney Lanier photo

“On Poe - I esteem Poe more highly than my countrymen are won't to do. The trouble with him (Poe) was, he did not KNOW enough. He needed to know a good many more things in order to be a great poet.”

Sidney Lanier (1842–1881) American musician, poet
Marlon Brando photo

“Bertolucci is extraordinary in his ability to perceive, he's a poet…he is very easy to work for.”

Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American screen and stage actor

Rolling Stone Issue No. 213 (May 20, 1976) on Bernardo Bertolucci.

John Keats photo

“Nothing is finer for the purposes of great productions than a very gradual ripening of the intellectual powers.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Letter to his brother, (January 23, 1818)
Letters (1817–1820)

Jacques Ellul photo

“We are in the process of seeing the fulfillment of Edgar Allan Poe's prophecy in which the painter, impassioned by his mistress-model and also by his art, "did not want to see that the colors he spread on his canvas were taken from the cheeks of the woman seated beside him. And when several weeks had passed, and very little remained to be done, nothing but a stroke on the mouth and a glaze over the eye, the mistress’s spirit still flickered like the flame at the base of a lamp. Then he put on the final touch, put the glaze in place, and for a moment the painter stood in ecstasy before the work he had finished. But a moment later, he was struck with panic, and shouting with a piercing voice: ‘It is truly Life itself,’ he suddenly turned around to look at his mistress. She was dead."”

Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) French sociologist, technology critic, and Christian anarchist

Nothing ever constrains us to face what is dying when we see it so alive in our images.
J. Hanks, trans. (1985), p. 208
The Humiliation of the Word (1981)

Vachel Lindsay photo

“There were three great Virginia poets in the very beginning — George Washington, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson.”

Vachel Lindsay (1879–1931) American poet

What It Means to Be a Poet in America (1926)
Context: There were three great Virginia poets in the very beginning — George Washington, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson. “What!” you say. “We do not even know the names of their publishers. They were not poets!”
Well, how do you know? Did you ever really read them? What do you know about it? Their very names will breathe poetry forever.

“The poet is in command of his fantasy, while it is exactly the mark of the neurotic that he is possessed by his fantasy.”

Lionel Trilling book The Liberal Imagination

Freud and Literature
The Liberal Imagination (1950)

Frank Lloyd Wright photo

“Every great architect is — necessarily — a great poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

The Future of Architecture (1953)

Thiago Silva photo

“I am very happy to be considered as one of the best defenders in the world and to be mentioned alongside great footballers. It's a great satisfaction to have reached this level at this moment in my career. I know that things will get tougher soon, but I will continue to work hard to be able to maintain this level of performance.”

Thiago Silva (1984) Brazilian footballer

Interview with Surgiu Esporte, 2014 http://www.sambafoot.com/fr/informations/55882_thiago_silva_fier_d_etre_considere_comme_un_des_meilleurs_defenseurs_au_monde.html

Mark Twain photo

“To me [Edgar Allen Poe's] prose is unreadable—like Jane Austin's [sic]. No there is a difference. I could read his prose on salary, but not Jane's. Jane is entirely impossible. It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
James Hudson Taylor photo

“The work of a true missionary is work indeed, often very monotonous, apparently not very successful, and carried on through great and varied but unceasing difficulties.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Five: Refiner’s Fire. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1985, 350).

Related topics