T. S. Eliot
American poet and playwright
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Out of the slimy mud of words, out of the sleet and hail of verbal imprecisions,
Approximate thoughts and feelings, words that have taken the place of thoughts and feelings,
There spring the perfect order of speech, and the beauty of incantation.
—T. S. Eliot, American poet and playwright, Choruses from 'The Rock', 1934
Posted on December 11, 2003 at 5:58 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph.
—T. S. Eliot, American poet and playwright, Little Gidding, 1944
Posted on October 15, 1999 at 9:57 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scoling, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them.
—T. S. Eliot, American poet and playwright, Burnt Norton, 1935
Posted on September 4, 1998 at 11:23 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Our language, or any civilised language, is like the phoenix: it springs anew from its own ashes.
—T. S. Eliot, American poet and playwright, quoted in L. Michaels and C. Ricks (eds.), The State of the Language, 1980
Posted on June 10, 1998 at 7:17 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
—T. S. Eliot, American poet and playwright, Four Quartets, 1944
Posted on January 19, 1999 at 11:34 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
We might remind ourselves that criticism is as inevitable as breathing, and that we should be none the worse for articulating what passes in our minds when we read a book and feel an emotion about it, for criticizing our own minds in their work of criticism.
—T. S. Eliot, American poet and playwright, Tradition and the Individual Talent, 1919
Posted on March 10, 1999 at 4:48 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.
—T. S. Eliot, American poet and playwright, Tradition and the Individual Talent, 1919
Posted on November 6, 2002 at 11:03 AM
|
