Quotations

Remarks poets made beyond their poems — letters, journals, conversation — gathered as a readable library. Browse by topic or author, or search the words themselves. Currently 7,492 active remarks.

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Topic: Craft

Showing 24 of 30 · page 1 of 2

“I myself, Andalusian, Sevillian to the marrow—from there I come, and my parents and grandparents before me—sing my own feelings in the style of my land, with no aim but to ease them or exalt them, as they pain or please me.”

Original: Yo mismo, andaluz, sevillano hasta la médula (de allí soy, de allí mis padres y mis abuelos), canto al estilo de mi tierra los sentimientos propios, sin otra idea que la de aliviarlos o exaltarlos, según me duelen o me complacen. — Explains his adoption of the Andalusian copla as a vehicle for direct personal feeling rather than folkloric imitation · Preface to Cante hondo, 1912 (Spanish)

Manuel Machado

“Although the art of poetry cannot be grasped or taught by precepts, being more a matter of the mind than of tradition, human craft, experience and labour can still permit a few rules.”

Original: Combien que l'art de Poësie ne se puisse par preceptes comprendre ny enseigner pour estre plus mental que traditif, toutesfois d'autant que l'artifice humain, experience et labeur le peuvent permettre, j'ay bien voulu t'en donner quelques reigles icy. — Poetry treated as a gift of mind first, then of discipline · Abrégé de l'art poétique français, 1565 (French)

Pierre de Ronsard

“There is a small, material, mechanical part in every work of man, which true, original inspiration scorns in its ardent moments of rapture.”

Original: Hay una parte mecánica, pequeña y material en todas las obras del hombre, que la primitiva, la verdadera inspiración desdeña en sus ardientes momentos de arrebato. — Bécquer distinguishes the mysterious impulse of inspiration from the later mechanical labour of making art. · Letter II, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

“Give the name of poet to him who can make such a work, and not to the versifier, composer of epigrams, sonnets, satires, elegies and other such small scraps, where artifice cannot stretch far.”

Original: Donne-luy nom de poëte, et non au versificateur, composeur d'epigrammes, sonnets, satyres, elegies, et autres tels menus fatras, où l'artifice ne se peut estendre. — A sharp line drawn between the true poet and the mere maker of verses · Preface on the heroic poem, La Franciade (French)

Pierre de Ronsard

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