Quote#Books & Reading
If literature (realistic) did really resemble life, it would be…
Quote byT. E. Hulme · 1883–1917
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Notes on Language and Style (1929).
English (original)
If literature (realistic) did really resemble life, it would be interminable, dreary, commonplace eating and dressing, buttoning, with here and there a patch of vividness. Life is composed of exquisite moments and the rest is shadows of them.
— T. E. Hulme
More from T. E. Hulme
There were certain impressions I wanted to fix. I read verse models but none seemed to suitably express that kind of impression..until I came to read French vers libre which seemed to eactly fitr the case.
All emotions are the ore from which poetry may be sifted.
The unit of significance in the poem is not the word but the phrase or sentence...a poet should consider the effect of the whole poem, not its local felicities.
My objection to metre is that it enables people to write verse with no poetic inspiration.
There is nothing to do but keep on.
It is a delicate & difficult art fitting rhythm to an idea...communicating momentary phases in a poet's mind.