Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann WolfgangGoethetə/; German: ; 28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German writer and statesman. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour; and four novels. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters, and nearly 3,000 drawings by him exist...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth28 August 1749
CountryGermany
Poetic fire sank low in me When it was God I sought to see, But up it flamed, up to the sky, When it was Evil I had to fly
Superstition is poetry of life, so that it does not injure the poet to be superstitious
The poet should size the Particular, and he should, if there be anything sound in it, thus represent the Universal
The poet should seize the Particular, and he should, if there be anything sound in it, thus represent the Universal.
At bottom, no real object is unpoetical, if the poet knows how to use it properly.
Whoever would understand the poet Must go into the poet's country. [Ger., Wer den Dichter will verstehen Muss in Dichters Lande gehen.]
Modern poets add a lot of water to their ink.
We are pantheists as natural scientists, polytheists as poets, and monotheists as moral beings.
The question "From where does the poet get it?" addresses only the what, nobody learns anything about the how when asking that question.
If you want to understand poetry, You have to go to its origin, If you want to understand the poet, You have to go to the Poet's home.
Give shape, artist! don't talk! Your poem be but a breath.
After all, poets shouldn't be their own interpreters and shouldn't carefully dissect their poems into everyday prose; that would mean the end of being poets. Poets send their creations into the world, it is up to the reader, the aesthetician, and the critic to determine what they wanted to say with their creations.
True art can only spring from the intimate linking of the serious and the playful.
Superstition is the poesy of practical life; hence, a poet is none the worse for being superstitious.