Quote of the Day (Christopher Morley, on How a Poem Finds ‘Its Place in the Language’)
“It takes time for any poem to grow and ripen and
find its place in the language. It will
be for those of a hundred or more years hence to say what are the great poems
of our present day. If a sonnet has the
true vitality in it, it will gather association and richness about it as it
traces its slender golden path through the minds of readers. It settles itself comfortably into the
literary landscape, incorporates itself subtly into the unconscious thought of
men, becomes corpuscular in the blood of the language. It comes down to us in the accent of those
who have loved and quoted it, invigorated by our subtle sense of the permanent
rightness of its phrasing and our knowledge of the pleasure it has given to
thousands of others. The more it is
quoted, the better it seems.” — American journalist, novelist, essayist and
poet Christopher Morley (1890-1957), “The Permanence of Poetry,” in Plum Pudding (1921)
“It takes time for any poem to grow and ripen and
find its place in the language. It will
be for those of a hundred or more years hence to say what are the great poems
of our present day. If a sonnet has the
true vitality in it, it will gather association and richness about it as it
traces its slender golden path through the minds of readers. It settles itself comfortably into the
literary landscape, incorporates itself subtly into the unconscious thought of
men, becomes corpuscular in the blood of the language. It comes down to us in the accent of those
who have loved and quoted it, invigorated by our subtle sense of the permanent
rightness of its phrasing and our knowledge of the pleasure it has given to
thousands of others. The more it is
quoted, the better it seems.” — American journalist, novelist, essayist and
poet Christopher Morley (1890-1957), “The Permanence of Poetry,” in Plum Pudding (1921)
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