"The poet needs to be deluded about his poems — for who can be sure that it is delusion? In his strongest hours the public hardly exists for the writer; he does what he ought to do, has to do, and if afterwards some Public wishes to come and crown him with laurel crowns, well, let it! if critics wish to tell people all that he isn’t, well, let them — he knows what he is. But at night when he can’t get to sleep it seems to him that it is what he is, his own particular personal quality, that he is being disliked for. It is this that the future will like him for, if it likes him for anything; but will it like him for anything? The poet’s hope is in posterity, but it is a pale hope; and now that posterity itself has become a pale hope..."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Novelists from the United StatesEssayists from the United StatesPoets from the United StatesChildren's authorsPeople from Nashville
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
“Poets, Critics, and Readers”, p. 109
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Randall_Jarrell
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Randall Jarrell
Randall Jarrell (6 May 1914 – 15 October 1965) was an American poet, novelist, critic, children's book author and essayist.
213 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Randall Jarrell →
Related Quotes
"The ways we miss our lives are life."
"His eye a ring inside a ring inside a ring That leers up, joyless, vile, in meek obscenity — This is the devil. Flesh…"
"For this last savior, man, I have lied as I lie now. But what is lying? Men wash their hands in blood, as best they c…"
"The soul has no assignments, neither cooks Nor referees: it wastes its time. It wastes its time. Here in this enclave…"
"It is G.E. Moore at the spinet."
"Somewhere there must be Something that's different from everything. All that I've never thought of — think of me!"
"She would have come from Paradise and complained to God that the apple wasn’t a winesap at all, but a great big pulpy…"
"From my mother's sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth,…"
"We read our mail and counted up our missions — In bombers named for girls, we burned The cities we had learned about …"
"Death and the devil, what are these to him? His being accuses him — and yet his face is firm In resolution, in absolu…"