There, by the starlit fences The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.
A. E. HousmanRead
Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out. Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The essence of poetry may be diluted by over-analyzing its meaning.
A. E. Housman suggests that while poetry often carries a deeper meaning, seeking to fully understand it can detract from the enjoyment it provides. The mystery and emotion in poetic language can be lost when one tries to dissect it too thoroughly, implying that some aspects of art are meant to be felt rather than entirely understood.
Themes
PoetryUnderstandingPleasureArtEnjoyment
In practice
Example use cases
During a poetry reading, one might use this quote to encourage audience members to experience the poem emotionally rather than analytically.
More from A. E. Housman
All quotes βWho made the world I cannot tell; 'Tis made, and here am I in hell. My hand, though now my knuckles bleed, I never soiled with such a deed.
A. E. HousmanRead
I am not a pessimist but a pejorist (as George Eliot said she was not an optimist but a meliorist); and that philosophy is founded on my observation of the world, not on anything so trivial and irrelevant as personal history.
A. E. HousmanRead
Lovers lying two and two Ask not whom they sleep beside, And the bridegroom all night through Never turns him to the bride.
A. E. HousmanRead
And malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man.
A. E. HousmanRead
Oh, 'tis jesting, dancing, drinking_x000D_ _x000D_ Spins the heavy world around.
A. E. HousmanRead
Similar quotes
Reality is the richest thing there is, the most important thing there is. Our imagination allows us to live an artificial life that is wonderful, extremely rich, but I don't believe any artist would dare to say that artifice is better than real life.
Mario Vargas LlosaRead
And so, resisting the temptation to wallow in artistic remorse, I prefer to leave both well and ill alone and to think about something else
Aldous HuxleyRead
Poems, novels - these things belong to the nation, to the culture, and the people.
Joseph BrodskyRead
When you draw a nude, sketch the whole figure and nicely fit the members to it and to each other. Even though you may only finish one portion of the drawing, just make certain that all the parts hang together, so that the study will be useful to you in the future.
Leonardo Da VinciRead
Bad Gardens copy, good gardens create, great gardens transcend. What all great gardens have in common are their ability to pull the sensitive viewer out of him or herself and into the garden, so completely that the separate self-sense disappears entirely, and at least for a brief moment one is ushered into a nondual and timeless awareness. A great garden, in other words, is mystical no matter what its actual content.
Ken WilberRead
Writing ought either to be the manufacture of stories for which there is a market demand - a business as safe and commendable as making soap or breakfast foods - or it should be an art, which is always a search for something for which there is no market demand, something new and untried, where the values are intrinsic and have nothing to do with standardized values.
Willa CatherRead