It is difficult to write a paradiso when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse.
Ezra PoundRead
A great age of literature is perhaps always a great age of translations.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The peak of literary achievement often coincides with the flourishing of translations.
Ezra Pound suggests that an era marked by significant literary works is likely to be accompanied by an increase in translations, allowing diverse cultures and ideas to be shared and appreciated. Translations play a crucial role in spreading literary excellence beyond linguistic barriers, enriching the world with various perspectives and styles, thus contributing to the overall greatness of a literary age.
Themes
LiteratureTranslationsCultureAchievementCommunication
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of literature in schools, this quote could highlight the value of translations in enriching students' understanding.
More from Ezra Pound
All quotes βThe ant's a centaur in his dragon world. Pull down thy vanity, it is not man Made courage, or made order, or made grace, Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down. Learn of the green world what can be thy place In scaled invention or true artistry, Pull down thy vanity, Paquin pull down! The green casque has outdone your elegance.
Ezra PoundRead
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours Forever and forever and forever.
Ezra PoundRead
Literature does not exist in a vacuum. Writers as such have a definite social function exactly proportional to their ability as writers. This is their main use.
Ezra PoundRead
In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries.
Ezra PoundRead
The modern artist must live by craft and violence. His gods are violent gods. Those artists, so called, whose work does not show this strife, are uninteresting.
Ezra PoundRead
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You don't put your life into your books, you find it there.
Alan BennettRead
A man of letters, merely by reading a phrase, can estimate exactly the literary merit of its author.
Marcel ProustRead
A classic,' suggested Anthony, 'is a successful book that has survived the reaction of the next period or generation. Then it's safe, like a style in architecture or furniture. It's acquired a picturesque dignity to take the place of its fashion.
F. Scott FitzgeraldRead
I suppose you could say my father's world was Thomas Hardy and my mother's D.H. Lawrence.
Seamus HeaneyRead
The one thing about being a dude and writing from a female perspective is that the baseline is, you suck. The baseline is it takes so long for you to work those atrophied muscles - for you to get on parity with what women's representations of men are.
Junot DiazRead
In an age when other fantastically speedy, widespread media are triumphing, and running the risk of flattening all communication onto a single, homogenous surface, the function of literature is communication between things that are different simply because they are different, not blunting but even sharpening the differences between them, following the true bent of written language.
Italo CalvinoRead