Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?
John KeatsRead
My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the artist's view of imagination as a sacred space for creativity and contemplation.
In this quote, John Keats illustrates the concept of imagination as a secluded and sacred space, much like a monastery. The comparison to a monk signifies dedication, discipline, and a monastic commitment to nurturing oneβs creative and imaginative abilities, suggesting that true artistry stems from such introspective exploration and solitude.
In practice
This quote can be shared in an art class to inspire students to value their imaginative processes.
Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?
Are there not thousands in the world who love their fellows even to the death, who feel the giant agony of the world, and more, like slaves to poor humanity, labor for mortal good?
Ask yourself my love whether you are not very cruel to have so entrammelled me, so destroyed my freedom. Will you confess this in the Letter you must write immediately, and do all you can to console me in it β make it rich as a draught of poppies to intoxicate me βwrite the softest words and kiss them that I may at least touch my lips where yours have been. For myself I know not how to express my devotion to so fair a form: I want a brighter word than bright, a fairer word than fair.
Faded the flower and all its budded charms,Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise!Vanishd unseasonably
I think we may class the lawyer in the natural history of monsters.
...I leaped headlong into the Sea, and thereby have become more acquainted with the Soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a silly pipe, and took tea and comfortable advice.
I sort of recognize it, as opposed to shaping it. Oh, that's a good idea, that's a good line. I wonder where I can use that. And when you get into a rhyme group like 'not,' you got a lot of rhymes, you got a lot of choices. The more you do it, the luckier you get.
Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity.
Let us not mince words: the marvelous is always beautiful, anything marvelous is beautiful, in fact only the marvelous is beautiful.
Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write 'War and Peace' in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling.
The goal of art was the vital expression of self.
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