It is difficult to write a paradiso when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse.
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writers have a crucial role in society that corresponds to their writing skills.
Ezra Pound emphasizes that literature and writing are deeply connected to the social context in which they are created. He suggests that authors have an important responsibility to society that is directly linked to their talent and abilities, indicating that their work has practical implications beyond mere artistic expression.
Themes
LiteratureSocial FunctionWritersResponsibilityArt
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the role of artists in society, this quote can highlight the importance of literature.
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
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
Fundamental accuracy of statement is the ONE sole morality of writing.
Ezra PoundRead
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Flannery O'ConnorRead
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William GoldmanRead
For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography, and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time.
Louis L'AmourRead
Ah yes, the paradox of publicity is that even as we do it, we know it's killing off the chance of another reader happening across our book in the ideal state of innocence.
Emma DonoghueRead
It is with noble sentiments that bad literature gets written.
Andre GideRead