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The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful.
Robert Penn Warren
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote emphasizes poetry's role in giving meaning to human existence.

Robert Penn Warren's quote suggests that poetry, like a myth, embodies the human ability to imbue life with significance and purpose. Through the creative expression found in poetry, individuals can explore and articulate the complexities of their experiences, thereby shaping their understanding of life's meaning and their place within it.

Themes

PoetryMeaningLifeCreativityExpression

In practice

Example use cases

In a literary discussion about how poetry reflects human experiences.

More from Robert Penn Warren

...the air so still it aches like the place where the tooth was on the morning after you’ve been to the dentist or aches like your heart in the bosom when you stand on the street corner waiting for the light to change and happen to recollect how things once were and how they might have been yet if what happened had not happened.
Robert Penn WarrenRead
And what we students of history always learn is that the human being is a very complicated contraption and that they are not good or bad but are good and bad and the good comes out of the bad and the bad out of the good, and the devil take the hindmost.
Robert Penn WarrenRead
Yet the definition we have made of ourselves is ourselves. To break out of it, we must make a new self. But how can the self make a new self when the selflessness which it is, is the only substance from which the new self can be made?
Robert Penn WarrenRead
So little time we live in Time,_x000D_ _x000D_ And we learn all so painfully,_x000D_ _x000D_ That we may spare this hour's term_x000D_ _x000D_ To practice for Eternity.
Robert Penn WarrenRead
For what is a poem but a hazardous attempt at self-understanding: it is the deepest part of autobiography.
Robert Penn WarrenRead
Storytelling and copulation are the two chief forms of amusement in the South. They're inexpensive and easy to procure.
Robert Penn WarrenRead

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