Each nationality contains its centre of happiness within itself, as a bullet the centre of gravity.
Johann Gottfried HerderRead
A poet is the creator of the nation around him, he gives them a world to see and has their souls in his hand to lead them to that world.
Interpretation
A poet shapes the identity and perspective of their culture through their creations.
This quote by Johann Gottfried Herder emphasizes the impactful role of a poet in society, suggesting that poets not only reflect the world around them but also actively contribute to shaping the consciousness and identity of their nation. By crafting beautiful and meaningful words, they lead society toward new ideas, visions, and understandings of the world, holding the collective spirit of the people in their artistry.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of art in education, one could use this quote to emphasize how poets influence culture.
Each nationality contains its centre of happiness within itself, as a bullet the centre of gravity.
So says the most ancient book of the Earth; thus it is written on its leaves of marble, lime, sand, slate, and clay: ... that our Earth has fashioned itself, from its chaos of substances and powers, through the animating warmth of the creative spirit, to a peculiar and original whole, by a series of preparatory revolutions, till at last the crown of its creation, the exquisite and tender creature man, was enabled to appear.
Thus we build on the ice, thus we write on the waves of the sea; the waves roaring pass away, the ice melts, and away goes our palace, like our thoughts.
The savage who loves himself, his wife and child with quiet joy and glows with limited activity of his tribe as for his own life is in my opinion a more real being than that cultivated shadow who is enraptured with the shadow of the whole species
Those that embrace the entire universe with love, for the most part love nothing, but their narrow selves.
The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burnt on the water.
I usually write for the individual reader -though I would like to have many such readers. There are some poets who write for people assembled in big rooms, so they can live through something collectively. I prefer my reader to take my poem and have a one-on-one relationship with it.
If I were a doctor, I would prescribe that you addict yourself deeply and irrevocably to music and never, ever seek cure outside of more music. It really is the best drug available.
I changed my writing style deliberately. My first two novels were written in a very self-consciously literary way. After I embraced gay subject matter, which was then new, I didn't want to stand in its way. I wanted to make the style as transparent as possible so I could get on with it and tell the story, which was inherently interesting.
I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who would call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one.
I couldn't possibly write 'Next to Normal,' but God, I can weep and watch 'Next to Normal' five times.
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