No poet is ever completely lost. He has the secret of his childhood safe with him, like some secret cave in which he can kneel. And, when we read his poetry, we can join him there.
Interpretation
Poets hold the essence of their childhood within them, allowing readers to connect with that innocence through their work.
The quote emphasizes that a poet's true essence and inspiration stem from their childhood experiences, which remain safeguarded within them like a hidden treasure. When readers engage with the poet's work, they are invited to share in this intimate space, connecting with the emotions and memories that shaped the poet's voice, allowing for a profound and shared artistic experience.
In practice
In a literary discussion about the inspiration behind a poet's work.
Why should a novelist not also be a historian? To force unnatural divisions within the English language is to work against its capacious and accommodating nature. To expect a writer to produce only novels, or only histories, is equivalent to demanding from a composer that he or she write only string quartets or piano sonatas.
It may seem unfashionable to say so, but historians should seize the imagination as well as the intellect. History is, in a sense, a story, a narrative of adventure and of vision, of character and of incident. It is also a portrait of the great general drama of the human spirit.
Writing is like going to bed with a beautiful woman and afterwards she gets up, goes to her purse and gives me a handful of money.
A good film demands its own score, and if you are a musician, your conscience will never allow you to do something mediocre for a good film.
If you are killed because you are a writer, that's the maximum expression of respect, you know.
Art is not just to show life as it is, but to show life as it should be.
Wearing clothes should be a personal narrative of emotion. I always respond to fashion in an emotional way.
Our Euripides the human, With his droppings of warm tears, and his touchings of things common Till they rose to meet the spheres.
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