QuoteProject
It is quite cruel that a poet cannot wander through his regions of enchantment without having a critic, forever, like the old man of the sea, upon his back.
Marianne Moore
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Poets often face criticism that can weigh heavily on their creative expression.

Marianne Moore's quote highlights the burden that critics impose on poets, suggesting that the creative process can be stifled by constant scrutiny. It metaphorically compares a critic to an Old Man of the Sea, symbolizing the overwhelming and often unfair weight of judgment that artists must carry as they explore their own imaginative realms.

Themes

PoetryCriticismCreativityExpressionArtistic Burden

In practice

Example use cases

A speaker at a writers' conference might use this quote to discuss the challenges of artistic creation.

More from Marianne Moore

Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.
Marianne MooreRead
Not till the poets among us can be "literalists of the imagination"-above insolence and triviality and can present for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them." shall we have it.
Marianne MooreRead
In a poem the excitement has to maintain itself. I am governed by the pull of the sentence as the pull of a fabric is governed by gravity.
Marianne MooreRead
Originality is... a by-product of sincerity.
Marianne MooreRead
I see no reason for calling my work poetry except that there is no other category in which to put it.
Marianne MooreRead
If technique is of no interest to a writer, I doubt that the writer is an artist.
Marianne MooreRead

Similar quotes

In school I was in the dark room all the time, and I've always collected stray photographs; there's a great deal of memory in them.
W. G. SebaldRead
I still think it's really quite wonderful when I read a sentence of mine and it has that quality of lastingness.
V. S. NaipaulRead
I believe art is utterly important. It is one of the things that could save us.
Mary OliverRead
This is no book. Whoever touches this touches a man.
Ezra PoundRead
This idea that my work is about hip-hop is a little reductive. What I'm interested in is the performance of masculinity, the performance of ethnicity, and how they intermingle across cultures.
Kehinde WileyRead
Originally, poetry creates the myth, while the prose-writer draws its portrait.
Jean-Paul SartreRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.