I begin to understand how a critic like [Ivor] Winters can argue that the brief lyric may be greater than a complete tragedy, since the lyric can hope for perfection, an unflawed wholeness and unity.
—Donald Justice, “On the Purity of Style,” Platonic Scripts (U. of Michigan Press, 1984)
Showing posts with label perfection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label perfection. Show all posts
should be an event
[Eliot writes in a letter to J.H. Woods, his former professor at Harvard.]
My reputation in London is built upon one small volume of verse, and is kept up by printing two or three more poems in a year. The only thing that matters is that these should be perfect in their kind, so that each should be an event.
—T.S. Eliot, The Letters of T. S. Eliot (vol. I, Harcourt Brace, 1988, p. 285), edited by Valerie Eliot.
My reputation in London is built upon one small volume of verse, and is kept up by printing two or three more poems in a year. The only thing that matters is that these should be perfect in their kind, so that each should be an event.
—T.S. Eliot, The Letters of T. S. Eliot (vol. I, Harcourt Brace, 1988, p. 285), edited by Valerie Eliot.
astonished to finish
I am always astonished when I finish anything. Astonished and depressed. My instinct for perfection should inhibit me until I get started. But I distract myself and do it. What I achieve is a product in me, not by applying my will but by giving into it. I begin because I'm not motivated to think; I conclude because I haven't the nerve to leave off. The book is my act of cowardice.
—Fernando Pessoa, "Always Astonished: A Journal," Always Astonished: Selected Prose (City Lights Books, 1988), translated by Edwin Honig
—Fernando Pessoa, "Always Astonished: A Journal," Always Astonished: Selected Prose (City Lights Books, 1988), translated by Edwin Honig
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