This Craft of Verse

Sometimes, looking at the many books I have at home, I feel I shall die before I come to the end of them, yet I cannot resist the temptation of buying new books. Whenever I walk into a bookstore and find a book on one of my hobbies — for example, Old English or Old Norse poetry — I say to myself, “What a pity I can’t buy that book, for I already have a copy at home.

Hay una dignidad en la derrota que a duras penas le corresponde a la victoria.

What is a book? A book seems, like a picture, to be a living being; and yet if we ask it something, it does not answer. Then we see that it is dead.In order to make the book into a living thing, he invented—happily for us—the Platonic dialogue, which forestalls the reader’s doubts and questions.

It is a fact, indeed, that most of the great teachers of mankind have been not writers but speakers. Think of Pythagoras, Christ, Socrates, the Buddha, and so on. And since I have spoken of Socrates, I would like to say something about Plato. I remember Bernard Shaw said that Plato was the dramatist who invented Socrates

how strange it is. For perfect things in poetry do not seem strange; they seem inevitable. And so we hardly thank the writer for his pains.

A pesar de que la vida de un hombre se componga de miles y miles de momentos y días, esos muchos instantes y esos muchos días pueden ser reducidos a uno: el momento en que un hombre averigua quién es, cuando se ve cara a cara consigo mismo.

I think the first reading of a poem is a true one, and after that we delude ourselves into the belief that the sensation the impression, is repeated. But, as I say, it may be mere loyalty,a mere trick of memory a mere confusion we once felt,thus it may be said that poetry is a new experience every time,every time I read a poem the experience happns to occur and that is poetry

And life is, I am sure, made of poetry. Poetry is not alien--poetry is, as we will see, lurking round the corner. It may spring on us at any moment.

Si tengo que definir la poesía y no las tengo todas conmigo, si no me siento demasiado seguro, digo algo como: «poesía es la expresión de la belleza por medio de palabras artísticamente entretejidas». Esta definición podría valer para un diccionario o para un libro de texto, pero a nosotros nos parece poco convincente. Hay algo mucho más importante: algo que nos animaría no sólo a seguir ensayando la poesía, sino a disfrutarla y a sentir que lo sabemos todo sobre ella. Esto significa que sabemos qué es la poesía. Lo sabemos tan bien que no podemos definirla con otras palabras, como somos incapaces de definir el sabor del café, el color rojo o amarillo o el significado de la ira, el amor, el odio, el amanecer, el atardecer o el amor por nuestro país. Estas cosas están tan arraigadas en nosotros que sólo pueden ser expresadas por esos símbolos comunes que compartimos. ¿Y por qué habríamos de necesitar más palabras?

Czym są w końcu słowa? Słowa to symbole naszych wspólnych wspomnień. Kiedy używam danego słowa, spodziewam się, że czytelnicy posiadają pewne doświadczenia, związane z jego znaczeniem.

Todo el mundo sabe dónde encontrar la poesía. Y, cuando aparece, uno siente el roce de la poesía, ese especial estremecimiento.

...perhaps the intentions of the poet are not that important. What is important nowadays is that although Homer might have thought he was telling that story, he was actually telling something far finer: the story of a man, a hero, who is attacking a city he knows he will never conquer, who knows he will die before it falls; and the still more stirring tale of men defending a city whose doom is already known to them, a city that is already in flames.

Os evangelhos também podem ser lidos de duas maneiras. Pelo fiel, são lidos como a estranha história de um homem, de um deus, que expia os pecados da humanidade. Um deus que se digna ao sofrimento — a morte na "amarga cruz", como diz Shakespeare. Há ainda uma terceira interpretação, que encontrei em Langland: a ideia de que Deus queria saber tudo sobre o sofrimento humano e que não Lhe bastava sabê-lo intelectualmente, como é facultado a um deus; queria sofrer como um homem, e com as limitações de um homem. Contudo, se você for um incrédulo (muitos de nós somos), então poderá ler a história de modo diverso. Pôde pensar num homem de gênio, num homem que pensava ser deus e que no final descobriu ser somente um homem, e que deus — o seu deus — o abandonara.