Monday, July 16, 2007

Quotes: Literacy. Literature.

A collection of quotes on various topics. The sentence in bold face is a plain statement of the quote that follows.

Literacy
In American history, the spoken word predominated over the printed word.
Literacy 10 The Puritans of Massachusetts Bay thus foreshadowed the circumstances which, throughout American history, were to give peculiar prominence to the spoken, as contrasted with the printed, word. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

Speaking is more topical than writing.
Literacy 10 The spoken word is inevitably more topical than the printed word. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

“Plain” [writing] style, in contrast to the “metaphysical” style, emphasized persuasion and practical consequences.
Literacy, style 11 In contrast to the involved “metaphysical” style of Lancelot Andrewes and John Donne, the Puritans developed a manner which came to be known, in their own words, as the “plain” style…greater attention to persuasion and the practical consequences. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

Literature
Why bore kids with critical analysis of literature; it’s of interest only to literary critics.
Literary analysis 319 Gore Vidal: this business of taking novels apart in order to show bored children how they were put together…only a literary critic would benefit…so what is the point to these desultory autopsies…? Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

The literary canon is what has been preserved from all that has been written.
Literary Canon 17 The Canon, once we view it as the relation of an individual reader and writer to what has been preserved out of what has been written, and forget the canon as a list of books for required reading. . . . Bloom, Western Canon.

The test for membership in the literary canon is whether the work demands rereading.
Literary Canon 30 One ancient test for the canonical remains fiercely valid: unless it demands rereading, the work does not qualify. Bloom, Western Canon.

The works in the literary canon cause us to think.
Literary Canon 41 Without the Canon, we cease to think. Bloom, Western Canon.

The works in the canon are chosen for their singularity, not because they fit into some pattern.
Literary Canon 147 ...this unrealized truth about the Western canon: works are appropriated by it for their singularity, not because they fit smoothly into an existing order. Bloom, Western Canon.

A classic has survived the following generations.
Literary classic 89 A classic, suggested Anthony, is a successful book that has survived the reaction of the next period or generation. F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing.

Farrell is really a journalist, a stenographer.
Literary criticism 240 N. Algren: I don’t think [Farrell] is a writer, really…too journalistic for my taste…too stenographic. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

From reading criticisms of her books, F. Sagan said she learned about intentions she had never had.
Literary criticism 306 F. Sagan in response to the question, “Did you learn anything from the published criticism of the book?” “They saw intentions I never had.” Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

You read his books as if you were going to the movies.
Literary criticism 85 …one woman who could hardly have written a coherent letter in English described [The Great Gatsby] as a book that one read only as one goes to the movies around the corner. F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing.

Writers need readers who have the same spirit.
Literary Criticism 25 “Every scripture is to be interpreted by the same spirit that gave it forth,”—is the fundamental law of criticism. Emerson, Nature.

Don’t commend him for what he has written, but for what he did not write.
Literary criticism 834 Cervantes: …that he be commended not for what he writes, but for what he has refrained from writing. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha. Part Two: 1615.

Shakespeare and Cervantes had broad humanity, tolerance and an ironic vision of life.
Literary Criticism 16 …to Shakespeare, whom…he [Cervantes] resembles, owing to his broad humanity, toleration, and profoundly ironic vision of life. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha. Introduction by Walter Starkie.

Correct English is the slang of prigs who write history, essays and, especially, poetry.
Literary criticism 98 …correct English is the slang of prigs who write history and essays; and the strongest slang of all is the slang of poets. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

Great men and tall men were the same in the theater.
Literary criticism 126 One would believe [in the theater] that we thought a great man and a tall man the same thing. Addison, 4/18/1711. The Spectator.

The glib playwrights are murderers of art.
Literary Criticism 371 Dionysus: Mere nubbins with a silly gift of gab;/ …murderers of art. Aristophanes, Frogs.

Today’s poets cannot compose one ringing phrase.
Literary Criticism 372 Dionysus: What potent poet can you find today,/ To father one full-bodied, ringing phrase. Aristophanes, Frogs.

He is a bad poet; his rhythms are all the same.
Literary criticism 408 Euripides of Aeschylus: I can prove he’s a bad melody maker: he makes them all alike. Aristophanes, Frogs.

You can’t manufacture a story the way you can a table.
Literature 187 “An engagement to write a story must in its nature be conditional; because stories grow like vegetables, and are not manufactured like a pine table.” Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.

Literature makes the moment permanent, saving it from the rush of time.
Literature 8 What are stories but attempts to fix the permanence of the moment, to salvage it from the rushing impermanence of time? Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.

You cannot read Hawthorne with speed; you have to be in the right mood.
Literature 83 [Reviewer]: “To be read fitly, he should be read in the right mood and at the proper hour...taken in haste and opened at random, would do him great wrong.” Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.

Great literature can never be totally understood because its meaning continually modifies in the mind.
Literature 274 ...great literature, whose meanings...can never be totally grasped because of their endless power to ramify in the individual mind. Eiseley, The Star Thrower

Studying literature will not save individuals or improve society.
Literature 31 The study of literature, however it is conducted, will not save any individual, any more than it will improve any society. Bloom, Western Canon.

Read literature to find values that transcend the prejudices and needs of our time.
Literature 62 ...quest that is the final aim of literary study, the search for a kind of value that transcends the particular prejudices and needs of societies at fixed points in time. Bloom, Western Canon.

The virtual reality of literature: characters who persuade us that they are real.
Literature 105 ...the virtual reality of literary characters, convincingly persuasive women and men. Bloom, Western Canon.

The plays of MoliƩre remind me of my own worst qualities and the worst qualities of my enemies.
Literature 159 I cannot read Moliere or attend a performance of Tartuffe or The Misanthrope without reflecting on my own worst qualities, as well as the dreadful qualities of my enemies. Bloom, Western Canon.

What was the writer trying to do with this poem, play or story?
Literature 249 What was the writer trying to do for herself or himself, as a person, by writing this poem, play, or story? Bloom, Western Canon.

Tolstoy enables the reader to see everything as if for the first time.
Literature 336 ...the reader’s happy conviction that Tolstoy enables him to see everything as if for the first time. Bloom, Western Canon.

With his death, we are purged of pity, anger and desire.
Literature 349 As Hadji Murad dies, he is purged of pity, anger, and desire. And so is Tolstoy. And so are we. Bloom, Western Canon.

Austen was like Shakespeare in that she wrote without hate, bitterness, fear, protest or preaching.
Literature 434 Woolf on Austen: Here was a woman about the year 1800 writing without hate, without bitterness, without fear, without protest, without preaching; that was how Shakespeare wrote.... Bloom, Western Canon.

All writers of literature plagiarize to some degree.
Literature 472 All literature is plagiaristic to some degree. Bloom, Western Canon.

Departments of English will be renamed departments of “cultural studies.”
Literature 519 What are now called “Departments of English” will be renamed departments of “Cultural Studies” where Batman comics, Mormon theme parks, television, movies, and rock will replace Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, and Wallace Stevens. Bloom, Western Canon.

In American culture literacy replaced literature.
Literature 293 Was there perhaps some connection between these two characteristics of American culture?--between the literacy of the whole community and the unliterary character of the ruling groups? Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

The characteristic American man of letters was the journalist, the writer of how-to-do-it manuals and the publicist.
Literature 294 Not the litterateur but the journalist, not the essayist but the writer of how-to-do-it manuals, not the “artist” but the publicist is the characteristic American man of letters. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

The American literati were clergymen, physicians, printers, lawyers, and farmers. Literature 314 ...American men of letters were not literati; they were clergymen, physicians, printers, lawyers, farmers. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

No American would inhabit a garret in order to write literature.
Literature 317 Timothy Dwight: No American has within my knowledge been willing to inhabit a garret, for the sake of becoming an author. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

The essence of literary expression in America was the newspaper.
Literature 327 The most appropriate literary expression of an American life so shifting, so full of novelty, motion, and variety was the kaleidoscopic, ephemeral, miscellaneous newspaper. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

The popularity of the magazine revealed the extensive literacy, but not the literary nature of most Americans.
Literature 328 The magazine...unprecedented success in America...a sign of the pervasively literate though emphatically non-literary character of our culture. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

Rembrandt wanted to find in his own experience the way to represent every episode in the Bible.
Literature 203 Rembrandt…wanted to look at every episode [of the Bible] as if it had never been depicted before, and to try to find an equivalent for it in his own experience. Clark, Civilization.

Richard Wright wanted to write books that were so hard, no one would weep over them as they had wept over Native Son.
Literature 384 Richard Wright on Native Son: I found I had written a book which even bankers’ daughters could read and weep over and feel good about…swore to myself that if
I ever wrote another book, no one would weep over it; that it would be so hard and so deep that they would have to face it without the consolation of tears. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.

Metaphor is characteristic of Elizabethan literature.
Literature 112 ...wealth of metaphor is characteristically Elizabethan.... Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon.

Literature is a useless profession; authors are burdens to their relatives and die of hunger.
Literature 203 Voltaire’s father on his son’s proposing to take up literature as his life’s work: Literature is the profession of the man who wishes to be useless to society and a burden to his relatives, and to die of hunger. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.

Paradise Lost is lofty; Shakespeare is great, but he has a lot of low talk.
Literature 387 Captain Littlepage: There’s nothing that ranks to my mind, with Paradise Lost; it’s all lofty, all lofty…Shakespeare was a great poet; he copied life, but you have to put up with a great deal of low talk. Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.

Theologians talk about sinners in the abstract; literature gives them flesh and blood.
Literature 37 F. Mauriac: the theologians give us an abstract idea of the sinner; I give him flesh and blood. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

The novel is in crisis because it has lost its purpose.
Literature 46 F. Mauriac: The crisis of the novel: the novel has lost its purpose. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

In great literature, the author disappears and his work remains.
Literature 48 F. Mauriac: the rarest thing in literature and the only success, is when the author disappears and his work remains…; [for example, we] don’t know who Shakespeare was, or Homer. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

Reading a novel should give a sense of experience, conveying emotional truth rather than arguments.
Literature 55 Joyce Cary: A novel should be an experience and convey an emotional truth rather than arguments. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

The novel is the fact plus the feeling, a sense of the complex experience in a real world.
Literature 55 Joyce Cary: But what you try to convey is reality—the fact plus the feeling, a total complex experience of a real world. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

Real people are too complex and disorganized to fit into novels.
Literature 57 Joyce Cary: …real people are too complex and too disorganized for books…not simple enough. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

Great theater gives us the strength to face the world as it is.
Literature 110 Thornton Wilder: We live in what is, but we find a thousand ways not to face it[;] great theater strengthens our faculty to face it. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

The aim of every artist is to arrest life so that years later, people will see it and it moves again.
Literature 139 Faulkner: The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

In the novel you create a sense of continuing life.
Literature 165 Frank O’Connor: Creating in the novel a sense of continuing life is the thing. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

When you’re writing stories, you’re saying, “This story is about you.” [i.e., the reader]
Literature 181 Frank O’Connor: You’re saying [to the reader] all the time, “This story is about you….” Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

Imaginative writing is a way of seeing what is possible.
Literature 198 RP Warren: In one way…all writing that is any good is experimental; that is, it’s a way of seeing what is possible…. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

The New Critics looked at literature as an object.
Literature 201 RP Warren: One thing that a lot of so-called New Critics had in common was a willingness to look long and hard at the literary object. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

The function of a writer is not to criticize, but to create living characters.
Literature 215 A. Moravia: In my view, the function of a writer is not to criticize anyway; only to create living characters. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

The novelist’s job is not to provide answers, but to present the human situation.
Literature 264 Angus Wilson: I don’t think it’s the novelist’s job to give answers…only concerned with exposing the human situation. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

I write about what I have discovered about human emotions.
Literature 264 Angus Wilson: but as a novelist I’m concerned solely with what I’ve discovered about human emotions. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

Good [imaginative] writing is written by neurotics, not by “happy chuckleheads.”
Literature 282 Wm. Styron: The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone’s neurosis, and we’d have a mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a bunch of happy chuckleheads. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

Art is an illusion that makes one think it is close to life.
Literature 306 F. Sagan: Of course the illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true: life is amorphous, literature is formal. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

Story rejected because “if American women are like this, we don’t want to know.”
Literature 144 W-T Budlong: One story of mine…was rejected by a general magazine with the comment, “If American women are like that, we don’t want to know about it.” Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

On Faulkner’s difficult writing style: He ought to make it more accessible to the ordinary citizen.
Literature 321 Rudolf Flesch on Faulkner’s difficult style: Maybe he has a moral obligation to make his work accessible to all who could be enriched by it…writers who use an intensely personal style have gone too far in their literary artistry…betrayed the great audience ready for the fruits of their imagination. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

Literature uses words to make you hear, feel and, above all, see.
Literature 6 Joseph Conrad defined it more clearly, more vividly than any man of our time: ‘My task is by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel—it is, before all, to make you see.’ F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing.

The two basic stories are “Cinderella” and “Jack the Giant Killer,” representing the charm of women and the courage of men.
Literature 7 The two basic stories of all times are Cinderella and Jack the Giant Killer—the charm of women and the courage of men. F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing.

Literature is cheap amusement, a drug of the soul.
Literature 9 …cheap amusement…the heroin of the soul. F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing.

Writers of imaginative literature increase the range of human life.
Literature 20 Someone once said—and I am quoting most inexactly—“A writer who manages to look a little more deeply into his own soul or the soul of others, finding there, through his gift, things that no other man has ever seen or dared to say, has increased the range of human life.” F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing.

Praise writers who please but don’t corrupt, who instruct without wearying.
Literature 190 Johnson: This praise…requires to be given to writers who please and do not corrupt, who instruct and do not weary. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

In literary circles, book makers, editors, university deans and professors had ordinary intellectual talent.
Literature 985 I remarked in England, in confirmation of a frequent experience at home, that, in literary circles, the men of trust and consideration, book makers, editors, university deans and professors…were by no means men of the largest literary talent, but usually of a low and ordinary intellectuality, with a sort of mercantile activity and working talent. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Power.

Literature is made up of a few ideas and some basic stories.
Literature 1149 Literature is made up of a few ideas and a few fables. Emerson, Uncollected Prose.

Two Years Before the Mast is a narrative that is superior to argument and sentimental appeals in making its case for the mistreatment of sailors.
Literature 1174 On Two Years Before the Mast: This simple narrative…with deep sincerity and…an unstudied, pathetic eloquence, may lead to reflections, which mere argument and sentimental appeals do not call forth…will serve to hasten the day of reckoning between society and the sailor, which, though late, will not fail to come. Emerson, Uncollected Prose.

Little poetry has been written about the outrage of slavery.
Literature 1270 “Anti Slavery Poems”: …indeed, it is strange how little poetry this outrage of Negro slavery has produced. Emerson, Uncollected Prose.

With study, the sense of Plato’s ideas deepens.
Literature 654 His [Plato’s] sense deepens, his merits multiply, with study. Emerson, Representative Men: Plato, or The Philosopher.

Shakespeare found the drama ideal for his thoughts and images.
Literature 721 He was a full man, who liked to talk; a brain exhaling thoughts and images, which seeking vent, found the drama next at hand. Emerson, Representative Men: Shakespeare, or the Poet.

Great poets are cheerful because beauty is their aim.
Literature 724 …his cheerfulness, without which no man can be a poet,--for beauty is his aim. Emerson, Representative Men: Shakespeare, or the Poet.

Because of literature, we shall see the world with new eyes.
Literature 48 So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes.... Emerson, Nature.

Novels do not effect changes in anyone other than novelists, whose writing is affected.
Literature 43 Philip Roth: I don’t believe that, in my society, novels effect serious changes in anyone other than the handful of people who are writers, whose own novels are of course seriously affected by other novelists’ novels. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

The first obligation of the writer is to be interesting, not to change the world.
Literature 298 John Barth: I prefer Henry James’ remark that the first obligation of the writer is to be interesting…to be interesting, not to change the world. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

Nothing happens because we read poetry.
Literature 298 John Barth: Poetry makes nothing happen. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

All writers aim to teach.
Literature 46 Thornton Wilder: I suspect that all writers have some didactic intention. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

You can’t have great poets without great audiences.
Literature and audience 90 Walt Whitman: To have great poets, there must be great audiences too. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

Euripides showed cruelty, passion and suffering, moving people to become compassionate.
Literature compassion 262 One thing alone to help [Athens] he [Euripides] had been fitted to do: he could so write as to show the hideousness of cruelty and men’s fierce passions, and the piteousness of suffering, weak, and wicked human beings, and move men thereby to the compassion which they were learning to forget. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

The Greek drama brought people into union with each other.
Literature religion drama 277 The religion of the drama brought men into union with one another. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

The Greek drama set men free of themselves because they realized the universal suffering of life.
Literature suffering life 277 Men were set free from themselves [by the drama] when they all realized together the universal suffering of life. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

Literature will be read twice; journalism, once.
Literature vs. journalism 256 Cyril Connolly: Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

Journalism gives the look of the world, literature, the feel of the world.
Literature vs. journalism 256 Archibald MacLeish: Journalism is concerned with the look of the world, poetry with the feel of the world. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

Journalism allows people to witness history, literature, the opportunity to live it.
Literature vs. journalism 257 John Hersey: Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers the opportunity to live it. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

It’s too literary; I recognized only 15% of the allusions.
Literature, allusions 92 Thurber quoting Harold Ross: “Goddam it, this is too literary; I got only fifteen percent of the allusions.” Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

I will use wit to enliven morality and give wit purpose in the cause of morality.
Literature, Spectator 31 …I shall endeavor to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality. Addison, 3/12/1711. The Spectator.

The meaning of symbols is uncertain.
Literature, symbols 65 Joyce Cary: Symbols are highly uncertain. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

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