It is difficult to write a paradiso when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse.
Ezra PoundRead
The critic who doesn't make a personal statement, in remeasurements he himself has made, is merely an unreliable critic. He is not a measurer but a repeater of other men's results. KRINO, to pick out for oneself, to choose. That's what the word means.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True critique requires personal insight and originality.
In this quote, Ezra Pound emphasizes that a critic must provide personal interpretations and insights rather than merely repeating the conclusions of others. The essence of true criticism involves individual judgment and the ability to engage with art or ideas deeply, contributing original perspectives instead of simply reiterating established thoughts.
Themes
CriticismOriginalityPerceptionInsightArt
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about the importance of personal insight in artistic critique.
More from Ezra Pound
All quotes →The ant's a centaur in his dragon world. Pull down thy vanity, it is not man Made courage, or made order, or made grace, Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down. Learn of the green world what can be thy place In scaled invention or true artistry, Pull down thy vanity, Paquin pull down! The green casque has outdone your elegance.
Ezra PoundRead
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours Forever and forever and forever.
Ezra PoundRead
Literature does not exist in a vacuum. Writers as such have a definite social function exactly proportional to their ability as writers. This is their main use.
Ezra PoundRead
In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries.
Ezra PoundRead
The modern artist must live by craft and violence. His gods are violent gods. Those artists, so called, whose work does not show this strife, are uninteresting.
Ezra PoundRead
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