It is difficult to write a paradiso when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse.
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes that true artistry requires struggle and intensity, reflecting the chaotic nature of modern existence.
Ezra Pound asserts that the essence of being a modern artist lies in embracing conflict and turmoil. He argues that the most compelling artistry stems from genuine struggle, indicating that artists who avoid depicting this inner strife create work that lacks depth and interest. In this perspective, art becomes a battlefield for emotions and ideas, driven by the powerful forces that shape human experience.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the role of turmoil in culture, this quote can illustrate the necessity of conflict in authentic artistic expression.
More from Ezra Pound
All quotes βThe 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.
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours Forever and forever and forever.
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.
In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries.
Fundamental accuracy of statement is the ONE sole morality of writing.
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For those who were desperate, my camera became an object of hope (...)Throughout my year-long coverage of the monsoon world, my strongest conviction was that I was involved in the fundamentals of life.
What the newer landscape artists see in a circle of a hundred degrees in Nature they press together unmercifully into an angle of vision of only forty-five degrees. And furthermore, what is in Nature separated by large spaces, is compressed into a cramped space and overfills and oversatiates the eye, creating an unfavorable and disquieting effect on the viewer.
I feel that tennis is an art form that is capable of moving the players and the audience - at least a knowledgeable audience-in almost sensual ways. When I'm performing at my absolute best, I think that some of the euphoria I feel must be transmitted to the audience.
My work is always better when I am alone and follow my own impressions.
The poet alone knows astronomy, chemistry, vegetation, and animation, for he does not stop at these facts, but employs them as signs. He knows why the plain, or meadow of space, was strown with these flowers we call suns, and moons, and stars; why the deep is adorned with animals, with men, and gods; for, in every word he speaks he rides on them as the horses of thought.
It's still magic even if you know how it's done.