It is difficult to write a paradiso when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse.
Ezra PoundRead
Music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance... poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Music and poetry thrive when they remain connected to dance and rhythm.
Ezra Pound's quote emphasizes the intrinsic relationship between music, dance, and poetry. It suggests that when these art forms become too disconnected from their fundamental roots—such as the rhythmic physical expression of dance or the melodic qualities of music—they lose their vitality and relevance, leading to an artistic decline. This underscores the importance of interconnectedness in the arts.
Themes
MusicPoetryDanceArtCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of maintaining cultural traditions, one could quote this to highlight how art forms influence each other.
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
Similar quotes
My goal is to live the truly religious life, and express it in my music. If you live it, when you play there's no problem because the music is part of the whole thing. To be a musician is really something. It goes very, very deep. My music is the spiritual expression of what I am - my faith, my knowledge, my being.
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My view of actors is that basically they're all harmless lunatics who'd be on the psychiatrist's couch, except that we get this sort of catharsis every six months or so, and we go and be absolutely someone else.
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Art is not just to show life as it is, but to show life as it should be.
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I'm doing one of three things: I'm writing. I'm staring out the window. Or I'm writhing on the floor.
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The best books come from someplace inside. You don't write because you want to, but because you have to.
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Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
Jean CocteauRead