quote · Legacy record
It is a shallow criticism that would define poetry as confined to literary productions in rhyme and metre. The written poem is only poetry talking, and the statue, the picture, and the musical composition are poetry acting. Milton and Goethe, at their desks, were not more truly poets than Phidias with his chisel, Raphael at his easel, or deaf Beethoven bending over his piano, inventing and producing strains which he himself could never hope to hear.
It is a shallow criticism that would define poetry as confined to literary productions in rhyme and metre. The written poem is only poetry talking, and the statue, the picture, and the musical composition are poetry acting. Milton and Goethe, at their desks, were not more truly poets than Phidias with his chisel, Raphael at his easel, or deaf Beethoven bending over his piano, inventing and producing strains which he himself could never hope to hear.
In print by 1881 AD · industrial
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- Author or tradition
- Ruskin (identity unresolved)
Attribution: unknown - Country attributed
- Not established
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- In print by 1881 AD · industrial
In print by 1881: recorded in Pearls of Thought (1881). Collection publication is an upper bound for this wording, not its earliest origin, composition date or the author's lifetime.
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- Pearls of Thought (1881) (1881 AD)
Page 202 · printed citation: Ruskin · subject: Poetry
A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.