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« Three Poems by Amy Gerstler | Main | Angela Ball Honored at the University of Southern Mississippi »

October 22, 2022

Auden on critics

Auden1


“There are people who are too intelligent

to become authors,

but they do not become critics."

Posted by on October 22, 2022 at 11:25 AM in Auden, Feature, Spontaneous Aphorisms |

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Comments

I always loved that quote by W.H. Auden. Here's another savory observation by him: "Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about." Mull over this Audenism too: "Technique in itself cannot make a good poem, but the lack of it can spoil one." I plucked both quotes from SWEET THEFT: A POET'S COMMONPLACE BOOK by J.D. “Sandy” McClatchy (1945-2018), whose honors course in LaSalle College’s English department during my sophomore year (1970-1971) was a bracing intellectual treat. Poet Tim Dlugos (1950-1990) was in that same course.

Posted by: Dr. Earle Hitchner | October 29, 2022 at 12:03 PM

Very wise & true.

Posted by: Terence Winch | October 29, 2022 at 02:57 PM

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