Quoteskimming
Quoteskimming: my new word for ganking quotes about writing from here and there.
From "An Essay on Criticism", by Alexander Pope:
Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,
Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.
False Eloquence, like the Prismatic Glass,
Its gawdy Colours spreads on ev'ry place;
The Face of Nature was no more Survey,
All glares alike, without Distinction gay:
But true Expression, like th' unchanging Sun,
Clears, and improves whate'er it shines upon,
It gilds all Objects, but it alters none.
* * *
True Ease in Writing comes from Art, not Chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance,
'Tis not enough no Harshness gives Offence,
The Sound must seem an Eccho to the Sense.
Pope's Essay on Criticism is a poem written in heroic couplets (rhymed couplets written in iambic pentameter). Although it purports to instruct "criticks" on how to judge (or how not to judge) writing, it is truly addressed to writers in general - those who would write as well as those who would judge the writing of others. It is long, and can feel a bit tedious owing to so many end-stopped rhymes, but it has wonderful advice in there.
The second bit comes from the middle of a very long stanza that begins "But most by Numbers judge a Poet's Song,/And smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong". I really encourage those of you interested in poetry to read the whole stanza, which includes a wonderful alexandrine in the middle of it (iambic hexameter, or twelve syllables in six iambic feet).
From James Austen (eldest brother of Jane Austen), in his publication The Loiterer, No. 1:
"Of all chymical mixtures, ink is the most dangerous."
And from Jane herself, talking about what a novel is in the course of Northanger Abbey:
"only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language."
Today, after I put a trinket on, I hope to grab my most-dangerous chemical mixture and dance with gilt across the page, hopefully using the best-chosen language and eschewing the gaudy colors of false eloquence. And you?
From "An Essay on Criticism", by Alexander Pope:
Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,
Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.
False Eloquence, like the Prismatic Glass,
Its gawdy Colours spreads on ev'ry place;
The Face of Nature was no more Survey,
All glares alike, without Distinction gay:
But true Expression, like th' unchanging Sun,
Clears, and improves whate'er it shines upon,
It gilds all Objects, but it alters none.
* * *
True Ease in Writing comes from Art, not Chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance,
'Tis not enough no Harshness gives Offence,
The Sound must seem an Eccho to the Sense.
Pope's Essay on Criticism is a poem written in heroic couplets (rhymed couplets written in iambic pentameter). Although it purports to instruct "criticks" on how to judge (or how not to judge) writing, it is truly addressed to writers in general - those who would write as well as those who would judge the writing of others. It is long, and can feel a bit tedious owing to so many end-stopped rhymes, but it has wonderful advice in there.
The second bit comes from the middle of a very long stanza that begins "But most by Numbers judge a Poet's Song,/And smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong". I really encourage those of you interested in poetry to read the whole stanza, which includes a wonderful alexandrine in the middle of it (iambic hexameter, or twelve syllables in six iambic feet).
From James Austen (eldest brother of Jane Austen), in his publication The Loiterer, No. 1:
"Of all chymical mixtures, ink is the most dangerous."
And from Jane herself, talking about what a novel is in the course of Northanger Abbey:
"only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language."
Today, after I put a trinket on, I hope to grab my most-dangerous chemical mixture and dance with gilt across the page, hopefully using the best-chosen language and eschewing the gaudy colors of false eloquence. And you?