W. H. Auden on poetry

Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self.

Christmas and Easter can be subjects for poetry, but Good Friday, like Auschwitz, cannot. The reality is so horrible, it is not surprising that people should have found it a stumbling block to faith.

One can only blaspheme if one believes.

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

Robert Frost1874–1963

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

T. S. Eliot1888–1965“Philip Massinger”, a biographical essay, in The Sacred Wood (1920)

Poetry too is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible.

C. S. Lewis1898–1963Reflections on the Psalms