"Love follows knowledge."
"Beauty above all beauty!"
– St. Catherine of Siena

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Notable Quote: On Poetic Language

The poetical language of an age should be the current language heightened.
     ~Gerard Manley Hopkins

That’s a great quote.  That’s what I believe poetic language is all about.  Now it could be arguable that Hopkins practiced it himself.  Certainly his language is heightened, but does he actually employ the current language of his day?  His language in many of his poems, though not all, is so heightened that it could be said that he crossed over into a language of another age, of either a passed age or of an age he created.



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