John Crowe Ransom Professions : Critic Born : April 30, 1888 Died : July 3, 1974 Browse All Authors Top 26 quotes by John Crowe Ransom When critics are waiting to pounce upon poetic style on exactly the same grounds as if it were prose, the poets tremble. John Crowe Ransom ransom style waiting The image cannot be dispossessed of a primordial freshness, which idea can never claim. An idea is derivative and tamed. The imageis in the natural or wild state, and it has to be discovered there, not put there, obeying its own law and none of ours. We think we can lay hold of image and take it captive, but the docile captive is not the real image but only the idea, which is the image with its character beaten out of it. John Crowe Ransom real character thinking God have mercy on the sinner Who must write with no dinner, No gravy and no grub, No pewter and no pub, No bellyand no bowels, Only consonants and vowels. John Crowe Ransom pewter vowels writing But we moderns are impatient and destructive. John Crowe Ransom impatient destructive In all the good Greek of Plato John Crowe Ransom philosophical plato men Great lovers lie in Hell, the stubborn ones John Crowe Ransom great-love kissing lying Would you ascend to Heaven and bodiless dwell? John Crowe Ransom body white heaven Too much is demanded by the critic, attempted by the poet. John Crowe Ransom ransom poet too-much And how can poetry stand up against its new conditions? Its position is perfectly precarious. John Crowe Ransom precarious ransom position He can develop sense and style, in the manner of distinguished modern prose, in which event he may be sure that the result will not fall into any objective form. John Crowe Ransom style objectivity fall And yet what is Modernism? It is undefined. John Crowe Ransom undefined modernism Now between the meanings of words and their sounds there is ordinarily no discoverable relation except one of accident; and it is therefore miraculous, to the mystic, when words which make sense can also make a uniform objective structure of accents and rhymes. John Crowe Ransom rhyming uniforms sound Or he can work it out as a metrical and formal exercise, but he will be disappointed in its content. The New Year's prospect fairly chills his daunting breast. John Crowe Ransom new-year exercise years And if no Lethe flows beneath your casement, And when ten years have not brought full effacement, Philosophy was wrong, and you may meet. John Crowe Ransom may philosophy years Two evils, monstrous either one apart, Possessed me, and were long and loath at going: A cry of Absence, Absence, in the heart, And in the wood the furious winter blowing. John Crowe Ransom heart winter two The arts generally have had to recognize Modernism - how should poetry escape? John Crowe Ransom ransom should art It is a miracle of harmony, of the adaptation of the free inner life to the outward necessity of things. John Crowe Ransom adaptation harmony miracle Do not enforce the tired wolf John Crowe Ransom tired kings children Captain Carpenter rose up in his prime John Crowe Ransom riding women rose I am a lady young in beauty waiting John Crowe Ransom kissing waiting beauty Similar Authors Betty Churcher critic Brooks Atkinson critic Brendan Gill critic Arthur Chu critic Arlene Croce critic Anita Sarkeesian critic All Authors
