Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Music becomes language rooted in nature; the speaker hears meaning without words.
In plain terms
Music speaks like natural language, understood without words.
What can you take from it?
Listen for deeper meaning beyond literal language.

Where it applies

  • music appreciation
  • spiritual meditation

Putting it to work

  • use music for introspection
  • teach listening beyond lyrics

Questions to consider

  • How does music become a language?
  • What does 'roots of earth' symbolize?

Another view

Interpretation may be personal and not universally shared.

More from Denise Levertov

  1. I was the first to see him, for I grew out on the pasture slope, beyond the forest. He was a man, it seemed. . .

    Permalink to quote #9
  2. He told of journeys, of where sun and moon go while we stand in dark, of an earth-journey he dreamed he would take some day deeper than roots ... He told of th…

    Permalink to quote #11
  3. I love them for finding what I can't find, and for loving me for the line I wrote, and for forgetting it so that a thousand times, till death finds them, they …

    Permalink to quote #8

Related quotes

  1. 'The most likely reason for the adoption of a relatively small number of discrete intervals as the tonal material for music is that discretization or categoriz…

    Edward BurnsEdward Burns quote #1
  2. Tout silence n'est fait que de paroles qu'on n'a pas dites. C'est pour cela peut-etre que je devins un musicien. Il fallait quelqu'un pour exprimer ce silence,…

    Marguerite YourcenarMarguerite Yourcenar quote #1
  3. To leave the open fields and enter the forest, that was the rite. Knowing there was mystery, they could go. Go back now! And he receded among the multitude of …

    Denise LevertovDenise Levertov quote #1