What makes our poetry so contemptible nowadays is its paucity of ideas. If you want to be read, invent. Who the Devil wouldn't like to read something new?
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Modern poetry fails due to a lack of original ideas and novelty.
- In plain terms
- Poetry is bad today because it lacks new ideas; people want to read something fresh.
- What can you take from it?
- Creativity and originality are essential for engaging writing.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What makes a piece of writing worth reading?
- How important is novelty in art?
Another view
Not all good poetry needs to be entirely new or innovative.
More from Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
That man is the noblest creature may also be inferred from the fact that no other creature has yet contested this claim.
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Permalink to quote #30 Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.
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