"I by no means rank poetry or poets high in the scale of intellect. This may look like affectation, but it is my real opinion. It is the lava of the imagination whose eruptions prevents an earthquake."
— Byron, George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824)
Work Title
Date
November 10, 1813
Metaphor
"I by no means rank poetry or poets high in the scale of intellect. This may look like affectation, but it is my real opinion. It is the lava of the imagination whose eruptions prevents an earthquake."
Metaphor in Context
I by no means rank poetry or poets high in the scale of intellect. This may look like affectation, but it is my real opinion. It is the lava of the imagination whose eruptions prevents an earthquake. They say poets never or rarely go mad. Cowper and Collins are instances to the contrary (but Cowper was no poet). It is, however, to be remarked that they rarely do, but are generally so near it that I cannot help thinking rhyme is so far useful in anticipating and preventing the disorder. I prefer the talents of action--of war, of the senate, of even of science,--to all the speculations of those mere dreamers of another existence (I don't mean religiously but fancifully) and spectators of this apathy. Disgust and perhaps incapacity have rendered me now a mere spectator; but I have occasionally mixed in the active and tumultuous departments of existence, and on these alone my recollection rests with any satisfaction, though not the best parts of it.
Provenance
Reading M.H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (London: Oxford UP, 1953), 49.
Citation
Text scrounged from Google Books: volume 6 of A History of English Poetry, W. J. Courthope (Macmillan, 1910).
See Byron's Letters and Journals, ed. Leslie A. Marchand, 12 vols. (London, 1973-82).
See Byron's Letters and Journals, ed. Leslie A. Marchand, 12 vols. (London, 1973-82).
Date of Entry
06/06/2013
