Carolina QuotesArt matters not merely because it is the most magnificent ornament and the most nearly unfailing occupation of our lives, but because it is life itself.
Randall Jarrell Carolinian
Source
“The Obscurity of the Poet”, p. 21
- work
- Poetry and the Age (1953)
- year
- 1953
- locator
- p. 21
Cite this record
“Art matters not merely because it is the most magnificent or…” Randall Jarrell. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-7615C39262. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/7615c39262
More from Randall Jarrell
A person is a process, one that leads to death...
...“originality” is everyone’s aim, and novel techniques are as much prized as new scientific discoveries. [T.S.] Eliot states it with surprising naïveté: “It is exactly as wasteful for a poet to do what has been done already as for a biologist to rediscover Mendel’s discoveries.”
If my tone is mocking, the tone of someone accustomed to helplessness, this is natural: the poet is a condemned man for whom the State will not even buy breakfast — and as someone said, “If you’re going to hang me, you mustn’t expect to be able to intimidate me into sparing your feelings during the execution.”