Literary Birthday - 28 February - Stephen Spender

Stephen Spender was born 28 February 1909, and died 16 July 1995

Seven Quotes

  1. Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.
  2. All that you can imagine you already know.
  3. There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife — a tyrannical midwife.
  5. Sometimes when I am writing, I am aware of a rhythm, a dance, a fury, which is as yet empty of words.
  6. One type of concentration is immediate and complete, as it was with Mozart. The other is plodding and only completed in stages, as with Beethoven. Thus genius works in different ways to achieve its ends.
  7. A poet can only write about what is true to his own experience, not about what he would like to be true to his experience.

Spender was an English poet, novelist and essayist. He was the 17th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the United States Library of Congress.

Source for Image


