A Quote by Robert Graves

The function of poetry is religious invocation of the muse; its use is the experience of mixed exaltation and horror that her presence excites.

Robert Graves

Quote Topics

Exaltation Excites Experience Function Her Horror Invocation Mixed Muse Poetry Poetry Is Presence Religious Use

Quote Author

Robert Graves
Irish - Novelist
July 24, 1895 - December 7, 1985

Invoking the letters of God's Name without presence of mind is invocation of the tongue; invoking with presence of mind is invocation of the heart; and invoking with an absence of self-awareness because of absorption in the Invoked is the invocation of the Self - this is the hidden invocation!

Ibn Ata Allah

If the religious experience were simply some naive impression of the uninformed it would not have resulted in such intellectual insight, such spiritual exaltation, such spectacular religious ritual, or in the immense volume of song and poetry and literature and dance that humans have produced.

Thomas Berry

As poetry is the harmony of words, so music is that of notes; and as poetry is a rise above prose and oratory, so is music the exaltation of poetry.

Henry Purcell

I believe it's impossible to write good poetry without reading. Reading poetry goes straight to my psyche and makes me want to write. I meet the muse in the poems of others and invite her to my poems. I see over and over again, in different ways, what is possible, how the perimeters of poetry are expanding and making way for new forms.

Denise Duhamel

I think there are different kinds of poetry for different stages of life and there's the wild, exuberance of youth, there's the painful agony of midlife experience, there's the late poetry in the presence of death.

Edward Hirsch

I was Versace's muse, I was Valentino's muse, I was Alaia's muse, Lancetti's muse, Calvin Klein's, Halston's. I could go on and on.

Janice Dickinson

The concept of muse is alien to me. To speak of a muse implies there is a couple in which one person is the objectified passive element - there to help the creative, active, often male part of the duo to create. A muse is very passive. Who wants a muse? I don't want a muse.

Luca Guadagnino

It's not like that when you're a songwriter - songwriters aren't like pulp writers or journalists, even. You just follow the muse. It's called muse-ic. Whenever the muse decides to bestow her inspiration on the songwriter, then the song is born.

Cass McCombs

Mother is in herself a concrete denial of the idea of sexual pleasure since her sexuality has been placed at the service of reproductive function alone. She is the perpetually violated passive principle; her autonomy has been sufficiently eroded by the presence within her of the embryo she brought to term. Her unthinking ability to reproduce, which is her pride, is, since it is beyond choice, not a specific virtue of her own.

Angela Carter

If you make just hardcore horror, there's a limited audience for that. Whereas if it's horror mixed with action, I think you kinda broaden your potential fanbase.

Paul W. S. Anderson

I don't know if you actually get something out of writing poetry. I think poetry is an autonomous muse that decides to come and sit on your couch.

Alice Walker

If we have never had the experience of taking our commonplace religious shoes off our commonplace religious feet, and getting rid of all the undue familiarity with which we approach God, it is questionable whether we have ever stood in his presence.

Oswald Chambers

One can say that the disaffection is still a lingering naiveté about, not the place of poetry in the world, but - how to say this - the moral and intellectual presence of poets in the world. And while this may seem an old conversation to many poets who roll their eyes and say, "Here we go again about the function of poetry," I think that conversation, about poetry as an engaged art in a world that is full of regression or still lacking in progress, is still really not well-developed. It's almost an avoided conversation.

Fady Joudah

The muse is not an angelic voice that sits on your shoulder and sings sweetly. The muse is the most annoying whine. The muse isn't hard to find, just hard to like - she follows you everywhere, tapping you on the shoulder, demanding that you stop doing whatever else you might be doing and pay attention to her.

Harlan Coben

When the invocation descends into the heart, if there is darkness within, it illuminates it; and if there is already light, the invocation increases the light and intensifies it.

Ibn Ata Allah

The function of a leader within any institution: to provide that regulation through his or her non-anxious, self-defined presence.