Counted Quote by James Merrill

The language of the poem is the language of particulars.

— Mary Oliver

“Great poetry, whether written in Greek or in English, needs no other interpreter than a responsive heart.”

— Helen Keller

“If you read every poem in every anthology of Greek poetry, you wouldn't read one poem in which a character of the woman who's…

— Kathy Acker

“She began to whisper something in my ear. It’s the strangest thing about poetry—you can tell it’s poetry, even if you don’t speak the…

— Neil Gaiman

“Expressions used almost exclusively in poetry ... tend to be concentrated in the oldest biblical texts. Generally, it may be said that these items…

— Angel Sáenz-Badillos

Words are often things also, and very precious, especially on the gravest occasions. Without "words," and the truth of things that is in them,…

— Leigh Hunt

Still the question remains of what actually speaks in a poem, if not subjectivity as historically constructed.

— Thomas Harrison

The fact is that much misunderstanding is often caused by our modern attempts to limit too strictly the meaning of a Greek word.

— Gilbert Murray

“The reading of the ancients awakened new delight in the melody and beauty of language: men became intoxicated with words. The practice of rhetoric…

— G. H. (George Herbert) Mair

“Paradoxically, our imperial global Anglo-American language is dull with the glitter of its own decay. In response, the new meta- physical poet might consider…

— Peter Abbs

I am wonderfully pleased when I meet with any passage in an old Greek or Latin author, that is not blown upon, and which…

— Joseph Addison

And though thou hadst small Latin, and less Greek.

— Ben Jonson