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Quotes from A Life of Learning — Helen Vendler

1933–2024 United States

← All quotes by Helen Vendler

3 quotes

I'm a critic rather than a scholar, a reader and writer more taken by texts than by contexts.

A Life of Learning (2001)

The presumption of commentary, from the first classical commentaries down to our day, is that literary works are complex enough in thought and style to solicit detailed intellectual reflection.

A Life of Learning (2001)

The young respond to poetry for the same reason I did at their age: poems tell complex truths of human response, and they structure words with particular force, wit, charm, intellectual responsibility, and plangency.

A Life of Learning (2001)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Helen Vendler (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.