6 quotes
The art and triumph of poetry are in nothing more seen and felt than in moving the passions.
The Preface to The Aeneis of Virgil (1718)
Poetry itself being the music of thoughts and words, as music is the poetry of sounds.
The Preface to The Aeneis of Virgil (1718)
Of mine the world will and ought to be judge, whatever I say or think, and its judgment in these matters is never erroneous.
The Preface to The Aeneis of Virgil (1718)
He who says he values no translation of this or that poem because he understands the original, has indeed no true relish, that is, in effect, no true understanding of either.
The Preface to The Aeneis of Virgil (1718)
However poetry may have been dishonoured by the follies of some and the vices of others, the abuse or corruption of the best things being always the worst, it will notwithstanding be ever regarded, as it ever has been, by the wisest and most judicious of men as the very flower of human thinking, the most exquisite spirit that can be extracted from the wit and learning of mankind.
The Preface to The Aeneis of Virgil (1718)
If some gentlemen are resolved that blank verse shall be prose, they have my free leave to enjoy their saying, provided I may have theirs to think they mean nothing by it, unless they can prove that rhyme is essential to metre; consequently that the Goths and monks were the first inventers of verse, and that Homer and Virgil, as well as Milton, wrote nothing but prose.
The Preface to The Aeneis of Virgil (1718)