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It is impossible for a poet to characterize his own work. From other people I gather that I am a gloomy poet, if not a tragic one.

— Michael Hamburger

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More quotes by Michael Hamburger

Being pre-eminently a moralist, he needed a medium that enabled him to illustrate a moral insight as briefly and vividly as possible. Being an artist and sensualist, he needed a medium that was epigrammatic or aphoristic, but allowed him scope for fantasy and for that element of suggestiveness which he considered essential to beauty.

Translation came naturally to me because as a child I was translated from Germany to Britain.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Michael Hamburger (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.