Literary Periods Quotes

The work of Henry James has always seemed divisible by a simple dynastic arrangement into three reigns: James I, James II, and the Old Pretender.

The poetry from the eighteenth century was prose; the prose from the seventeenth century was poetry.

The book I'm working on next, which will be my fifth, returns to literary history. I really do love literary history, and I have plenty more ideas on it.

Once you reach your fifties, you have to stop being interested in the present and write only on Elizabethan poets.

Once upon a time, novelists of the 19th century, such as Charles Dickens, published in serial form.

At first critics classified authors as Ancients, that is to say, Greek and Latin authors, and Moderns, that is to say, every post-Classical Author. Then they classified them by eras, the Augustans, the Victorians, etc., and now they classify them by decades, the writers of the '30's, '40's, etc. Very soon, it seems, they will be labeling authors, like automobiles, by the year.

Primitive times are lyrical, ancient times epical, modern times dramatic. The ode sings of eternity, the epic imparts solemnity tohistory, the drama depicts life. The characteristic of the first poetry is ingeniousness, of the second, simplicity, of the third, truth.

Poor Knight! he really had two periods, the firsta dull man writing broken English, the seconda broken man writing dull English.