But the gravest difficulty, and perhaps the most important, in poetry meant solely for recitation, is the difficulty of achieving verbal beauty, or rather of making verbal beauty tell. – Lascelles Abercrombie
Traditional matter must be glorified, since it would be easier to listen to the re-creation of familiar stories than to quite new and unexpected things the listeners, we must remember, needed poetry chiefly as the re-creation of tired hours. – Lascelles Abercrombie
Epic poetry exhibits life in some great symbolic attitude. It cannot strictly be said to symbolize life itself, but always some manner of life. – Lascelles Abercrombie
Poetry is the work of poets, not of peoples or communities artistic creation can never be anything but the production of an individual mind. – Lascelles Abercrombie
Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance. – Hans Urs von Balthasar