Though the great artists of the past could not change the course of history, it is only through their work that we are able to break bread with the dead, and without communion with the dead a fully human life is impossible.

W.H. Auden

More information about this quote

Topic

Purpose of art Artists

Speaker

W.H. Auden

Source

Words and the Word

Medium

Lecture

Language

English

Time

1967 1960s 20th century

Occupation

Poet Writer

From

United Kingdom Europe

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Auden, W. H. "Words and the Word." Secondary Worlds. Random House, 1968. Originally a lecture given on Oct. 1967, University of Kent, Canterbury, England, UK.

Illustrated Quote

A quote by W.H. Auden about purpose of art: “Though the great artists of the past could not change the course of history…”
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A quote by W.H. Auden about purpose of art: “Though the great artists of the past could not change the course of history…”
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A quote by W.H. Auden about purpose of art: “Though the great artists of the past could not change the course of history…”
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Related Quotes

Below are one or more quotes that share at least one tag with the quote at the top of the page

Another quote by W.H. Auden

Evil is unspectacular and always human,
And shares our bed and eats at our table.

W.H. Auden

More information about this quote
Topic
Nature of evil Evil

Author

W.H. Auden
Source
Herman Melville
Medium
Poem
Language
English
Time
1940 1940s 20th century
Authentication Score 3
Citation

Auden, W. H. "Herman Melville." Another Time. Faber and Faber/Random House, 1940.

Another quote from the 1960s

It came to him that he had turned away from the buffalo not because of a womanish nausea at blood and stench and spilling gut; it came to him that he had sickened and turned away because of his shock at seeing the buffalo, a few moments before proud and noble and full of the dignity of life, now stark and helpless, a length of inert meat, divested of itself, or his notion of its self, swinging grotesquely, mockingly, before him. It was not itself; or it was not that self that he had imagined it to be. That self was murdered; and in that murder he had felt the destruction of something within him, and he had not been able to face it. So he had turned away.

John Williams (novelist)

Butcher's Crossing

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More information about this quote
Topic
Animal cruelty Man and animals Interconnectedness of all things

Author

John Williams (novelist)
Source
Butcher's Crossing
Medium
Novel
Genre
Western fiction Western
Language
English
Time
1960 1960s 20th century
Authentication Score 3
Citation

Williams, John. Butcher's Crossing. Macmillan, 1960, pt. 2, ch. 5.