Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image

Inspiration

'THE Greeks called memory “the mother of the Muses.” It is this phrase which sums up, for me, the nature of inspiration. Not the kind of memory which enables you to pass exams or recall your friends’ telephone numbers but the selective memory of the poet. For him, an experience goes down into the unconscious mind (as it does with us all), it’s forgotten, it emerges again (if he is lucky) just when he needs it for a poem. When a piece of experience emerges like this, it has changed; it has taken on a strangeness, a significance, from lying out of sight on the sea-bed of the mind.— C. Day Lewis.

This article text was automatically generated and may include errors. View the full page to see article in its original form.
Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19660917.2.108

Bibliographic details

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31167, 17 September 1966, Page 13

Word Count
113

Inspiration Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31167, 17 September 1966, Page 13

Inspiration Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31167, 17 September 1966, Page 13