Word: maxims
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1873-1873
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...first fact about college poetry which strikes one is that there is a great deal too much of it. The maxim "Write nothing in verse that can be written in prose" is entirely disregarded, or rather inverted. The would-be poet, thinking that passable poetry is to be preferred to good prose, expends his energies in putting his thoughts into verse, with more or less regard for metre, forgetting that really good prose is seldom written, and that poetry of a certain stamp is always forthcoming, be the occasion a golden wedding in the country, a military dinner in town...