I think that as a poet, I am always concerned about history and baring witness to history. But so often, it's through the research that I do, the reading.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.
What is history? An echo of the past in the future; a reflex from the future on the past.
Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.
It may seem unfashionable to say so, but historians should seize the imagination as well as the intellect. History is, in a sense, a story, a narrative of adventure and of vision, of character and of incident. It is also a portrait of the great general drama of the human spirit.
We've all faced the charge that our novels are history lite, and to some extent, that's true. Yet for some, historical fiction is a way into reading history proper.
I tend to like to read history - recent history, because I find that much more intriguing than just a writer's imagination.
As a former English major, I have always been fascinated by the connections between literature and history.
History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man.
I think we fool ourselves and really negate a great deal of history if we think that the oral history of poetry is shorter than the written history of poetry. It's not true. Poetry has a longer oral tradition than it does written.