Allen Tate
John Orley Allen Tate (November 19, 1899 – February 9, 1979) was an American poet, essayist, social commentator, and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1943 to 1944.
Read more about Allen Tate: Life, Literary Work, Political Writing
Famous quotes by allen tate:
“I myself saw furious with blood
Neoptolemus, at his side the black Atridae,
Hecuba and the hundred daughters, Priam
Cut down, his filth drenching the holy fires.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“The wonder of light is your familiar tale,
Pert wench, down to the nineteenth century:
Mr. Rimbaud the Frenchman’s apostasy
Asserts the argument that you are stale,
Flat and unprofitable, importunate but pale,
Lithe Corpse!”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“Men expect too much, do too little,
Put the contraption before the accomplishment,
Lack skill of the interior mind
To fashion dignity with shapes of air.
Luxury, yes but not elegance!”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“I lay the mind’s contents
Bare, as upon a table,
And ask, in a time of war,
Whether there is still
To a mind frivolously dull
Anything worth living for.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“By the roadside a hideous carrion, quivering
On a clean bed of pebbly clay,
Her legs flexed in the air like a courtesan,
Burning and sweating venomously,
Calmly exposed its belly, ironic and wan,
Clamorous with foul ecstasy.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)