"... let us beware of saying, with our latest literati, that politics are poetry, or a suitable subject for the poet. The English poet Thomson wrote a very good poem on the Seasons, but a very bad one on Liberty; and that not from want of poetry in the poet, but from want of poetry in the subject.
'If a poet would work politically, he must give himself up to a party; and so soon as he does that, he is lost as a poet - he must bid farewell to his free spirit, his unbiased view, and draw over his ears the cap of bigotry and blind hatred."
'If a poet would work politically, he must give himself up to a party; and so soon as he does that, he is lost as a poet - he must bid farewell to his free spirit, his unbiased view, and draw over his ears the cap of bigotry and blind hatred."
- Goethe, Conversations With Eckermann
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