Prose was born yesterday-this is what we must tell ourselves. Poetry is pre-eminently… — Gustave Flaubert
Prose was born yesterday-this is what we must tell ourselves. Poetry is pre-eminently the medium of past literatures. All the metrical combinations have been tried but nothing like this can be said of prose.
In the original French
La prose est née d’hier, voilà ce qu’il faut se dire. Le vers est la forme par excellence des littératures anciennes. Toutes les combinaisons prosodiques ont été faites, mais celles de la prose, tant s’en faut.
1852
★ 1.9Other tags relating to this quote
Medium
Time
Person
Provenance
Current citation
Flaubert, Gustave. The Letters of Gustave Flaubert 1830-1857, translated and edited by Francis Steegmuller. Faber and Faber, 1981.
Original citation
Flaubert, Gustave. Letter to Louise Colet. 24 Apr. 1852.
