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George Saintsbury Quotes


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Quotes by George Saintsbury

Showing 1-10 of 11 Quotes by George Saintsbury

One of the best known, and one of the least intelligible, facts of literary history is the lateness, in Western European Literature at any rate, of prose fiction, and the comparative absence, in the two great classical languages, of what we call by that name.

~George Saintsbury

Topics: Absence Any Best Call Classical Comparative European Facts Fiction Great History Intelligible Known Languages Least Literary Literature Name Prose Rate Two Western

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The Odyssey is, indeed, one of the greatest of all stories, it is the original romance of the West; but the Iliad, though a magnificent poem, is not much of a story.

~George Saintsbury

Topics: Greatest Iliad Indeed Magnificent Much Odyssey Original Poem Romance Stories Story Though West

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To pass to the deluge, and beyond it, and to come to close quarters with our proper division, the origin of Romance itself is a very debatable subject, or rather it is a subject which the wiser mind will hardly care to debate much.

~George Saintsbury

Topics: Beyond Care Close Come Debatable Debate Division Hardly Itself Mind Much Origin Our Pass Proper Quarters Rather Romance Subject Very Which Will Wiser

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But at the time when he wrote, Englishmen, with the rarest exceptions, wrote only in French or Latin; and when they began to write in English, a man of genius, to interpret and improve on him, was not found for a long time.

~George Saintsbury

Topics: Began English Englishmen Exceptions Found French Genius He Him Improve Interpret Latin Long Long Time Man Only Rarest Time Write Wrote

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The Italian prose tale had begun to exercise that influence as early as Chaucer's time: but circumstances and atmosphere were as yet unfavourable for its growth.

~George Saintsbury

Topics: Atmosphere Begun Circumstances Early Exercise Growth Had Influence Italian Prose Tale Time Were

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But the eighteenth century, on the whole, loathed melancholy.

~George Saintsbury

Topics: Century Eighteenth Melancholy Whole

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The transition state of manners and language cannot be too often insisted upon: for this affected the process at both ends, giving the artist in fictitious life an uncertain model to copy and unstable materials to work in.

~George Saintsbury

Topics: Affected Artist Both Cannot Copy Ends Fictitious Giving Insisted Language Life Manners Materials Model Often Process State Too Transition Uncertain Unstable Work

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But even gold is not everything: and only a fanatic, and a rather foolish fanatic, would say that this style of fiction summed up and exhausted all the good that fiction could give and do.

~George Saintsbury

Topics: Could Even Everything Exhausted Fanatic Fiction Foolish Give Gold Good Only Rather Say Style Up Would

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Miss Austen had shown the infinite possibilities of ordinary and present things for the novelist.

~George Saintsbury

Topics: Austen Had Infinite Miss Novelist Ordinary Possibilities Present Shown Things

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Between Scott on the earlier side and Dickens and Thackeray on the other, there was an immense production of novels, illustrated by not a few names which should rank high in the second class, while some would promote more than one of them to the first.

~George Saintsbury

Topics: Between Class Dickens Earlier Few First High Illustrated Immense More Names Novels Other Production Promote Rank Scott Second Should Side Some Than Them Which While Would

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Biography

Nationality: English

Type: Writer

Born: October 23rd, 1845

Died: January 28th, 1933

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