If the proper audience for poetry is God, then the proper a… - Sarah Ruhl

" "
If the proper audience for poetry is God, then the proper audience for the novel is people. Plays have both stories and poetry. Therefore the proper audience for plays is: people and God. But: what is the audience for poetry in a godless universe? The audience for poetry in a godless universe is the academy. Or perhaps: other poets and therefore God? And what is the proper audience for plays in a godless universe? Is there no proper audience for plays in a godless universe? Must we invent our own gods?

Sarah Ruhl

This quote has a book source. Sign up to see titles and page references

English

Collect this quote

All quotes from Sarah Ruhl Similar Quotes by other Originators

Originators like Sarah Ruhl:

Joyce Carol Oates Virginia Woolf Margaret Atwood Anton Chekhov Anne Lamott

Additional quotes by Sarah Ruhl

There once was a very great American surgeon named Halsted. He was married to a nurse. He loved her — immeasurably. One day Halsted noticed that his wife’s hands were chapped and red when she came back from surgery. And so he invented rubber gloves. For her. It is one of the great love stories in medicine. The difference between inspired medicine and uninspired medicine is love.
When I met Ana, I knew:
I loved her to the point of invention.

But don’t we need to cross over? Is this not a moral imperative for art, but also for social discourse? Don’t we need to imagine people different from ourselves, people whose experiences we can only imagine?

Is this all we've got now? No priests to say yes son, your suffering meant something, no kings on the battlefield to say yes soldier, your suffering meant something.

If the proper audience for poetry is God, then the proper audience for the novel is people. Plays have both stories and poetry. Therefore the proper … - Sarah Ruhl

Works in ChatGPT, Claude, or Any AI

Additional quotes by Sarah Ruhl

Advanced Search Filters