Many works of the ancients have become fragments. Many works of the moderns are fragments at the time of their origin.

Think of something finite molded into the infinite, and you think of man.

The historian is a prophet looking backward.

Publication is to thinking as childbirth is to the first kiss.

The poetry of this one is called philosophical, of that one philological, of a third rhetorical, and so on. Which is then the poetic poetry?

Poetry should describe itself, and always be simultaneously poetry and the poetry of poetry.

A definition of poetry can only determine what poetry should be and not what poetry actually was and is; otherwise the most concise formula would be: Poetry is that which at some time and some place was thus named.