Poetry; Subjective and Objective

“The province of the poet is representation. Representation becomes more perfect the more closely it vies with nature, when the pictures through the genius of the poet are so vivid that they work on mind with all the force of realities. Poetry is at its zenith when it seems altogether external; the more it deals with the personal feeling of the writer, the more it is on the downward path. That poetry which describes only the feelings of the writer, without giving them an outward body, and on the other hand that which gives the objective, without breathing a soul of sentiment through it, are both on the lowest step from which poetry goes down into the prose of common life.”
~Goethe