Monday’s ‘Quote of the Day’ – my latest widget, and an uncontroversial one, I sincerely hope, though please note that the others are still there and will remain so, despite the ardent objections of some of my (erstwhile, I hope) readers – was unfamiliar to me:
“A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left.”
Sounds contemporary, doesn’t it? In fact it was written by Alexander Pope (1688-1744) Great stuff – words as apt today as they were 300-odd years ago.
“A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left.”
Sounds contemporary, doesn’t it? In fact it was written by Alexander Pope (1688-1744) Great stuff – words as apt today as they were 300-odd years ago.
4 comments:
Er... don't think they had price tags back then. This looks like one of Proust's gags to me.
Gosh, Rob, you're absoutely right! "Une oeuvre où il y a des théories est comme un objet sur lequel on laisse la marque du prix." - Marcel Proust.
It looked so unlikely when I first saw it that I Googled the quote - and if you do the same you'll see that it's attributed to Pope all over the place. Now I've noticed a whole section on the Wiki Pope entry devoted to misattributions and this one is on the list, so it must have been perpetuated a while ago. No wonder it sounds so modern!
I shall contact the Famous Quotes people to let them know the error of their ways, but since it's on just about every other similar widget-generating quote site on the internet as being by Pope it'll be on several million other blogs and websites already.
Thank heavens there are people like you out there monitoring the gullibility of people like me!!
How embarrassing, though . . .
What's to be embarrassed about? Hardly your fault. I'm a big fan of Pope, and it just didn't seem like his style to me. I found the Proust ref by a bit of googling (using minus Pope)
Really enjoying reading your stuff, by the way.
Rob - I've just posted a correction (and an explanation of why I'm embarrassed!)
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