"A man is original when he speaks the truth that has always been known to all good men"
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Originality, Kavanagh suggests, isn’t a fireworks display; it’s an act of moral nerve. The line flips the modern obsession with novelty on its head: the truly “new” thing isn’t an unprecedented idea, but the decision to say aloud what decent people have long recognized and quietly lived by. That’s a provocative demotion of the genius myth, and it also smuggles in a harder standard. If the truth is “always known,” then the only real obstacle is cowardice, vanity, or fashion.
The phrase “all good men” does heavy lifting. It’s not “everyone,” which would invite relativism or mere consensus; it’s a selective community, a moral readership. Kavanagh is hinting at an older Ireland of shared ethical instincts - the kind that can be drowned out by ideology, piety-as-performance, or the loudness of public life. Originality becomes less about individual sparkle than about re-aligning speech with conscience. The subtext: societies don’t lack truth; they lack the courage to treat it as actionable.
As a poet who made a career out of insisting that the local, the ordinary, and the unglamorous were worthy of serious art, Kavanagh is also making an aesthetic claim. Poetry, here, isn’t a factory for fresh opinions. It’s a pressure system that returns worn wisdom to its proper voltage, stripping away cant and restoring urgency. The “original” man isn’t inventing; he’s testifying, and paying the social cost of doing it plainly.
The phrase “all good men” does heavy lifting. It’s not “everyone,” which would invite relativism or mere consensus; it’s a selective community, a moral readership. Kavanagh is hinting at an older Ireland of shared ethical instincts - the kind that can be drowned out by ideology, piety-as-performance, or the loudness of public life. Originality becomes less about individual sparkle than about re-aligning speech with conscience. The subtext: societies don’t lack truth; they lack the courage to treat it as actionable.
As a poet who made a career out of insisting that the local, the ordinary, and the unglamorous were worthy of serious art, Kavanagh is also making an aesthetic claim. Poetry, here, isn’t a factory for fresh opinions. It’s a pressure system that returns worn wisdom to its proper voltage, stripping away cant and restoring urgency. The “original” man isn’t inventing; he’s testifying, and paying the social cost of doing it plainly.
Quote Details
| Topic | Truth |
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