"Is encouragement what the poet needs? Open question. Maybe he needs discouragement. In fact, quite a few of them need more discouragement, the most discouragement possible"
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Fitzgerald’s line lands like a polite ambush: it begins with the soft cushion of “encouragement” and then yanks it away, exposing the sentimental economy around art-making. The “Open question” is doing sly work. It pretends to be fair-minded while implying that the default assumption - poets as fragile hothouse creatures who require constant affirmation - is already suspect. By the time he pivots to “discouragement,” the real target comes into focus: not poets as such, but the cultural habit of treating expression as automatically deserving.
The subtext is editorial as much as psychological. Fitzgerald, a working writer and translator, knew that poetry isn’t just self-discovery; it’s craft, selection, and ruthless revision. “Discouragement” here reads less like cruelty than quality control: a bracing signal that the world is not obligated to applaud your first draft, your vague feelings, or your half-heard metaphors. His escalation - “quite a few of them… the most discouragement possible” - sharpens into comic severity, but it’s also a diagnostic. If the work can’t survive skepticism, time, and indifference, it probably wasn’t ready to ask for an audience.
Context matters: Fitzgerald came up in a mid-century literary culture where gatekeeping was real, standards were argued over in public, and the poet’s job was to earn seriousness, not assume it. The irony is that his “discouragement” is oddly hopeful: it imagines poets tough enough to be tested, and poems strong enough to outlast praise.
The subtext is editorial as much as psychological. Fitzgerald, a working writer and translator, knew that poetry isn’t just self-discovery; it’s craft, selection, and ruthless revision. “Discouragement” here reads less like cruelty than quality control: a bracing signal that the world is not obligated to applaud your first draft, your vague feelings, or your half-heard metaphors. His escalation - “quite a few of them… the most discouragement possible” - sharpens into comic severity, but it’s also a diagnostic. If the work can’t survive skepticism, time, and indifference, it probably wasn’t ready to ask for an audience.
Context matters: Fitzgerald came up in a mid-century literary culture where gatekeeping was real, standards were argued over in public, and the poet’s job was to earn seriousness, not assume it. The irony is that his “discouragement” is oddly hopeful: it imagines poets tough enough to be tested, and poems strong enough to outlast praise.
Quote Details
| Topic | Poetry |
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