Named source · 1905

Essays in the Art of Writing Quotes by Robert Louis Stevenson: Context & Meanings

2 quotations linked to Essays in the Art of Writing by or associated with Robert Louis Stevenson, with source notes, explanations and related topics.

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1905 posthumous collection of Stevenson’s literary essays

Topics and ideas

Beauty, writing, style, difficulty, craft, creativity, rhythm, realism and the moral responsibilities Stevenson associates with authorship.

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“Thus it is: added difficulty, added beauty;”

Robert Louis Stevenson

Meaning & context

In the specific context of verse technique, Stevenson argues that an additional formal constraint can create another opportunity for artistic achievement and aesthetic interest.

Source details

Essays in the Art of Writing, “On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature”; Project Gutenberg #492. “Difficulty” here concerns literary form and craft, not a universal claim that hardship automatically makes things better.

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“We shall never learn the affinities of beauty”

Robert Louis Stevenson

Meaning & context

Stevenson treats beauty as deeper than any complete technical explanation, warning that analysis of artistic mechanism does not exhaust why form can move or delight.

Source details

Essays in the Art of Writing, “On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature,” represented by the 1905 Chatto & Windus edition in Project Gutenberg #492. The collection is posthumous; the excerpt concerns literary aesthetics.

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1905 posthumous collection of Stevenson’s literary essays

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