Named source · 1859

To Cuba and Back Quotes by Richard Henry Dana Jr.: Context & Meanings

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poetry and music, and not prose and speech, are the natural expressions of the deepest and highest emotions.

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“poetry and music, and not prose and speech, are the natural expressions of the deepest and highest emotions.”

Richard Henry Dana Jr.

Voice: Authorial / signed preface voice · Richard Henry Dana Jr. (travel narrator)

Meaning & context

Dana treats music and poetry as forms especially suited to feelings that ordinary explanatory speech cannot fully carry.

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To Cuba and Back, Chapter XVI, “Havana: Worship, Etiquette and Humanitarianism,” Project Gutenberg #33455. Dana reflects that poetry and music are natural expressions of the deepest emotions while observing Catholic worship in Havana. It is nineteenth-century first-person travel, aesthetic and religious observation rather than an empirical law about emotion or communication.

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