I am certain that, if [the poet could break through to the objective and so, for example,] describe the life of great cities . . . in such a lively manner that one's hearers would believe they saw with their own eyes, everybody would be enchanted. . . . If a person learns to sing, all the notes which are within his natural compass are easy to him, while those which lie beyond the compass are at first extremely difficult. But to be a vocalist, he must conquer them, for he must have them all at command. Just so with the poet;—he deserves not the name while he only speaks out his few subjective feelings; but as soon as he can appropriate to himself, and express the world, he is a poet. Then he is inexhaustible, and can be always new, while a subjective nature has soon talked out his little internal material. . . . People always talk of the study of the ancients; but what does that mean, except that it says, turn your attention to the real world, and try to express it, for that is what the ancients did when they were alive.—Goethe (Conversations with Eckermann)