The Nobel Prize in Literature 1996

However, I’ve always had the sense that the muse of the tormented artist—while the artist himself is throwing temper tantrums—is sitting quietly in a corner of the studio, buffing its fingernails, patiently waiting for the guy to calm down and sober up so everyone can get back to work.

Then I knew that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them.

The true artist disappears utterly. These other people are only technicians; I will not call them artists but technicians. I will not call them creators, I will call them only composers. Yes, to compose a poem is one thing, to create a poem is quite another. To compose poetry one needs to know language, grammar, rules of poetics. It is a game with

Mais Stefan Zweig n’est pas de ces écrivains qui n’ont été soulevés au-dessus du niveau que par les flots de la guerre et par l’effort désespéré pour réagir contre elle. Il est l’artiste-né, chez qui l’activité créatrice est indépendante de la guerre et de la paix et de toutes les conditions extérieures, celui qui existe pour créer : le poète, au s