What are the most beautiful pieces of writing qua writing that you know?
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I'm especially interested in short pieces - including songs, poems, and speeches - that I can enjoy and get inside.
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To be frank, this isn't something I have much of an eye for, nor think systematically about.
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Let me give a few random examples. From a letter Feynman wrote Watson about the draft of "The Double Helix":pic.twitter.com/Lf4Y8ntY2B
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It's difficult to separate the quality of the form from the ideas behind it, of course, and I shan't try. An example: much of the writing in Martin Amis's "The War Against Cliche" is lovely, but ultimately it feels somewhat empty.
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This is very good, by Steven Pinker. It's plain and economical and accomplishes an enormous amount. "The Language Instinct" is also a fantastic title.pic.twitter.com/qdFSHxmJCc
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Annie Dillard's "Total Eclipse" I read aloud in the car (not while driving, I might add :-)), and it was beautiful:https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/annie-dillards-total-eclipse/536148/ …
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Collection of notes and essays in book titled “confabulations” by John Berger, the opening essay about language and writing is gold.
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Seamus Heaney, Elegy
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Also Sonnet 29, not just because the writing is beautiful but because it really communicates a feeling/mindset which I have never experienced myself
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