Cellar Door

Cellar DoorThe claim that cellar door is beautiful to the ear in opposition to its prosaic meaning has been made by and attributed to a wide variety of writers over the years. Poetry, in fact, is two quite distinct things, H. L. Mencken wrote in a 1920 magazine column. It may be either or both. One is a series of words that are intrinsically musical, in clang tint and rhythm, as the single word cellar door is musical. The other is a series of ideas, false in

ÒThe claim that cellar door is beautiful to the ear Ñ in opposition to its prosaic meaning Ñ has been made by and attributed to a wide variety of writers over the years. ÒPoetry, in fact, is two quite distinct things,Ó H. L. Mencken wrote in a 1920 magazine column. ÒIt may be either or both. One is a series of words that are intrinsically musical, in clang-tint and rhythm, as the single word cellar-door is musical. The other is a series of ideas, false in themselves, that offer a means of emotional and imaginative escape from the harsh realities of everyday.ÓÉ

More recently, the superior sound of cellar door was mentioned in the 2001 movie ÒDonnie Darko,Ó in which a cellar serves as a time-twisting portal. In one scene, the main character, Donnie, sees the phrase on a schoolroom chalkboard. He asks his teacher why itÕs on the board, and she explains that the words are thought to be especially lovely, vaguely attributing the idea to a Òfamous linguist.Ó Ó
Ð the New York Times