Aug 21, 2007 04:43
CSL was such a fanboy.
"...the first reading of some literary work is often, to the literary, an experience so momentous that only experiences of love, religion, or bereavement can furnish a standard of comparison. Their whole consciousness is changed. They have become what they were not before. ...What they have read is constantly and prominently present to the mind of [the literary person]. They mouth over their favourite lines and stanzas in solitude. Scenes and characters from books provide them with a sort of iconography by which they interpret or sum up their own experience. They talk to one another about books, often and at length." (An Experiment in Criticism)
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