Working on my final for British Romantic Lit, I read Shelley's A Defence of Poetry (ideally I suppose this would have been a re-reading, but it was a busy semester what with comps...and Buffy). It was rather amazing. Some particularly likeable quotes:
"Poetry is a sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it."
"Poetry ever communicates all the pleasure which men are capable of receiving: it is ever still the light of life; the source of whatever of beautiful, or generous, or true can have place in an evil time."
"All high poetry is infinite; it is as the first acorn, which contained all oaks potentially. Veil after veil may be undrawn, and the inmost naked beauty of the meaning never exposed."
That last one applies not only to poetry, but also to Christ, I think. It is why I study what I study, why I do what I do, why I live how I live.
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