We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us–and if we do not agree, seems to put its hand in its breeches pocket. Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one’s soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject.
— John Keats, in a letter to John Hamilton Reynolds on February 3rd, 1818. Cited by Terry Labach on 11.27.2007 as the Quotation Of The Day for 12.03.2007. Available in A Routledge literary sourcebook on the poems of John Keats, p. 15 edited by John Strachan.
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"We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us"
Quotation of the Day