Criticism, Inc. Quotes

“The poet perpetuates in his poem an order of existence which in actual life is constantly crumbling beneath his touch. His poem celebrates the object which is real, individual, and qualitatively infinite. He knows that his practical interests will reduce this living object to a mere utility, and that his sciences will disintegrate it for their convenience into their respective abstracts. The poet wishes to defend his object’s existence against its enemies, and the critic wishes to know what he is doing, and how.”
― John Crowe Ransom, Criticism, Inc.