Literary Taste: How to Form It - With Detailed Instructions for Collecting a Complete Library of English Literature by Arnold Bennett
page 41 of 90 (45%)
page 41 of 90 (45%)
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My second consideration (in aid of crossing the gulf) touches
the quality of the pleasure to be derived from a classic. It is never a violent pleasure. It is subtle, and it will wax in intensity, but the idea of violence is foreign to it. The artistic pleasures of an uncultivated mind are generally violent. They proceed from exaggeration in treatment, from a lack of balance, from attaching too great an importance to one aspect (usually superficial), while quite ignoring another. They are gross, like the joy of Worcester sauce on the palate. Now, if there is one point common to all classics, it is the absence of exaggeration. The balanced sanity of a great mind makes impossible exaggeration, and, therefore, distortion. The beauty of a classic is not at all apt to knock you down. It will steal over you, rather. Many serious students are, I am convinced, discouraged in the early stages because they are expecting a wrong kind of pleasure. They have abandoned Worcester sauce, and they miss it. They miss the coarse *tang*. They must realise that indulgence in the *tang* means the sure and total loss of sensitiveness--sensitiveness even to the *tang* itself. They cannot have crudeness and fineness together. They must choose, remembering that while crudeness kills pleasure, fineness ever intensifies it. Chapter VIII SYSTEM IN READING You have now definitely set sail on the sea of literature. You are afloat, and your anchor is up. I think I have given |
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