“The rhythmic pattern of the poem, which forces continuity of attention – incites a pleasurable compulsion to ‘follow’ – is either a tried metrical suasion-contrivance or a specially invented pattern of physical insistences, equally, if not more, binding in its effect on the reader. From a straight linguistic point of view, there is room for wonder if there is not latent vice in this environment in which pleasurable physically-compelled responses, produced by incidents of poetic utterance, are identified with the Good.”
"The Promise of Words" in London Review of Books, Vol. 17, No. 17, p. 23
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Laura Riding Jackson 42
poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer 1901–1991Related quotes

Source: 1970s, Take Today : The Executive as Dropout (1972), p. 8

English and Welsh (1955)

“There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only poets know.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 285.

Raj Kumar in [Kumar, Raj, Essays on Indian Music, http://books.google.com/books?id=wwwX6DWfn3gC&pg=PA205, 1 January 2003, Discovery Publishing House, 978-81-7141-719-3, 205–]