Abstract

A feature that contributes to the charm of much poetry is its obscurity and indirectness. We want to grasp what the poet is saying and yet, it appears, to do so only with difficulty. How is this preference to be explained? (1) It contributes to promoting an ‘aesthetic attitude’. (2) It conforms to certain general features of human psychology, including (a) a general preference for indirectness and indeterminacy and (b) the pleasure of working things out. Distance, in the relevant sense, may be regarded as an important positive quality of works of art; yet (1) this quality may continue to charm even after the difficulties have been overcome, and (2) its presence, in the case of unusual language, may be largely a matter of accident, depending on how long ago the work was written, and so on.