Poetry is an ethic. By ethic I mean a secret code of behavior, a discipline constructed and conducted according to the capabilities of a man who rejects the falsifications of the categorical imperative.
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I call a work of art the sweat of this ethic.
Any work that is not the sweat of an ethic, any work not stemming from an exertion of the soul’s will more strenuous than any physical labor, any work that is too visible (since the personal ethic and the works of art it engenders cannot be seen by those who live without an ethic, or who are content to follow a standardized code), any work that persuades too readily, will be but a decorative fantasy. It will please because it will not require the reader to subordinate his own personality to the personality of the speaker. It will allow the critics and those who defer to them to recognize it–and to recognize themselves in it–with a cursory glance. Yet beauty cannot be recognized with a cursory glance.