Negative Capability: when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason (Keats, excerpted from a letter)
"A work of (whatever) art may be 'received' or 'used'. When we 'receive' it we exert our senses and imagination and various other powers according to a pattern invented by the artist. When we 'use' it we treat it as assistance for our own activities." --C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (quoted in All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes, pages 89-90)
"It is not necessary to understand." --one of the Three Wise Men to the Little Drummer Boy
I'm not sure how these fit together, but they keep bumping into each other in my mind, so I'm parking them here.
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