“He knows that his practical interests will reduce this living object to a mere utility, and that his sciences will disintegrate it for their convenience into their respective abstracts.”

A criticism of the tendency to reduce complex human experience to useful or abstract categories. · Essay, Criticism, Inc.

• Poetry
• Science
• Utility

“Criticism must become more scientific, or precise and systematic.”

His call for literary criticism to become more disciplined and exacting. · Essay, Criticism, Inc.

• Criticism
• Discipline
• Precision

“I want to have the joy of writing the poem of discovery.”

He valued poetry for the discovery involved in making it, not simply for producing another successful poem. · Conversation with Robert Penn Warren, as recalled by Warren

• Creativity
• Discovery
• Joy