inspired reader

A poet’s function—do not be startled by this remark—is not to experience the poetic state: that is a private affair. His function is to create it in others. The poet is recognized—or at least everyone recognizes his own poet—by the simple fact that he causes his reader to become “inspired.” Positively speaking, inspiration is a graceful attribute with which the reader endows his poet: the reader sees in us the transcendent merits of virtues and graces that develop in him. He seeks and finds in us the wondrous cause of his own wonder.

—Paul Valéry, “Poetry of Abstract Thought” (1939), Toward the Open Field: Poets on the Art of Poetry, 1800-1950 (Wesleyan U. Press, 2004), edited by Melissa Kwasny