silken line

A poet often does more and better than he is aware at the time, and seems at last to know as little about it as a silkworm knows about the fineness of its thread.

—Walter Savage Landor, The Pentameron: and other imaginary conversations (1889)

existential angst

A post-modernist is afraid to take even himself seriously; afraid of what he won’t find therein. In many ways post-modernism is a manifestation of existential angst.