in truth that which could
no longer be described was
no longer noticed
The literature of the eighteenth century in England is an admirable and most enjoyable thing …
The way to write real poetry, they thought, must be to write something as little like prose as possible; they devised for the purpose what was called a ‘correct and splendid diction’, which consisted in always using the wrong word instead of the right, and plastered it as ornament, with no thought of propriety, on whatever they desired to dignify. It commanded notice and was not easy to mistake; so the public mind soon connected it with the notion of poetry and came in course of time to regard it as alone poetical.
It was in truth at once pompous and poverty-stricken. It had a very limited, because supposedly choice, vocabulary, and was consequently unequal to the multitude and refinement of its duties. It could not describe natural objects with sensitive fidelity to nature; it could not express human feelings with a variety and delicacy answering to their own. A thick, stiff, unaccommodating medium was interposed between the writer and his work. And this deadening of language had a consequence beyond its own sphere: its effect worked inward, and deadened perception. That which could no longer be described was no longer noticed.
From The Name and Nature of Poetry, A. E. Housman, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1933
That last line, That which could no longer be described was no longer noticed.
I can’t describe the current cycle of political news.
Does that mean I longer have to notice it?
Boy Howdy!
In Truth!
No Haiku For You 