Readers of Poetry

According to H. W. Garrod, Fellow of Merton College and Professor of Poetry at Oxford University 1923 – 1928, Wordsworth divided the readers of poetry into four classes

1. There are those with whom it is a passion or appetite, the mere coursing of youthful blood.

2. There are those, again, with whom it is a casual elegance of recreation.

3. There are those, once more, for whom it is a refuge; ‘a protection against the pressure of trivial employments, and a consolation for the afflictions of life’.

4. And lastly, there are its disinterested students.

To which of the four categories listed above do you subscribe?

An amalgamation of all of those, with the exception of 2, because I could hardly refer to my interest in poetry as "casual".

Like mayneverhave, it seems difficult to wholly categorize one's self to one of numbers 1-4, even as much as I respect Wordsworth and Garrod (especially as one who contributed to much into the study of the Romantics), but the created disparity between those who read with and without obligation (1-3, as opposed to 4) I found a bit humorous, especially as something composed by a Poet Laureate in his time. :D