Readers of Poetry

[Warwick]

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?

[mayneverhave]

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

[mono]

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.