Do you know that Keats actually wrote a sonnet on this matter of rereading a classic? I just saw it today and I am thrilled. (Sorry, this is not the thread for "sublime rime" but the subject belongs to this thread, forgive me)

On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again

O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute!
Fair plumed Siren! Queen of far away!
Leave melodizing on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute;
Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute
Betwixt damnation and impassioned clay
Must I burn through; once more humbly assay
The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearean fruit.
Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,
Begetters of our deep eternal theme,
When through the old oak forest I am gone,
Let me not wander in a barren dream,
But when I am consumed in the fire,
Give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire.




chronist