ABSTRACT
if as on this occasion one is invited to describe the impact of some work of art—a poem, a book, a painting, any aesthetic experience which produced a crisis in one’s mental development—then I have no doubt what, in my own case, I must choose. It will necessarily be a book, for much as I have loved and served the visual arts, I must confess that their impact on my sensibility cannot compare in strength with that of certain works of literature. If my assignment were to describe those poems, dramas, or works of philosophy which have enlarged my experience, or merely hastened a development already in progress, then I might well hesitate between various possibilities. I can think of many books that had an effect—a deep emotional effect—on my nascent mind. The first reading of Blake’s poems, for example, was a revelation, producing an ecstatic mood of long duration. But I cannot describe that experience as a crisis, because no conflict was involved. I absorbed Blake—his strange beauty, his profound message, his miraculous technique—and to emulate Blake was to be my ambition and my despair. But there was no crisis—only a joyous acceptance. I could say the same of other poets—Wordsworth and Donne; and of certain philosophers and mystics, such as Bergson and Traherne. But the crisis, distinct in its impact, decisive in its outcome, was to take place, at the age of nineteen, when I first opened a book by the German philosopher, Friederich Nietzsche.
