Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave
A paradise for a sect; the savage, too,
From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep
Guesses at Heaven: pity these have not
Trac’d upon vellum or wild Indian leaf
The shadows of melodious utterance.
But bare of laurel they live, dream, and die;
For Poesy alone can tell her dreams,
With the fine spell of words can save
Imagination from the sable charm
And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say,
‘Thou art no Poet; may’st not tell thy dreams?’
Since every man whose soul is not a clod
Hath visions, and would speak, if he had lov’d
And been well nurtured in his mother tongue.
Whether the dream now purposed to rehearse
Be Poet’s or Fanatic’s will be known
When this warm scribe, my hand, is in the grave.

—John Keats, “The Fall of Hyperion,” 1819

I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart’s affections and the truth of Imagination—What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth—whether it existed before or not—for I have the same Idea of all our Passions as of Love; they are all in their sublime, creative of essential Beauty… . The Imagination may be compared to Adam’s dream—he awoke and found it truth.
John Keats, in a letter to Benjamin Bailey, November 22nd, 1817

“Desire, at some level, is the name we give to feelings that cannot easily be named, feelings that are, precisely, felt. When it must be articulated, desire tends to impress us impressionistically when it is partially descried, almost uncovered, simultaneously veiled and revealed by allegories, analogies, and images, by metaphors that border on tautologies, exposing at once the bridge and the void between word and world.”

—Ben Saunders, Desiring Donne: Poetry, Sexuality, Interpretation, 2006

“It is the scientist whose truth requires a language purged of every trace of paradox; apparently the truth which the poet utters can be approached only in terms of paradox… . T. S. Eliot has commented upon ‘that perpetual slight alteration of language, words perpetually juxtaposed in new and sudden combinations,’ which occurs in poetry. It is perpetual; it cannot be kept out of the poem; it can only be directed and controlled. The tendency of science is necessarily to stabilize terms, to freeze them into strict denotations; the poet’s tendency is by contrast disruptive. The terms are continually modifying each other, and thus violating their dictionary meanings.”

—Cleanth Brooks, “The Language of Paradox,” 1942

“I know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost; nor has Mammon gained power over either, to bind or slay: they will both assert their existence, their presence, their liberty and strength again one day. Powerful angels, safe in heaven! they smile when sordid souls triumph, and feeble ones weep over their destruction. Poetry destroyed? Genius banished? No! Mediocrity, no: do not let envy prompt you to the thought. No; they not only live, but reign, and redeem: and without their divine influence spread everywhere you would be in hell—the hell of your own meanness.”

—Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, 1847