The Poet in Sacred and Profane Beauty - Jacob Hamilton

 One thing that stood out for me when reading The Sacred and the Profane Beauty was its discussion of words. Words for primordial humanity were understood not just as something which captured a definition but as something that invoked a power. To speak a word was a magical act and could therefore be dangerous. The poet, therefore, had a very special role in primordial society. His job was the proper ordering and invocation of certain words. Poetry represents for Van Der Leeuw the purest form of linguistic expression. The poet is able to uniquely capture and express the power of the spoken word. 

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