The National Book Critics Circle, of which I am a member, does an interesting occasional feature that asks a critic to list five essential titles for any critic's shelf. I did one recently, and it is here.
In the entry, I mention one of my favorite quotes from Lewis's An Experiment in Criticism, his description of what it's like to read a fully realized work of literature. I'm still not sure if Lewis was as conscious of the pronounced erotic quality of this description. I can go either way on this question. While something of a sensualist in ordinary, everyday matters, Lewis was one of those people who try to give off an impression of worldliness while in actuality being sexually naive, and he was not notably self-aware, especially when it came to sex. So it's quite possible that he did not realize the overtones of this passage"
If the ... the dance [i.e., the work] is devised by a master, the rests and movements, the quickening and slowing, the easier and the more arduous passages, will come exactly as we need them; we shall be deliciously surprised by the satisfaction of wants we were not aware of till they were satisfied. We shall end up just tired enough and not too tired, and "on the right note." It would have been unbearable if it had ended a moment sooner -- or later -- or in any different way. Looking back on the whole performance, we shall feel that we have been led through a pattern or arrangement of activities which our nature cried out for.... the relaxation, the slight (agreeable) weariness, the banishment of all our fidgets, at the close of a great work all proclaim that it has done us good.
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