I am thinking of words, phrases and concepts like "the Absurd" (Camus), "Catharsis/Katharsis" (Aristotle), "Inscape and Instress" (Hopkins), and terms like "Metaphysical" as applied to Donne and others.
Yet I think I understand the meaning of these words. I've always recognised "the Absurd", I've occasionally experienced something akin to "katharsis" when watching a Greek tragedy, Shakespeare's "King Lear" or listening to a profound blues song, and Hopkins' concept of "inscape" makes absolute sense if one takes the trouble to look closely at natural phenomena, even something as simple as a frost-covered branch, a leaf, or a hollow old oak-stump.
A sketch by Gerard Manley Hopkins: Hampstead. 1862. Oak-stump.
"And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things"
(Hopkins)
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