lewis

Every made thing has two characters at once: it means and it is. It says something — states a case, carries an allegiance, stands for an idea — and it is also a thing made, with a shape and a design of its own. C. S. Lewis named the pair for literature in An Experiment in Criticism: the Logos, what the work says, and the Poiema, what it is as a made object. The two can be separated only in thought, and "the better the work is, the more violent the abstraction is felt to be."

There are two ways to stand before a made thing, and they are not two degrees of one attention but two different activities. To use a thing is to take it as a starting-point for your own response — the feelings, memories, and ambitions you bring to it — so that the object becomes a vehicle and your own inner life the cargo. To receive it is to set your own preoccupations aside, attend to what is actually there, and let the thing work on you. C. S. Lewis drew the distinction for literature in An Experiment in Criticism; it holds equally for a dress, a room, a piece of music, or a face.