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Leland Ryken, drawing upon T.S. Eliot’s essay “Religion and Literature” (1935) suggests that there are two phases to a Christian’s experience of reading a book (or viewing any art with virtue): first self-forgetfulness, then self-consciousness.

The first stage is a stage of self-forgetfulness in which we surrender ourselves to the work we are reading. As C.S. Lewis describes it, “The first demand any work of art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way.” The value of literature, writes Lewis, is that “it admits us to experiences other than our own.”

But in addition to allowing for this enlarging self-forgetfulness in which we view the world through someone else’s eyes, a Christian reader must also become self-conscious about his or her own status as a Christian reader. At this point we are interested in assessing the morality and truth claims of the literature that we read. Having listened to a work of literature, we must also talk back to it.

Leland Ryken, Realms of God: The Classics in Christian Perspective, pp. 18-19, my emphasis .

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