The word "rhapsodic", which could be used to describe Shelley's style in his Defense of Poetry, derives from "rhapsody", which in itself is derived from the Greek term rhapsode, which meant a singer, and later came to be associated with one who sees something others do not see. This notion of seeing what others do not see is actually a big part of Longinus' theory of what makes up the Sublime.

We continued the discussion/comparison between the Descriptive phase and the poetic phases, a big one of which is the use of denotative(which says something) and connotative(which suggests something)language. Descriptive employs the former, the poetic phases the latter.

I was also struck by the observation today(courtesy of Frye and Robert Frost) that good critical commentary uses what is right there. Because employing what is right there in the poem/book etc. is all that should be necessary. If it isn't, either the poem is weak, the critic is bad. Or maybe both. It should originate from what is in the text, not from an outside set of criteria being applied to it. But it seems to me that a vast majority of what is popularly called critiscism operates under the application of inappropriate systems or theories onto art works.

So once again, it just goes back to this: there need to be smarter critics.