One thing we do know is that mass literacy is a product of the 19th century, at least in English-speaking cultures - Ireland, England, Scotland, Canada, and the U. S.
Robert HassThe record of poetry in the 20th century isn't all that great anyway. Most of the poets who weren't fascists were Stalinists.
Robert HassI got interested in the question of literacy because writers are always moaning about why more people don't read books. They long for the good old days when people read serious novels.
Robert HassThere's a good deal in Pound's and Eliot's poetry that stood up even though their politics were deplorable. Or Pound's very deplorable, Eliot's kind of deplorable.
Robert HassWhen I applied to Stanford, I applied for graduate work in the PhD program, not to the creative writing program, mostly because though I had some vague ambition of becoming a writer and I was trying to write poems and essays and stories, I didn't feel like I was far enough along to submit work to some place and have it judged.
Robert Hass