breaking the glass armour

"The fate of the works of old artists of the world is exactly the same as the fate of the word itself. They are completing the journey from poetry to prose. They cease to be seen and begin to be recognised. Classical works have for us become covered with the glassy armour of familiarity - we remember them too well, we have heard them from childhood, we have read them in books, thrown out quotations from them in the course of conversation, and now we have callouses on our souls - we no longer sense them."

-Victor Shklovsky, "The Resurrection of the Word." 1914-