Lewis, Preface to Paradise Lost: Quotes, Ch. 1-3

A perfect judge will read each work of wit
With the same spirit that its author writ.
Pope

Chapter 1: Epic Poetry

By "experience" he doubtless means such unhappy experiences as that of his father who wrote Amadis in strict conformity to the rules of Aristotle, but found that the recitation of it emptied the auditorium, from which "he concluded that the unity of action was a thing affording little pleasure." - p. 6

Chapter 2: Is Criticism Possible?

... each has unawares crowned and mitred himself Pope and King of Pointland. - p. 10

We may therefore allow poets to tell us ... whether it is easy or difficult to write like Milton, but not whether the reading of Milton is a valuable experience. For who can endure a doctrine which would allow only dentists to say whether our teeth were aching, only cobblers to say whether our shoes hurt us, and only governments to tell us whether we were being well governed? - p. 11 (responding to Eliot's view that only good poets can judge criticism of poetry)

Chapter 3: Primary Epic

The older critics divided Epic into Primitive and Artificial, which is unsatisfactory, because no surviving ancient poetry is really primitice and all poetry is in some sense artificial. - p. 13

All poetry is oral.... And all poetry is musical. - p. 14

The serious court poetry is another matter.... its three characteristics are that it is about men, it is historically true, and it is tragic. - p. 14

... he asks for "the voice of the reader in the house rather than the laughter of the mob in the streets" - p. 15

Professor Tolkein has suggested to me that this is an account of the complete range of court poetry, in which three kinds of poem can be distinguished -- [1] the lament for mutability... [2] the tale of strange adventures, and [3] the 'true and magic' lay.... - pp. 15, 16

the modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual. - p. 17