The role of literature is to mess with time, to establish its own time, its own rhythm. A new agenda for literary studies should open up the time of reading, just as it opens up how the writer establishes his or her rhythm. Instead of rushing by works so fast that we don’t even muss up our hair, we should tarry, attend to the sensuousness of reading, allow ourselves to enter the experience of words.
What I am asking myself to do is to step out of the grid of time, to experience works of literature anew. What I am asking you to do is to slow reading down, to preserve and expand the experience of reading — at any level, be it in elementary schools, high schools, colleges, or graduate seminars. What I am asking for is a revolution in reading.
Amen.
Thicket & Thorp 
what a great link!
indeed the aesthetics of language and communication have changed much in the 20th Century, It has become increasingly functional.
“I am convinced that most speed-reading is impaired reading, just like the sort you do when you have a fever or are tired or engaged in other tasks at the same time you are supposed to be reading.”
a quote for your quote.
ggw