The difference between novels and poetry

“In some respects, reading a novel ought not to differ much from reading Shakespeare or reading a lyric poem. What matters most is who you are, since you cannot evade bringing yourself to the act of reading. Because most of us also bring definite expectations, a difference enters with the novel, where we think to encounter, if not our friends and ourselves, then a recognizable social reality, whether contemporary or historical.

. . . Novels require more readers than poems do, a statement so odd that it puzzles me, even as I agree with it. Tennyson, Browning, and Robert Frost had large audiences, but perhaps did not need them. Dickens and Tolstoy had vast readerships, and needed them; multitudes of overhearers are built into their art. How do you read a novel differently if you suspect you are one of a dwindling elite rather than the representative of a great multitude?”