When Lewis warns against what he calls Poetolatry, i.e. the idolatry of poetry, he mentions Matthew Arnold who once said that poetry would replace religion. Using alliteration, Lewis laments “this collapse from criticism into cult” (54). The cult of poetry, Lewis says, is taking on two religious characteristics: (1) the worship of saints (such as biographies of Keats and Lawrence) and (2) traffic in relics. Appreciation is the appropriate response to good poetry, not worship. We can’t deify “Christ, Shakespeare, and Keats” because of their heterogeneity. We can obey Christ, but not Shakespeare or Keats! The dead poet is not sentient! It won’t do any good to serve a dead poet unless you believe in praying for the dead. Our living neighbor is the true object of our loving service (56). “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption.” Lewis was constantly on the watch for possible gods and goddesses that became a corruption, and poetry was a candidate for that status.