I was once at a conference on the German philosopher Heidegger and one of his ex-students talked about a conversation they had had about exegetical work on poems -- Heidegger thought that knowing the background of a poem would either drag one down if you were a pedant, or (and this was the part that became philosophically complex) it would ground the reciter in a kind of spaciousness that might not be obvious, but would appear unconsciously. The implicit surroundings of the poem would seep into the recitation. The argument that ensued was whether this could be a substitute for traditional learning that would have the same or a similar "spaciousness", or to change the metaphor, "rootedness" ("Only the rooted tree can spread its branches" was the last phrase he used). As far as I can tell, this kind of distinction (in different language) is present in folk circles.

yours, Peter T.