  But while emphasizing that the poet aims to create a vivid response in us, in particular a vivid emotional response, Lessing fails to mention Mendelssohn’s point that we also need to retain some awareness of the artificiality rather than reality of the artistic depiction of persons and actions in order to maintain the distance necessary to allow us to enjoy the emotions evoked by art rather than being overwhelmed by them into actual suffering. He does not need to mention this, perhaps, in the case of the visual arts, since he holds that the visual artist leaves the audience some freedom of imagination by not depicting the moment of the greatest suffering of his subject, and this freedom may afford the necessary distance, but he might have done well to mention it in the case of poetry.