vague and indeterminate

The Italian poet Leopardi believed that vagueness was an essential characteristic of poetry, allowing the mind to "wander in the realm of the vague and indeterminate, in the realm of those childlike ideas which are born out of the ignorance of the whole.”

See G. Singh’s wonderful book, Leopardi and the Theory of Poetry (U. of Kentucky Press, 1964). Singh writes: “It is because the poet is attracted to what is vague and indefinite, more than what is clear, concrete, and precise, that his language, even when it does not contain a full-fledged image or simile or metaphor, does to a certain extent partake of the character of an image or a symbol, both saying and suggesting something much more than what it commonly would outside of poetry.”