Carol Frost’s essay, “The Poet’s Tact and Necessary Tactlessness,” appeared in NER 20.3 (1999):
Originally tact was a word for the sense of touch—“the various Percepts and Percipienda of tact, vision, hearing—sweet, hot, light—have each its bodily organ” (Plato). The meaning of the word modulates in to the possession of a keen faculty, likened to the tactile, which can apprehend what is likely to offend. Today it is common enough parlance for the delicate perception of what is proper or fitting in dealing with others. IT implies skill in dealing with people in difficult situations, composure, and even a ready knowledge of how to act (savoir faire). In poetry’s context, the poet being in Lorca’s definition “professor of the five senses,” tact seems a particularly apt word for an activity of the poet which involves the senses and some (sometimes more and sometimes less) awareness of the audience. Indeed, a letter from Coleridge to Sotheby in 1895 helps to establish this usage of the word: “You…must needs have a better tact of what will offend that class of readers.”