Of Poetry and Politics
“When the soul of a man is born, there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.”
[In answer:] “A man’s country comes first. . . . You can be a poet or a mystic after.”
-- "The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" by James Joyce
This comes to me by way of an article on the tension between art and politics, with a focus on the experience of W. H. Auden and his flirtation with Marxism in the 1930s. He gave in to the temptation to let his poetry serve what he first saw as a good cause, only to become disenchanted when he began to see the darkness behind communist politics. In the end, perhaps unsurprisingly, we celebrate the freedom of the artist to pursue his talent, without regard to party and power, if he can.
[Source: Robert Huddleston in The Boston Review]
[In answer:] “A man’s country comes first. . . . You can be a poet or a mystic after.”
-- "The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" by James Joyce
This comes to me by way of an article on the tension between art and politics, with a focus on the experience of W. H. Auden and his flirtation with Marxism in the 1930s. He gave in to the temptation to let his poetry serve what he first saw as a good cause, only to become disenchanted when he began to see the darkness behind communist politics. In the end, perhaps unsurprisingly, we celebrate the freedom of the artist to pursue his talent, without regard to party and power, if he can.
[Source: Robert Huddleston in The Boston Review]