0079 (2

0080     When,later,I began to write poetry’I found that,for me,at least,the same
0081 obligation was binding. That is to say,I cannot accept the dosctrine that,in
0082 poetry,there is a 'suspension of beliefe'. A poet must never make a statement
0083 simply because it sounds poetically exciting: he must also beleiieve it to be
0084 true. This does not mean,of course,that one can only appreciate a poet whose
0085 beliefs happen to co-incide with one's own. It does mean,however,that one must
0086 nbe convinced that the poet really believ[]es what he says,however odd that the
0087 belief may seem to oneself.

0088 Change colon to
0089 semi-colon ?

0090        Between constructing a private fantsayfantasy world for oneself alone
0091 and writing poetry,there is,of course,a profound difference. A fanatsy
0092 fantasy world exists only in the head of its creator: a poem is a public
0093 verbal object intended to be read and enjoyed by others. To become conscious
0094 of others is to become conscious of historical time. in various ways. The
0095 contents of a poem are necessarily past expereinces experiences,and the goal of
0096 a poem is necessaily necessarily in the future,since it cannot be read until
0097 it has been written. Again,to write a poem is to engage in an activity which
0098 human beings have practised for centuries. If one asks why human beings
0099 make poems or paint pictures or compose music,I can see two possible answers.
0100 Firstly all the artistic media are forms of an activity pecul[]iar to human
0101 beings,namely,Personal Speech. Many animals have impersonal codes of
0102 communications,visual,olfactory,auditory signals,b[]y which they convey to
0103 other members of their species vital information about food,territory,sex,
0104 the presence of enmies enemies,etc,and in social animals like the bee,such
0105 a code may be exceedingly complesx. We,too,of course,often use words in the same
0106 way,as when I ask a stranger the way to the railroad station. But when we
0107 truly speak,we do something quite different. We spak speak as person to person
0108 in order to disclose ourselves to others and share our expereiiences with
0109 them,not because we must,but becuase we enjoy doing so. This activity is
0110 sometimes quite erroneously called 'self-expression'. If I write a poem
0111 about ceratin experiences I have had,I do so,not bec becuaause I think it
0112 mayshould be of interest and value to others,not: the fact that it has till now
0113 only been my expereiience is accidental. What the poet or any artist has to convey
0114 is a perception of a reality common to all,but seen from a unique perpsective,
0115 which it is his duty as well as his pleasure to share with others. To small
0116 truths as well as great,St Augustine's words apply.

0117 Change colon
0118 to
0119 semi.colon ?
0120

0121 Change colon to
0122 semi.colon ?

0123             The truth is neither mine nor his nor another's;but belongs
0124             to us all whom Thou callest to partake of it: warning us
0125             terribly,not to account it private to ourselves,lest we be
0126             deprived of it.

0127 Check quote
0128 and
0129 give
0130 source if possible

0131 Why is this passage
0132 underlined ?

0133   Then the second impulse to artistic fabrication is the desire to transcend
0134 our mortality,by making objects which,unlike ourselves,are not subject to
0135 natural death,but can remain permantly permanently 'on hand' in the world,
0136 long after we and our society have perished.
0137    Every genuine work of art,I believe,exhibits two qualities,Nowness and
0138 Permanence. By Nowness I mean the quality which enables an art-historian
0139 to date a work,at least,approximately. If,for example,one listens to
0140 a composition by Palestrina and one by Mozart,one knows immediately that,
0141 quite aside from their artistic merits,Palestrina must have lived earlier
0142 than Mozart: he could not possibly have written as he did after Mozart.
0143 By pPermanaence,I mean  that the work continues to have relevance and
0144 importance lomg after its creator is dead. In the history of Art,unlike
0145 the history of Science,no genuine work of art is made obsolete by a
0146 later work. Past science is of interest only to the historian of science,not
0147 to what scientists are doing at this moment. Past works of art,on the
0148 other hand,are of the utmost importance to the contemporary praticioner.
0149 practicotoneroner. Every artist tries to produce something new,but in the hope
0150 that,in time,it will take its []proper place in the tradition of his art.
0151 And he cannot produce anything significantly original unless he knows
0152 well what has been already been done;without,that is to say ,even in he cannot
0153 'rebel' against the past without having a profound reverence for it.

0154 Change colon ?

0155 (3

0156       There are periods in history when art the arts develop uninterruptedly,
0157   each generation building on the achievements of the previous generation.
0158 There are other periods when radical breaks seem to be necessary. However,
0159 twhen they are,one will generally find that the 'radical' artist does not
0160 diswon disown the past,but finds in works of a much earlier period or in
0161 those of anotehr culture than his own,the clue as to what he should do now.
0162 In my own case,for example,I know how much I owe to Anglo-Saxon and
0163 Medieavval Poetry.

0164 INSERT
0165 ? another

0166     When I reveiw review the contemporary artistic scene,Iit strikes me how
0167 extraorinary extraordinarily fortunate men like Stravinsky,Picasso,Eliot,
0168 etc,that is,those persons we think of as the founders of 'modern' art,
0169 were in being born when they were,so that they came to manhood before
0170 I9I4. Until the Fis First World War,western society was still pretty much
0171 what it had been in the nineteenth century. This meant that for these artists,
0172 the felt need to create something new arose from an artistic imperative,
0173 not a histroi historic imperative. No one asked himself:"'What is the proper
0174 kind of music to compose or picture to paint or poem to write in the year
0175 I9I2.?"'  Secondly,their audiences contemporary audiences  were mostly
0176 consrervative,but honestly so.  Those,for instance,who were scandalised by
0177 Le Sacre du Printemps,may seem to us now to have been old fgi fogies,but
0178 their reaction was genuine. They did not say to themselves:"'Times have
0179 changed and we must change with them in order to be up to date." not to
0180 be left behind."'
0181      Here are a few statements by Stravinsky to whcih which the young,wherewherewhether
0182 artists or critics,would do well to listen and pknde ponder over.

0183            In my youth the new music grew out of,and in reaction to,traditions,
0184            whereas it appears to be evolving to-day as much from social needs
0185            as interior artistic ones...The status of the new music as a
0186            category is another incomparable. It had none at all in my early
0187             years,being in fact categorically opposed,and often with real
0188           hostility. But the unsuccess of composers onf my generation at
0189           least kept them from trading on success,and our unsuccess may have
0190            been less insidious than the automatic superlatives which nowadays
0191           kill the new by absorbing it tio death.
0192                                  ***

0193 Again : Why are
0194 all these
0195 passages
0196 underlined ?

0197 Check and
0198 give
0199 source if possible

0200           The use of the new hardware naturally appears to the new musician
0201           as "'historically imperative"'; but music is made out of musical
0202           imperatives,and the awareness of historical processes is probably
0203           best left to future and different kinds of wage-earners.
0204                                   ***

0205 Check and
0206 give
0207 source .

0208  In times,like our own,of rapid social change and political crisis,there is
0209 always a danger of confusing the principles governing political action and
0210 those governing artistic fabrication.  The most important of such confusuions
0211 are thrree.
0212   Firstly,one may come to think of artistic fabrication as sa fromorm of political
0213 action. Every citizen,artistspoets includied,has a duty to be politically 'engagé',
0214 that is,to feel play a responsible part in seeing that the society of which
0215 he is a member shall function properly and improve. But the poet,qua poet,
0216 has only one political function. Since langiuage is his medium,it is his duty,
0217 by his own example,to defend his motehhermothermother-tongue against corruption by demagogues,
0218 journalists,the mass-media,etc. As Karl Krauss said:"'Die Sprache ist die Muuet
0219  Mutter,nicht das Magd,des d gGedankens"',and when language loses its meaning,
0220 its palce place is taken by violence. Of course,the poet may use political and
0221 social events as subject-matter for poems - they are as much a part of human
0222 experience as love or nature - but he must never imagine that his poems have
0223 the power to affect the course of history. The political and social history
0224 of Europe would be what it ahs has been if Dante,Shakepeare,Goethe,Michaleel
0225 Angelo,Titaiian,Mozart,Beethoven,eytc,ahd had never existed.

0226 Check and
0227 give
0228 source

0229 4

0230    Where politicla political and social eveils evils are concerned,only
0231 tkwo things are effective*: political action and straightforward,truthful,
0232 detailed journalistic rapportage of the facts. The Arts are powerless.
0233   The second confusion,of which Plato is the most famous example,is to take
0234 artitstic fabrication as the model for a good society. The aim of any artist  
0235 Such a model,if put into practice,is bound to produce a tyrrany.tyranny The aim of
0236 the artists is to produce an object which is complete and will endure without
0237 change. A In the 'city' of a poem,there are always the same inhabitants doing
0238 exactly the same jobs for ever. A society which was really like a good poem,
0239 embodying the aesthetic virtues of order,economy,and subordination of the detail
0240 to the whole,would be a nightmare of horror for,given the historical reality of
0241 actual men,such a society could only come into being through selective breeding,
0242 exytermination  of the physically and mentally unfit,absolute obedience to
0243 its Ddirector,a allarge slave claass kept out of sight in fcellars,and the
0244 strictest censureeship of the Arts,forbidding anything to be said which was is
0245 not out of keeping with the official 'line.''.

0246    The third confusion,typical of our western civilisat 'free' soncietis
0247 societies at this time,is the opposite of Plato's,namely to take political
0248 actuion as the model for artitstic fabrication. Political action is a necessity,
0249 that is to say,ayt veryevery moment something has to be done,and politicla it
0250 is momentary - action at this moment is immediately followed by another action
0251 at the next.  Artistic fabrication,on the other hand,is voluntarily voluntary-
0252 the alternative to one work of art can be no work of art - and the artistic
0253 object is permanent,that is to say,immune to historical change. The attempt
0254 to model artitstic fabrication osn political action can therefore,only
0255 reduce it to momentary (h adnd arbitrary 'happenings',a conformism with
0256 the tyrrany of the immediate moment which is far more enslaving and
0257 destructive of integrity than any conformism with past tradition.

0258 insert
0259 4`a

0260    What then,can the Arts do for us? In my opionion,they can do two things.
0261 They can,as Dr Johnston said,'enable us a little better to enjoy life or a
0262 little better to enjoyendure it"'. And,becaase because they are objects permant
0263 permanently on hand in the world,they are the chief means by which the lvi
0264 living are able to break bread with the dead,and,without a communication
0265 with the dead,I do not believe that a fully human civilised life is possible.
0266   Perhaps,too,in our age,the mere making of a work of art is itself a
0267 political act. So long as artists exist,making what they please or think
0268 they ought to make,even if the worlks their worlks are not terribly good,they
0269 remind the Management of something managers need to be reminded of,namely,
0270 that the managed are people with faces,not anonymous numbers,that Homo
0271 Laborans is also Homo Ludens.

0272 Source ?

0273          And now,I hope those of you who know no English will forgive me isf
0274 I concluded these remarks with a light poem of my own,entitled
0275 Doggerel of by a Senior Citizen. (see CP 638-9).

0276 I have added commas in lists after final item and before etc
0277 since they are already there in most of the lists -
0278 I have also added a few other comma[] (usually to complete a set of parenthetical commas)
0279 I have no[] changed colons though I would like to : Are these A's ?

0280 (4a

0281 insert into nextpreceding page

0282        At this pinoint,a little digression on the subject of 'free' verse,which
0283   seems now to be almost universal among young poets. Though excellent
0284  examples,the poems of D.H.Lawrence,for example,exist,in my opinion they are,in my opinion
0285 the exception,not the rule. The great virtue of formal metrical rules is
0286 that they forbid automatic reposnse respionses and,by forcing the piet poet
0287 to have second thoughts,free fhim forrom the fetters of self. All too often,the
0288 result of not having a fixed form to be true to,is a self-indulgence which in
0289 the detached reader can only cause boredom. Further,in my expereiience ,contrary
0290 to what one might expsect,the writers o free-verse poets sound much more
0291 like each other than those who write in fixed forms. Whatever freedom may do,
0292 it does not,it would seem,make for originality.

0293 ? delete
0294 this
0295 comma ?