There is probably nothing wrong with art for art’s sake if we take the phrase seriously, and not take it to mean the kind of poetry written in England forty years ago.
Category Archive: Allen Tate
Other psychological theories say a good deal about compensation.
Narcissism and the Confederate dead cannot be connected logically, or even historically; even were the connection an historical fact, they would not stand connected as art, for no one experiences raw history.
The innocent mansion of a panther’s heart!
So the poet, who wants to be something that he cannot be, and is a failure in plain life, makes up fictitious versions of his predicament that are interesting even to other persons because nobody is a perfect automobile salesman.
A poem may be an instance of morality, of social conditions, of psychological history; it may instance all its qualities, but never one of them alone, nor any two or three; never less than all.
How does one happen to write a poem: where does it come from? That is the question asked by the psychologists or the geneticists of poetry.
The only real evidence that any critic may bring before his gaze is the finished poem.
At twelve I was determined to shoot only For honor; at twenty not to shoot at all; I know at thirty-three that one must shoot As often as one gets the rare chance – In killing there is more than commentary.
Men expect too much, do too little.