Classical Principle Weekly
August 1, 2023
Poets are the Unacknowledged Legislators of Mankind
Today, we repost an essay from February of this year, that together with last week’s essay, present an outlook on Adversity and the role of Culture and Individuals. We hope you will give us feedback and your thoughts on it.
When we think of the major wars that our political leaders seem hell-bent on engaging us in, it seems appropriate that we begin today’s post with a tribute given by President John F. Kennedy to the poet Robert Frost, on October 26, 1963—one year after the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 16-November 20, 1962), and less than a month before his assassination (This year is the 60th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy):
“This day devoted to the memory of Robert Frost offers an opportunity for reflection which is prized by politicians as well as by others, and even by poets, for Robert Frost was one of the granite figures of our time in America. He was supremely two things: an artist and an American. A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.
“In America, our heroes have customarily run to men of large accomplishments. But today this college and country honors a man whose contribution was not to our size but to our spirit, not to our political beliefs but to our insight, not to our self-esteem, but to our self- comprehension. In honoring Robert Frost, we therefore can pay honor to the deepest sources of our national strength. That strength takes many forms, and the most obvious forms are not always the most significant. The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation's greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us.
“Our national strength matters, but the spirit which informs and controls our strength matters just as much. This was the special significance of Robert Frost. He brought an unsparing instinct for reality to bear on the platitudes and pieties of society. His sense of the human tragedy fortified him against self-deception and easy consolation. "I have been" he wrote, "one acquainted with the night." And because he knew the midnight as well as the high noon, because he understood the ordeal as well as the triumph of the human spirit, he gave his age strength with which to overcome despair. At bottom, he held a deep faith in the spirit of man, and it is hardly an accident that Robert Frost coupled poetry and power, for he saw poetry as the means of saving power from itself. When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.
“ The artist, however faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state. The great artist is thus a solitary figure. He has, as Frost said, a lover's quarrel with the world. In pursuing his perceptions of reality, he must often sail against the currents of his time. This is not a popular role. If Robert Frost was much honored in his lifetime, it was because a good many preferred to ignore his darker truths. Yet in retrospect, we see how the artist's fidelity has strengthened the fibre of our national life.
“If sometimes our great artists have been the most critical of our society, it is because their sensitivity and their concern for justice, which must motivate any true artist, makes him aware that our Nation falls short of its highest potential. I SEE LITTLE OF MORE IMPORTANCE TO THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY AND OUR CIVILIZATION THAN THE FULL RECOGNITION OF THE PLACE OF THE ARTIST.
“If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth. And as Mr. MacLeish once remarked of poets, there is nothing worse for our trade than to be in style. In free society art is not a weapon and it does not belong to the spheres of polemic and ideology. Artists are not engineers of the soul. It may be different elsewhere. But democratic society--in it, the highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist is to remain true to himself and to let the chips fall where they may. In serving his vision of the truth, the artist best serves his nation. And the nation which disdains the mission of art invites the fate of Robert Frost's hired man, the fate of having "nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope."
“I look forward to a great future for America, a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose. I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty, which will protect the beauty of our natural environment, which will preserve the great old American houses and squares and parks of our national past, and which will build handsome and balanced cities for our future.
“I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft. I look forward to an America which will steadily raise the standards of artistic accomplishment and which will steadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all of our citizens. And I look forward to an America which commands respect throughout the world not only for its strength but for its civilization as well. And I look forward to a world which will be safe not only for democracy and diversity but also for personal distinction.”
Poet and historian Paul Gallagher wrote:
“In August 1962, Stuart Udall, who was President Kennedy’s Interior Secretary, had Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet Ambassador, to dinner at his home with the poet Robert Frost, to talk about poetry and politics. Dobrynin at that time clearly knew that Soviet nuclear missiles were likely to be stationed in Cuba... Dobrynin also knew Frost’s poetry was appreciated in Russia, including among dissidents.
“That evening Udall proposed that Frost accompany him on a trip to Russia. JFK “instantly” authorized it, though nothing was announced.
“Udall and Frost went to Russia in the first week of September 1962. Frost met with Soviet poets and writers... Khrushchev met with Udall for over an hour, and the next day had a private meeting with Frost in Crimea which lasted more than 90 minutes. According to Udall’s several accounts, Frost bent Khrushchev’s ear with his vision of “a noble and peaceful rivalry” of the two great powers; he focused it on arts, sciences, sports, and democracy, while Khrushchev responded that it would be primarily economic. Khrushchev gave both men messages for JFK. The Russian poet and head of the Soviet Writers Union Aleksei Surkov accompanied Frost to Crimea and had a separate discussion with Khrushchev there the next day, which seemed “intense”. Frost’s interpreter, the poet F.D. Reeve, wrote a long Atlantic Monthly article in which he described how impressed he was with Khrushchev’s appreciation of Classical art (Ft 1) and his great respect shown to Frost, including the lengths Khrushchev went to, to meet with the 88-year-old American poet who had become exhausted and somewhat ill during the visit.”
Seven weeks after Khrushchev’s meetings with Udall and Frost, came two very surprising literary developments in Russia. On October 21, 1962, a daring poem by Yevgeny Yevtuschenko, “The Heirs of Stalin”, appeared in Pravda. Two days later, Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s first novel, “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, was published in Russia. Udall wrote that “Khrushchev was using a Russian version of poetry-and-power to push his program of political reform.” These were also the first days of the world’s Cuban Missiles Crisis.
President Kennedy ended his 1963 speech at Amherst with:
“Robert Frost was often skeptical about projects for human improvement, yet I do not think he would disdain this hope. As he wrote during the uncertain days of the Second War:
Take human nature altogether since time began . . .
And it must be a little more in favor of man,
Say a fraction of one percent at the very least . . .
Our hold on this planet wouldn't have so increased.
“Because of Mr. Frost's life and work, because of the life and work of this college, our hold on this planet has increased.”
The full poem, titled “Our Hold on the Planet”, is as follows:
We asked for rain. It didn’t flash and roar.
It didn’t lose its temper at our demand
And blow a gale. It didn’t misunderstand
And give us more than our spokesman bargained for,
And just because we owned to a wish for rain,
Send us a flood and bid us be damned and drown.
It gently threw us a glittering shower down.
And when we had taken that into the roots of grain,
It threw us another and then another still,
Till the spongy soil again was natal wet.
We may doubt the just proportion of good to ill.
There is much in nature against us. But we forget;
Take nature altogether since time began,
Including human nature, in peace and war,
And it must be a little more in favor of man,
Say a fraction of one percent at the very least,
Or our number living wouldn’t be steadily more,
Our hold on the planet wouldn’t have so increased.
The poems of Robert Frost still await adequate musical settings. In the meantime, here is one set to music by Randall Thompson:
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (Robert Fröst, 1922)
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep
Here is "The Heirs of Stalin" by Yevtushenko:
Mute was the marble. Mutely glimmered the glass.
Mute stood the sentries, bronzed by the breeze.
Thin wisps of smoke curled over the coffin.
And breath seeped through the chinks
as they bore him out the mausoleum doors.
Slowly the coffin floated, grazing the fixed bayonets.
He also was mute- his embalmed fists,
just pretending to be dead, he watched from inside.
He wished to fix each pallbearer in his memory:
young recruits from Ryazan and Kursk,
so that later he might collect enough strength for a sortie,
rise from the grave, and reach these unreflecting youths.
He was scheming. Had merely dozed off.
And I, appealing to our government, petition them
to double, and treble, the sentries guarding this slab,
and stop Stalin from ever rising again
and, with Stalin, the past.
I refer not to the past, so holy and glorious,
of Turksib, and Magnitka, and the flag raised over Berlin.
By the past, in this case, I mean the neglect
of the people’s good, false charges, the jailing of innocent men.
We sowed our crops honestly.
Honestly we smelted metal,
and honestly we marched, joining the ranks.
But he feared us. Believing in the great goal,
he judged all means justified to that great end.
He was far-sighted. Adept in the art of political warfare,
he left many heirs behind on this globe.
I fancy there’s a telephone in that coffin:
Stalin instructs Enver Hoxha.
From that coffin where else does the cable go!
No, Stalin has not given up. He thinks he can cheat death.
We carried him from the mausoleum.
But how to remove Stalin’s heirs from Stalin!
Some of his heirs tend roses in retirement,
thinking in secret their enforced leisure will not last.
Others, from platforms, even heap abuse on Stalin
but, at night, yearn for the good old days.
No wonder Stalin’s heirs seem to suffer
these days from heart trouble. They, the former henchmen,
hate this era of emptied prison camps
and auditoriums full of people listening to poets.
The Party discourages me from being smug.
'Why care? ' some say, but I can’t remain inactive.
While Stalin’s heirs walk this earth,
Stalin, I fancy, still lurks in the mausoleum.
There was life and classical culture on both sides of the "Cold War." In 1961, Pablo Casals played for the Kennedy's at the White House, after having tried to organize the UN for a global simulcast of Beethoven's “Ninth Symphony” as a protest against nuclear war. Here is the Andante movement from Mendelssohn's “Trio in D Minor” from that White House concert:
https://youtu.be/IKibEPU-9W0...
Ft 1 F.D Reeve mentioned Krushchev's love of classical art. In 1958, Krushchev shocked the world by intervening to award the 1st prize in the first International Tchaikovsky Competition to an American, Van Cliburn. Kruschchev became a fan of Cliburn. Russian musicians such as Sviatoslav Richter and Kiril Konfrashin played in the U.S. as ambassadors of goodwill. Krushchev was seen smiling and cheering at this 1962 concert of Beethoven.
Yevtushenko also wrote a poem about the massacre at Babi Yar in Ukraine. Shostakovitch showed great courage in setting it to music, when all of his friends abandoned him. Shostakovitch wrote: "People knew about Babi Yar before Yevtushenko's poem, but they were silent. And when they read the poem the silence was broken. Art destroys silence."
Babi Yar (a few verses)
No monument stands over Babi Yar.
A steep cliff only, like the rudest headstone.
I am afraid.
Today, I am as old
As the entire Jewish race itself.
I see myself an ancient Israelite.
I wander o’er the roads of ancient Egypt
And here, upon the cross, I perish, tortured
And even now, I bear the marks of nails.
It seems to me that Dreyfus is myself. *1*
The Philistines betrayed me – and now judge.
I’m in a cage. Surrounded and trapped,
I’m persecuted, spat on, slandered, and
The dainty dollies in their Brussels frills
Squeal, as they stab umbrellas at my face.
I see myself a boy in Belostok *2*
Blood spills, and runs upon the floors,
The chiefs of bar and pub rage unimpeded
And reek of vodka and of onion, half and half.
I’m thrown back by a boot, I have no strength left,
In vain I beg the rabble of pogrom,
To jeers of “Kill the Jews, and save our Russia!”
My mother’s being beaten by a clerk.
O, Russia of my heart, I know that you
Are international, by inner nature.
But often those whose hands are steeped in filth
Abused your purest name, in name of hatred.