Last edited Mon Aug 10, 2015, 03:28 PM - Edit history (3)
... agree with you, and you certainly have a good pov.
I think it's the Brooks and Warren school.
However, for me there's a problem when anyone says that politics or social ideas and ideology should not be part of art .. or that the author's life and pov should not be considered. I guess this would be the art for art's sake school, and lot of people in the 20th c. advocated it and/or bought into it.
Me: I will never buy into that. That's because -- on the whole -- I don't buy into hard and fast rules for what makes a great or appropriate subject for art.
For me, once a rule is offered or established for what makes great art, it is meant to be broken greatly. I like to think that Shelley and Auden would agree with me because their art did just that; and of course, they're not alone.
However, the notion of sprezzatura I find very appealing, the art of doing a difficult task so gracefully that it looks effortless. That idea is at the heart of all alchemical transformations by the way, and it is represented by the first card of the Tarot's Major Arcana -- The Juggler or Magician. I think the word sprezzatura was coined in the 1500's by Castiglione in The Book of the Courtier. For Castiglione, this grace was represented by the Court of Urbino and its signature painter was Raffaello who just happened to show this virtue in his portrait of Castiglione, lol. See it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Baldassare_Castiglione
Later writers were also captivated by this idea, including Somerset Maugham who wrote: "A good style should show no sign of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident."
And yet the poetry that is speaking to me now shows such intricacy, complexity, and artistry that I can never read it without always being reminded of it; yet as Auden put it, the work that goes into reading it is well worth it. And once that work is done, then I can really feel the sprezzatura of it, so to speak. And, of course, it also makes the simple beauty of your example from Anonymous stand out as the epitome of simple grace of such elegance and fire that it strikes right through any mental carapace straight into the soul of souls.
So in the spirit of sprezzatura, since we both like Richard Wilbur, here is what I consider a transcendent example.
MIND
Mind in its purest play is like some bat
That beats about in caverns all alone,
Contriving by a kind of senseless wit
Not to conclude against a wall of stone.
It has no need to falter or explore;
Darkly it knows what obstacles are there,
And so may weave and flitter, dip and soar
In perfect courses through the blackest air.
And has this simile a like perfection?
The mind is like a bat. Precisely. Save
That in the very happiest intellection
A graceful error may correct the cave.
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