John Kennedy the Nation Which Disdains the Mission of Art
The Purpose of Poetry
In a 1963 eulogy for Robert Frost, John F. Kennedy described verse equally "the ways of saving ability from itself."
Robert Frost held a special place in President Kennedy'due south intellectual pantheon. Frost died in Jan 1963, at age 88. The following October, Amherst Higher held a groundbreaking ceremony for the Robert Frost Library. Kennedy traveled to Massachusetts to deliver this speech communication; a month later, he, too, was dead.
In publishing the remarks afterwards Kennedy's murder, The Atlantic noted that he "identified himself, as no president before him has done so poignantly, with 'books and men and learning.' "
Our national strength matters; simply the spirit which informs and controls our force matters but 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 cocky-deception and like shooting fish in a barrel alleviation.
"I have been," he wrote, "ane acquainted with the dark." And considering he knew the midnight too as the high noon, considering he understood the ordeal as well every bit the triumph of the homo spirit, he gave his age strength with which to overcome despair.
At bottom, he held a deep faith in the spirit of human being. And it is hardly an accident that Robert Frost coupled poesy and power, for he saw poetry equally the means of saving power from itself.
When power leads human being toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of human being's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses, for art establishes the basic human truths 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 heed and sensibility confronting an intrusive society and an officious state. The dandy creative person 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 frequently sail against the currents of his time. This is not a popular role. If Robert Frost was much honored during his lifetime, it was because a good many preferred to ignore his darker truths. Nevertheless in retrospect, nosotros meet how the creative person's allegiance has strengthened the fiber of our national life.
If sometimes our great artists have been the most critical of our social club, it is considering their sensitivity and their business organization for justice, which must motivate any true creative person, make them aware that our nation falls short of its highest potential.
I see little of more importance to the futurity of our country and our civilization than total recognition of the place of the artist. If art is to attend the roots of our civilization, society must ready the artist costless to follow his vision wherever it takes him.
We must never forget that art is non a form of propaganda; it is a class of truth. And as [Archibald] MacLeish once remarked of poets, "There is nothing worse for our trade than to be in manner."
In free society art is not a weapon, and it does non belong to the spheres of polemics and ideology. Artists are not engineers of the soul. It may exist different elsewhere. But in a democratic society the highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist, is to remain truthful 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 human being—the fate of having "nothing to look backward to with pride, And nothing to wait forward to with promise."
I look forrad to a great future for America—a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral strength, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose. I expect frontward to an America which will not be agape of grace and dazzler, which will protect the beauty of our natural surround, which will preserve the great onetime American houses and squares and parks of our national past, and which will build handsome and balanced cities for our futurity.
I await forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts equally we reward achievement in business organization or statecraft.
I await forward to an America which will steadily raise the standards of artistic achievement and which will steadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all of our citizens.
And I await forward to an America which commands respect throughout the world, non simply for its strength but for its civilization equally well.
And I look forwards to a world which volition be safe not simply for democracy and diversity but too for personal distinction.
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/08/the-purpose-of-poetry/309470/
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