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Alan Jacobs on Auden’s “Local Culture”

…[A]rt, while it cannot of its own power enforce any alteration of consciousness or morality, can help those who would be joined together to find their desired unity. Artists can never become the legislators of the world, acknowledged or unacknowledged, but they can become after a fashion public servants. Yet even this they can do successfully only […]

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The Beauty of the Weapons

Occasionally, I come across poems that have similar themes. I like to keep a record of them, or respond to them as if I were part of their conversation. Fleet Visit The sailors come ashoreOut of their hollow ships,Mild-looking middle-class boysWho read the comic strips;One baseball game is moreTo them than fifty Troys. They look […]

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This ease of access is in itself a blessing, but its misuse can make it a curse. We are all of us tempted to read more poetry and fiction, look at more pictures, listen to more music than we can possibly respond to properly, and the consequence of such over-indulgence is not a cultured mind […]

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At this hour we all might be anyone: It is only our victim who is without a wish Who knows already (that is what We can never forgive. If he knows the answers, Then why are we here, why is there even dust?) Knows already that, in fact, our prayers are heard, That not one […]

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