The Poet As The Voice of Conscience

"And indeed the success ... of civilization continues to depend upon the practice of virtue identified with civility." Rene Dubos

The July 8, 1979 'New York Times Magazine' featured a rather interesting article on American writer John Gardner. Gardner's basic thesis as a writer of prose regarding the place of literature in society, and as a writer of fiction himself, is that the writer must recognize his responsibility to the society in which he lives. In other words, the writer has a duty not merely to hold up a mirror of words to society in which he skilfully paints a picture of modern society and all its various manifestations, but he must paint that picture of words to illustrate man's moral imperatives. Gardner states: "Real art creates myths a society can live with instead of die by, and clearly our society is in need of such myths..."; and, "Moral fiction holds up models of decent behaviour: Characters whose basic goodness and struggle against confusion, error and evil - in themselves and others - give firm intellectual and emotional support to our own struggles."

Surely, few can argue with such purpose in writing. To demonstrate man's struggle against the conditions of society imposed on him, against the Hyde and Jekyll residing in the psyche of each one of us is a noble tradition in writing. Maxim Gorky, Isaac Babel, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Charles Dickens, Emile Zola and Thomas Hardy, to name but a few writers of especial note who penned their mirrors during post-industrial man's crisis of experience, did such a service for their readers, and ultimately, humanity.

Social Anthropologist Rene Dubos writes in his Beast or Angel?: "Whether or not the words altruism and love had equivalents in the languages of the Stone Age, the social attitudes which they denote existed". From time immemorial, man has had imprinted in his inherent genetic code the need to be a social creature. This need is complemented by the capacity to love, to feel responsibility one for the other. Our animal origins have also predisposed us to answer the imperative of self-preservation; the most basic of all life-form responsibilities. What makes humans different qualitatively from other animal forms is our very humanness, our tacit recognition that our very existence is inextricably tied to that of the others with whom we share this globe. Our responsibility is not only to perpetuate our own lives, but that of other humans. And when we note injustice and moral decay it is likewise our responsibility to recognize the need to right the matter, if only by publicizing it, by bringing it to the attention of society. Man makes the conscious choice between behaviour which is basically 'good' for humanity and that which is inimical to its humane existence.

It is for that reason that Gardner's position rises above that of pious censure of his literary contemporaries; the writer does have a duty to illustrate, sometimes graphically, the ills which exist in this world; does have the linguistic and imagistic dexterity to move people and benefit society. By simply writing a tale of things as they appear to be on the surface and leaving it at that, by not insisting that the reader make a moral judgement, the writer abrogates his/her own moral responsibility.

There is that about the writing of fiction though, which permits this shrugging off of responsibility. After all, the fiction writer is often merely a teller-of-tales and fiction becomes a type of escapism where one can indulge in vicarious adventures. There is, however, that about the writing of poetics which does not permit the easy way out. The poet, throughout written history and before that, oral history, has taken upon him/herself the mantle of prophet, philosopher, historian and moralist. It is a heavy responsibility, but were it not for the poetic legacy humanity has had gifted it by that segment of any population which felt itself morally responsible to the majority, then humanity would be much the poorer today.

According to the basic tenet of the Persian prophet Zarathustra, more than two and a half millennia ago: "That nature only is good which shall not do unto another whatever is not good unto its own self." The Golden rule of 'Do Unto Others' is an ancient one, much pre-dating the advent of Christianity. And from ancient Sumer, inscribed on clay comes this text of a father's unhappiness with his son's material success because: "I, night and day, am tortured because of you...because you looked not to your humanity."

It was no mere literary caprice that caused Thomas Hardy to belittle to himself his fiction and wish instead to be known as a poet. He understood the power of the poet. Understood too, that although fiction is capable of holding up to the viewer a mirror of society's foibles and predilections, felicitous and unhappy, it is poetry which demonstrates by its subtle interweaving of perceptions and expectations - Man As He Should Be - that it is the bellwether of change. The poetic voice mothers us, encourages us; it entices us and finally it thunders, arousing emotions, demanding an accounting of our actions.

When Homer wrote: "Sing, goddess, of the cursed wrath of Achilles, Peleus' son, that brought to the Achaeans immeasurable suffering, and hurled away to Hades many mighty souls of heroes", he was articulating, in another way, what Zarathustra after him wrote; that we are our brothers' keepers and ultimately responsible. When Sappho wrote: "Some say that the most beautiful thing on the black earth is an army of horsemen, others an army of foot-soldiers, others a fleet of ships; but I say it is the person you love", she too was illustrating the recognition of moral values. And when Euripides wrote: "Have no grudge against me, spectators, if, although poor, I speak before the Athenian people about the city, and make a comedy of it. For even comedy knows what is right, and I shall tell things terrible but just", he was exercising his poetic responsibility.

That responsibility is both a terrible and a beautiful exercise in civility. To be civil is to interact responsibly with one's fellow man. (In his Dictionnaire francois-latin published in 1549, Robert Etienne defined civilite [civility] by the charming phrase "qui scait bien son entregent [who knows how to deal pleasantly with other people])". As social creatures the genus of man exercises the option, individually and collectively, to be part of a fundamentally sound whole. But there are times and isolated instances in history when this fundamental wholeness or wholesomeness fails, when, on a large or a small scale, society's humanism breaks down. It is the frightening responsibility then, of the poet to remind society through his insight and his skillful deployment of words, to bring society back to its collective humanity.

Human beings are heir to despair, yes, but we are also the legislators of our own despair and we have the means by which we can transform despair to a kind of victory of the soul. The poet, throughout antiquity and up to the present era, in the words of Ruth Wildes Schuler expresses options: "He is the torch-bearer that must search for the essence to redeem man. He must make it 'all come right'. He has a duty to duel with the destructive forces. He cannot conquer death, but he can express rage at man's abuse of helpless animals, the destruction of our natural environment and the inhumanity of man to other men, whether through prejudice or war."

The poet, then, throughout history has always been the catalyst for the transcendence of the animal in us all; the poet will continue to be the catalyst for the recognition of humanity in us all.