The power of political art : the 1930s literary left reconsidered PDF
Preview The power of political art : the 1930s literary left reconsidered
The Power of Political Art The 1930s Literary Left Robert Shulman Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/powerofpolitical0000shul THE POWER OF POLITICAL ART THE POWER OF POLETEEA L ART THE 1930S LITERARY LEFT RECONSIDERED ROBERT SHULMAN THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS CHAPEL HILL AND LONDON Parts of this study have appeared in © 2000 The University of North Carolina Press ““T Was Marching’: The Radical Re- All rights reserved portage of Meridel Le Sueur,’ NST1 Designed by April Leidig-Higgins (1988): 221-31; “Political Art and Set in Minion by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Ethnicity: The Radical Discourse of Manufactured in the United States of America Meridel Le Sueur,” in The Future of American Modernism: Ethnic Writing The paper in this book meets the guidelines for between the Wars, edited by William permanence and durability of the Committee on Boelhower (Amsterdam: Free Uni- Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the versity Press, 1990), pp. 217-42; and Council on Library Resources. “Subverting and Reconstructing the Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dream: The Radical Voices of Le Shulman, Robert, 1930— The power of political art: Sueur, Herbst, and Wright,” in Defer- the 1930s literary left reconsidered / Robert Shulman. ring a Dream: Literary Sub-Versions of p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. the American Columbiad, edited by ISBN 0-8078-2540-9 (cloth: alk. paper) Gert Buelens and Ernst Rudin (Basel: ISBN 0-8078-4853-0 (pbk.: alk. paper) Birkhauser, 1994), pp. 24-36. 1. American literature—2oth century—History and criticism. 2. Communism and literature—United States—History—2oth century. 3. Politics and literature—United States—History—2oth cen- tury. 4. Authors, American—2oth century— Political and social views. 5. Communism— United States—History—2oth century. 6. Right and left (Political science) in literature. 7. Power (Social sciences) in literature. 8. Radicalism in literature. 9. Nineteen thirties. 1. Title. PS228.C6 S58 2000 810.9'358—de21 99-055916 04.0023 0,1 00) 5 43) 27. To the usual suspects— Sandy, David, Natasha, Smadar, and Talia Rereading Native Son is an experience of renewing the dialectical awareness of history and society, but is not in itselfa n aesthetic experience. Harold Bloom, introduction to Richard Wright’s Native Son It is clear from this history that aesthetic, with its specialized references to art, to visual appearance, and to a category of what is “fine” or “beautiful,” is a key formation in a group of meanings which at once emphasized and isolated sub- jective sense-activity as the basis of art and beauty as distinct, for example, from social or cultural interpretations. It is an element in the divided modern consciousness of art and society. Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society We must come back to where we started, to the critic’s primary function. He must judge the work ofa rt as work of art. But knowing form and content to be insepa- rable, he will recognize his duty to both. Judgment of art is unavoidably both an aesthetic and a social act, and the critic’s sense of social responsibility gives him a deeper thirst for meaning. F. O. Matthiessen, “The Responsibilities of the Critic,” 1949 er Wi [al spe 9 =a ais nay © Shion © {ages ¢ OP ear Ve YOO 2 i te a aa | AIAN aD Se : 1 1S hq pee > = wey avs? - nia Dt a OS) —g1as S|ee e =bGi ft this Sais | oe amety lp el MAY Maite Cal bow > ean cot -ap yl oe ae aa elie eae : . . sat enge wee OE FO Giinn sh Dewey ¢ RSC a oo * it Amey Ue Oh eee ee a er eee ee it ip pia J oo=mw, Sab @ ee a ee le
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