Extraordinary Discourse 190

Stroll This Arcade





…what the poet nevertheless demands is a kind of society in which tranquility, withdrawal, is a natural right. He must be able to go into the press and out of it as easily as he passes from his own house into the street. The charge he makes against the modern world is that it has invaded his house of quiet, invaded it with cares and rumors, insistent political and totalitarian wars.

The poet is therefore compelled to demand, for poetic reasons, that the world shall be changed. It cannot be said that his demand is unreasonable: it is the first condition of his existence as a poet.
Herbert Read,
Introduction
To Hell With Culture