Dana Gioia: belief

Transcript context

…Do you, like Auden, crave a social function for poetry? I think poetry has a social function but it’s a relatively complicated and subtle one, which is to say, the reason that we have art is, in a sense, to increase human happiness. It does that, essentially, on an individual level. A work of art awakens you. It awakens you to the possibilities of your own potential. It takes that potential, it enlarges it, it refines it, and each art does it in different ways. Music appeals to the auditory sense, an organizational, formal structure in the mind. Painting is visual. Sculpture is visual and tactile. In the old days, people always would feel sculptures. Poetry is to our language and our emotional functions. They awaken emotions and awaken our ability to articulate them. Now, that’s on an individual basis. When you do that on a social level, what you create over time, if you have the arts there, are people who are better aware of who they are, how they feel, are able to articulate it and recognize that empathetically in other people. I would say that a purpose of poetry on a social level is to enlarge our empathy and understanding of one another. What are the prospects for a culture that no longer understands poetry, and might that be ours?…

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