50
PARTISAN REVIEW
Ruth Lechlitner:
We who have read Edwin Rolfe's article will doubtless agree
that
he has set down, in able fashion, the aims and accomplishments to dak
of our revolutionary poets. We may also agree with his enumeration of
their shortcomings. But I believe the reasons he gives for these short·
comings tell only half the story. Unless we can go a little more deeply
into the causes for failure, it will be hard to attempt to shape the future
course of revolutionary poetry in this country.
Why do these poets, in the main, produce work that is static,
frag·
mentary, repetional, superficial? Why do they reflect a narrowly indi·
vidual, bodyless and temporal concern with separate, isolated cases
and
happenings? Because there is little evidence that more than a few have
taken the time to think through to a conception of the thing that lies
be–
hind, that has given rise-as but one of its manifestations--to their subject
matter: the present revolutionary movement. Some poets, unfortunately,
have so glibly adopted, parrot-fashion, even the most superficial cliches
that one suspects they have become "revolutionary" because that happens
to be (as they see it) the thing to do just now. Of those whose intentiOIIS
are sincere, who feel an honest compulsion to interpret a struggle
with
which they are in sympathy, many have mentioned (with rather vague
gestures) such matters as social change, the downfall of capitalism,
mq
action, Marxism. And one wonders: do they actually know what it
is
all about? Are they evaluating a revolutionary subject, seeing it in its
perspective-relation to a great and ceaselessly flowing evolutionary scheme?
Change, we know, is the cardinal principle of life. Hegel saw the
history of the world as a history of ideas, in which each idea has its own
negation. Out of the conflict of these two opposing forces a new and
higher idea rises, creates another negation, is in turn fought and conquered.
Upon this Hegelian concept Marx based his theory of mass movement,
with its illustration in the present system: one ruling class (the capitalist)
creates its opposition (the proletariat) which in turn must inevitably
rise
to a ruling position. But that is not the end.
1
The process of social ftow
is continuous. For instance, the establishment of a classless society Marx
saw not as a final Utopia, but as the beginning only of new forms of
society. This social-evolutionary process, built upon mutations, is as re–
morseless and certain as the processes of physical evolution in nature.
Each change is brought about by the unrest and revolt of those at the
bottom of the scale. They generate the upswing toward social betterment;
and in each of these upward struggles something (apart from temporary
victory) is created, we hope, that adds to the sum-total of human achieve–
ment.
It is assumed, of course, that the clear-seeing poet takes his stand
