Literature and Society
Literature and Society
(Salvador P. Lopez, Abar & Gemino (ed), The Likhaan Anthology of Philippines Literature in English from
1900 to the Present. QC: The UP Press, 2002)
Sets the tone of what Lopez wants to state, if words are living/alive, then it is a powerful tool.
• Word has soul and body.
○ Writers who consider themselves keepers of the word may not ignore the fact that it has a
physical body and possesses qualities of sound and color, fancy and imagination.
○ It is more than sound and color.
○ it is a living thing with blood and fire, capable of infinite beauty and power.
○ It is not an inanimate thing of dead consonants and vowels but a living force-the most
potent instrument known to man.
Advocates use of words to serve a higher purpose for humanity and civilization
• An individual that uses speech merely to evoke beauty of sound or beauty of imagination is not
exploiting the gift of speech for all that it is worth.
○ They are exploiting it only in those qualities that are inherent in the word but external to the
mind and soul of man.
○ When writers use words purely for their music or purely as an instrument of fancy, they may
claim that they are a devotee of pure art, since they insists on using words only in their
strictly primitive qualities.
In point of fact they are really a decadent aesthete who stubbornly confuses literature
with painting and refuses to place words in the employ of man and his civilization.
Progression in writing/art is from sophomoric to something more serious about society because the
artist is confronted with social realities and will not be able to escape them but put them in his/her
work.
• Their sophomoric certainties cast the shadow of terrible happenings that include:
○ Whole nations in the grip of terror
○ Starved
○ Maimed or killed through no fault of their own
○ Pawns in the bloody game of men lustful for wealth
○ Power crushed under the heels of the dictators
• An amorphous idealism or precocious cynicism is no longer adequate to meet the vast problems
which daily present themselves before his eyes.
• Writing that echoes books and writing the book of life does not blind artist from other beauties.
○ Writing that echoes books are writings about nature and beauty.
○ Writing the book of life are writings with compassion for the oppressed and anger for the
oppressor.
○ Today, with more sensitivity to definite principles of beauty, and justice and truth, they
pursue truth instead of phrases.
Justice and truth means uncovering ugliness.
Phrases is the beauty of words.
Young writers not writing about society/social themes will end up as indifferent or misanthropic.
• Indifferent or misanthropic is the dislike of humankind and avoidance of society.
• Indifference is due to ignorance or in wrongly believing that real life is beyond his/her art
○ It can be remedied by instruction if just about ignorance but if from twisted point of view,
then the case is hopeless
• Misanthropy is due to losing clarity from personal disappointment, weak will or intellectual
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The world is too much for humans because they have nothing to do with struggle.
• Humans conceive art as an escape from the ugliness around them.
○ This is the reason why they consecrate themselves to the expression of beautiful thoughts
and the creation of beautiful things.
• Life is ugly enough as it is.
○ This proposed humans to make it more beautiful with the products of their imagination.
• Humans attempts to change themselves or the world they live in that is bound to be a futile
enterprise.
• Art is a method of escape
○ It is an end in itself, never a means to an end.
○ e.g., The pen was made for purposes utterly different from the sword.
• Humans refuse to be artists in uniform.
• The argument mentioned seem sound until humans reflect that the highest form of art is that
which springs from the wells of man's deepest urges and longings of humans' love of their own
kind and their longing to be free.
○ Divest man of these interests, and they ceases to be what they are.
The richest subject for observation, portrayal and study that the artist can have before
them.
The opinion is still widely held that the artist and the man of letters should leave social agitation alone
and stick to art, that it is not their business to help advance social justice and to defend democracy, but
exclusively to paint a landscape, compose a song or write a sonnet.
• The events in the modern world have made it increasingly difficult for artists to do their work,
there are still those who fondly cling to the delusion that there is an Ivory Tower to which the
worshippers of Beauty can retire away from the madding crowd.
○ There is no such tower because only people who imagine that they dwell in one.
• Deliberate isolation from the rest of the world and complete indifference to the fortunes of
mankind on the part of the artist can only mean one thing:
○ Humans are incapable of profound thought and deep feeling and is therefore, to that
extent, incapable also of great art.”
• Being unmindful of social issues in your art reveals lack of capacity for profound thought and deep
feeling.
○ Society is where profound thought and feeling are present
Only greatness of heart and mind and soul can produce great art.
• The development of a man's emotional, intellectual and spiritual qualities is impossible.
• Human's heart, mind and soul are enriched by fruitful contact with others.
• Humans can know themselves only through knowing others.
○ To be self-centered is to be small in heart, narrow of mind, mean of soul.
Selfishness
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Degrees of importance among artists with those writing about their times than about beauty only.
• Men in every generation who will create for their own sake beautiful things which it is our duty to
treasure.
○ These artists represent an aberration from the normal course of nature, and if we confer
upon them the name of genius, it is genius of a decidedly inferior category.
e.g., Shakespeare is a greater artist than Christopher Marlowe, Shelley than Keats,
Walt Whitman than Edgar Allan Poe. Shakespeare, Shelley and Whitman achieved
more than mere beauty in their works; they were, in a fashion that is not to be
confused with crude instruction, teachers of men.
Useful and good results from art other than from satisfaction of being able to express himself/herself
• What really interests the writer in the end is granting that he recognizes the value of social
content in literature, is some sort of assurance that his writing will result in something that he can
lay his hands on as good and useful.
○ For certainly he has a right to expect that, having acceded to the demands of society upon
his talent, certain measurable benefits will flow from his work wholly distinct from the
purely subjective satisfaction that is his birthright as an artist and which comes naturally
with the act of creative expression.
Art for the service of society wherein improvement of human condition and defense of freedom does
make a human lose from being a creative artist and will not make you a propagandist.
• The challenge which humans ask the intelligent writer to meet is not challenge to beat the drums
and to blow the trumpet of progress.
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