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There is probably nothing wrong with art for art's sake if we take the phrase seriously, and not take it to mean the kind of poetry written in England forty years ago.

Allen Tate

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Allen Tate
Age: 79 †
Born: 1899
Born: November 19
Died: 1979
Died: February 9
Author
Literary Critic
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
Winchester
Kentucky
John Orley Allen Tate
Nothing
Seriously
Take
Sake
Mean
England
Kind
Poetry
Years
Probably
Written
Phrase
Wrong
Phrases
Art
Forty

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Dramatic experience is not logical it may be subdued to the kind of coherence that we indicate when we speak, in criticism, of form.
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I am not ridiculing verbal mechanisms, dreams, or repressions as origins of poetry all three of them and more besides may have a great deal to do with it.
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Therefore with idle hands and head I sit In late December before the fire's daze Punished by crimes of which I would be quit.
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There is a calm for you where men and women Unroll the chill precision of moving feet.
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Punctilious abyss, the yawn of space Come once a day to suffocate the sight.
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Good manners, Madam, are had these days not For your asking, nor mine, nor what-we-used-to-be's. The day is a loud grenade that bursts a smile Of serious weeds in a comic lily plot.
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Poets, in their way, are practical men they are interested in results.
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The only real evidence that any critic may bring before his gaze is the finished poem.
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My darling boy whom I shall never know, My son, I love you in my deepest fears.
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There's precious little to say between day and dark, Perhaps a few words on the implacable will Of time sailing like a magic barque Or something as fine for the amenities.
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Other psychological theories say a good deal about compensation.
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The day's at end and there's nowhere to go, Draw to the fire, even this fire is dying Get up and once again politely lying Invite the ladies toward the mistletoe.
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We know the particular poem, not what it says that we can restate.
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I had kept opaque Down deeper than the canyons undersea The sullen spectrum of a buried lake Nobody saw not seen even by me.
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The twilight is long fingers and black hair.
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For some reason most critics have a hard time fixing their minds directly under their noses, and before they see the object that is there they use a telescope upon the horizon to see where it came from.
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Among friends one has the privilege of saying nothing the civility consists in the assumption that one's silence will be civilly understood. I can imagine a small gathering of friends who say nothing all evening: they recoil from saying anything that the others don't want to hear and their silence would be the subtlest courtesy.
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So the dubbed conceit Played nursery of cheat To clear the I of sleet.
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Last night I fled until I came To streets where leaking casements dripped Stale lamplight from the corpse of flame A nervous window bled.
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But we shall not know the world by looking at it we know it by looking at the hovering fly.
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