[Marxism] Poets versus novelists

[g.maclennan at qut.edu.au]

Lou wrote:

I also said that novelists tended to have much better politics.

Food for thought...

I replied: 

Ok fool that I am I will have a go at this one.  For a start there are radical poets - Shelley & Brecht come to mind. So there is no absolute correlation but there could still be a tendency for novelists to be more progressive than poets. How can we account for that tendency if indeed it exists?

My guess would be that the tendency for poets to be more reactionary than novelists lies within the nature of the art. Poetry is closer to music than any of the other artsin that to an extent neither engage the world directly.

Novelists on the other hand are basically involved with the social and that might be the basis for a tendency for them to have progressive politics.

Hmmmm! I can almost hear the chorus of "BS...BS...BS".  
What about the spanish poets?  Waht about the Arabs?  What about the.... ? Does all this only apply to English Poets?

BTW my formula of holding one's nose over the politics and loving the poetry does not always apply with Frost.  He did wirte some nasty little political poems. _A case for Jefferson_ is a beauty:

Harrison loves my country too,
But wants it all made over new.
He's Freudian Viennese by night.
By day he's Marxian Muscovite.
It isn't because he's Russian Jew.
He's puritan Yankee through and through.
He dotes on Saturday pork and beans.
But his mind is hardly out of his teens:
With him the love of country means
Blowing it al to smithereens
And having it all made over new.            
regards

Gary