Malcolm Cowley (1898 – 1989)
Malcolm Cowley, on the Harvard esthetes subscribed propositions:
” that the cultivation and expression of his own sensibility are the only justifiable ends for a poet; that originality is his principal virtue; that society is hostile, stupid, and unmanageable; it is the world of philistines, from which it is the poet’s duty and privilege to remain aloof; that the poet is always misunderstood in the world. He should, in fact, deliberately make himself misunderstandable, for the greater glory of art; that he triumphs over the world at moments by mystically including it within himself; these are his moments of ecstasy, to be provoked by any means in his power: alcohol, drugs, madness or saintliness, venery or suicide; that art, the undying expression of such moments, exists apart from the world; it is the poet’s revenge on society; that the past has more dignity than the present. ”
Malcolm Cowley, “Think Back On Us”
Michael Lemon Portfolio 