Graham R (Ed.) - Anarchism - A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas Volume One - From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939)

498 / ANARCHISM
130. Herbert Read: PoetlY and Anarchism (1938)
Herbert Read (1893- 1 968) was an Englis/l poet, writer and art critic who declared his allegiance
to anarchism at a time when it was decidedly oul offavour. His writings bridge the decline
of classical anGlThism, with the defeat of the anarchists in the Spanish Revolution and
Civil Wa r, and the post-war development of modem anarchism, particularly in his emphasis
on spontaneity, creativity and selJrealization. The fo llowing extracts are taken fr om Poetry
and Anarchism (London: Faber and Faber, 1938; reprinted in Anarc/lY and Order, Boston:
Beacoll Press, 1971 J.
TO DECLARE FOR A DOCTRINE SO REMOTE as anarchism at this stage of history will
be regarded by some critics as a sign of intellectual bankruptcy; by others as a sort of
treason, a desertion of the democratic front at the most acute moment of its crisis; by
still others as merely poetic nonsense ...
I speak of doctrine, but there is nothing I so instinctively avoid as a static system
of ideas. I realize that fo rm. pattern, and order are essential aspects of existence; but
in themselves they are the attributes of death. To make life, to insure progress, to
create interest and vividness, it is necessary to break form, to distort pattern, to
change the nature of our civilization. In order to create it is necessary to destroy; and
the agent of destruction in society is the poet. I believe that the poet is necessarily an
anarchist, and that he must oppose all organized conceptions of the State, not only
those which we inherit from the past. but equally those which are imposed on people
in the name of the fu ture. In this sense I make no distinction between fa scism and
Marxism ...
! am not concerned with the j)ldclicabiiity of a program. I am only concerned to
establish truth, and to resist all fo rms of dictation and coercion. I shall endeavour to
live as an individual. to develop my individuality; and if necessary I shall be isolated in
a prison rather than submit to the indignities of war and collectivism. It is the only
protest an individual can make against the mass stupidity of the modern world ...
Civilization has gone from bad to worse ... and there are many young artists today
whose only desire is to escape to some fe rtile soil under a summer sky. where
they may devote themselves entirely to their art free from the distractions of an insane
world. But there is no escape. Apart from the practical difficulty of finding a secure
refuge in this world. the truth is that modern man can never escape from
himself. He carries his warped psychology about with him no less inevitably than his
bodily diseases. But the worst disease is the one he creates out of his own isolation:
uncriticized phantasies, personal symbols, private fe tishes. For whilst it is true that
the source of all art is irrational and automatic-that you cannot create a work of art