In Greek self-understanding) to force people by violence, to command rather than persuade, were pre-political ways to deal with people characteristic of life outside the polis." Finally, we are discussing the writer with a politics-and of this I can only say that it would be difficult for me to imagine a writer or intellectual who would profess to be without one. I speak to you today as a rather contaminated poet, but my understanding of the political is in accord with Hannah Arendt's: "To be political, to live in a polis that everything decided through words and persuasion and not through force and violence. Our poets, most especially, are relegated to the hermetic sphere of lyric expressivity and linguistic art, where they are expected to remain unsullied by historical, political, and social forces. The word politics presents more serious difficulties, particularly in the literary culture of the United States, where the word is most often applied pejoratively, and where politics is regarded as a contaminant of serious literary work.
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