Literature and Politics

While the perception of poetry in the broader community is often one of high-brow or angst-ridden artists plying an incomprehensible trade in word-play, the appeal of poetry is still culturally and socially relevant in many quarters. The purpose of this paper will be to explore one such quarter: namely, the significance of poetry in public debate. More specifically, this will entail an analysis of the way in which poetry – specific poems and poets – are used or ‘invoked’ within public debate.

Two examples of such invocation – one real and one only suggested – will feature at the centre of this analysis: Al Gore’s 2007 Nobel Laureate lecture of climate change, and Noel Rowe’s 2008 essay concerning poetry and ‘The Apology’ made in federal parliament that same year. In the former, Gore cites lines from the poem ‘Fire & Ice’ by Robert Frost; while in the latter, Rowe operates from a hypothetical position asking ‘what if’ 'A Letter to My Mother' by Eva Johnson was read aloud in federal parliament as a part of the Apology, and what effect that would have on the listeners to empathise with the aborigines.

In addition to this analysis, this paper will consider these invocations in light of Plato’s complaints regarding what he saw as the corrupting influence of poetry, most famously raised in The Republic. The inclusion of Plato’s criticisms will help provide a critical anchor to this analysis, and from which an historical lineage of the criticism and defence of poetry (perhaps most notably through Sidney and Shelley) up to our own day can be identified. Through this analysis and the application of historical criticism to these contemporary uses of poetry in public debate, this paper will shed some light on the different uses of poetry – both genuine and disingenuous – in public forums.