ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 reads Melvin B. Tolson’s long poem Libretto for the Republic of Liberia as expressing hope through its conviction of art as spurring identification with the other. The poem presents a Marxist-democratic vision of a future utopian society. This vision proceeds from Tolson’s belief in what I term the recovery of democracy – the possibility of meaningful and egalitarian connection between individuals divided by class, race, or language. The poem at once records the ways in which difference is embedded into society and works to spark confrontations between these sites of difference. In this manner, and with typically modernist self-referentiality, Tolson’s poem both affirms and exemplifies aesthetic utility – the “work” art performs in culture – as the vehicle that enables us to go beyond merely envisioning a future toward fashioning it.
