ABSTRACT
WE have already met with the political lyric in connection with the Wars of Liberation. Though we regarded it largely from the point of view of content we are conscious that it is also dependent on a certain formal sense and attitude towards life. Even the greatest poetry has not only an esthetic purpose but betrays some particular conviction of the poet’s mind. In its narrower aspects, to which we shall confine ourselves in this chapter, these convictions take on the form of political agitation. It is, therefore, unjust to apply a purely esthetic criterion to such verse, for its intentions are quite different; it aims at rhetorical effect, seeks to rouse violent emotion, and convince the reader. It champions a social class, or “the nation” in the party-sense. It employs ideologies and describes actual events (‘Rheinlieder’ and others). At the same time political poetry can use esthetic means (by way of palpable description) in order to render its argument the more effective. The boundary between form and content is thus indistinct, nevertheless the chief point is political agitation.
