As close to a political comment as I may get this year!
In the light of the current U.S. political contest and the debate on the poor, the economy, etc. I believe we should go have a fresh look at Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Like Shakespeare, James Agee and Walker Evans remind us that poverty and its causes has absorbed humankind for centuries and longer.
FROM THE FORWARD …
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop’d and window’d raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta’en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop’d and window’d raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta’en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.
“Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains *and a world to win.” (*popular addition to the original.)
― Karl Marx
― Karl Marx
