It Makes No Difference To The Lord Poem by gershon hepner

One either has to live aesthetically,
or ethically, said Kierkegaard;
but in square brackets, parenthetically,
it makes no difference to the Lord.
So long to your own self you are true
you have the choice, it’s either-or;
whatever you do best you ought to do,
so long as you do not become a bore.

Adam Kirsch reviews Geoffrey Hill’s Collected Critical Writings, edited by Kenneth Haynes, in the TLS, July 18,2008. Hill object to what Matthew Arnold states: “A poetical work, therefore, is not yet justified when it has been shown to be accurate, and therefore interesting representation; it has to be shown that it is a representation from which man can derive enjoyment.” To Hill, this Arnoldian apology is strictly “misjudgment and self-misreading”. Kirsch writes:

Which poet is more earnest about ethics, then, the Hill of “September Song” or the Arnold of the preface? “One either has to live aesthetically or one has to live ethically”, Kierkegaard insists in Either/Or, and in this case it seems clear that it is Arnold who chose ethically––that is, who chose to choose––and Hill who “compounded” (to use another of his favorite words) , who thought the choice could be postponed, that the injustice of a poem could be compensated for by acknowledging it.

7/22/08