Chapter 2 of The Nobel Lecture on Literature by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, translated by Thomas P. Whitney

 2

    Dostoyevsky once let drop the enigmatic phrase: "Beauty will save the world." What does this mean? For a long time it used to seem to me that this was a mere phrase. Just how could such a thing be possible? When had it ever happened in the blood-thirsty course of history that beauty had saved anyone from anything? Beauty had provided embellishment certainly, given uplift -- but whom had it ever saved?

    However, there is a special quality in the essence of beauty, a special quality in the status of art: the conviction carried by a genuine work of art is absolutely indisputable and tames even the strongly opposed heart. One can construct a political speech, an assertive journalistic polemic, a program for organizing society, a philosophical system, so that in appearance it is smooth, well structured, and yet it is built upon a mistake, a lie; and the hidden element, the distortion, will not immediately become visible. And a speech or a journalistic essay, or a program in rebuttal, or a different philosophical structure can be counterposed to the first -- and it will seem just as well constructed and as smooth, and everything will seem to fit. And therefore one has faith in them -- yet one has no faith.

    It is in vain to affirm that which the heart does not confirm.

    In contrast, a work of art bears within itself its own confirmation: concepts which are manufactured out of whole cloth or overstrained will not stand up to being tested in images, will somehow fall apart and turn out to be sickly and pallid and convincing to no one. Works steeped in truth and presenting it to us vividly alive will take hold of us, will attract us to themselves with great power -- and no one ever, even in a later age, will presume to negate them. And so perhaps that old trinity of Truth, Good, and Beauty is not just the formal outworn formula it used to seem to us during our heady materialistic youth. If the crests of these three trees join together, as the investigators and explorers used to affirm, and if the too obvious, too straight branches of Truth and Good are crushed or amputated and cannot reach the light -- yet perhaps the whimsical, unpredictable, unexpected branches of Beauty will make their way through and soar up TO THAT VERY PLACE and in this way perform the work of all three.

    And in that case it was not a slip of the tongue for Dostoyevsky to say that "Beauty will save the world," but a prophecy. After all he was given the gift of seeing much, he was extraordinarily illumined. 

    And consequently perhaps art, literature, can in actual fact help the world today.

    That little which I have managed to discern over the years I shall try to set forth here today.

                                                                       

A Poem a Day

Christmas

by Sir John Betjeman

The bells of waiting Advent ring,

The Tortoise stove is lit again

And lamp-oil light across the night

Has caught the streaks of winter rain

In many a stained-glass window sheen

From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge

And round the Manor House the yew

Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,

The altar, font and arch and pew,

So that the villagers can say

'The church looks nice' on Christmas Day.

Provincial Public Houses blaze,

Corporation tramcars clang,

On lighted tenements I gaze,

Where paper decorations hang,

And bunting in the red Town Hall

Says 'Merry Christmas to you all'.

And London shops on Christmas Eve

Are strung with silver bells and flowers

As hurrying clerks the City leave

To pigeon-haunted classic towers,

And marbled clouds go scudding by

The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,

And oafish louts remember Mum,

And sleepless children's hearts are glad.

And Christmas-morning bells say 'Come!'

Even to shining ones who dwell

Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true? And is it true,

This most tremendous tale of all,

Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,

A Baby in an ox's stall ?

The Maker of the stars and sea

Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,

No loving fingers tying strings

Around those tissued fripperies,

The sweet and silly Christmas things,

Bath salts and inexpensive scent

And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,

No carolling in frosty air,

Nor all the steeple-shaking bells

Can with this single Truth compare -

That God was man in Palestine

And lives today in Bread and Wine.