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So like all curious beings I Googled it. Karl Marx was, in fact, a poet. Unfortunately he did not write poetry about how great communism is, so I am vastly disappointed. I think a sonnet on communism would be a wonderful addition to any discussion. Instead I just found love poems. Which, I mean, is still pretty entertaining. An example is below.
EARLY LITERARY EXPERIMENTS
FROM THE ALBUMS OF POEMS DEDICATED
TO JENNY VON WESTPHALEN [1]
*
From the BOOK OF LOVE (Part I) [2]
CONCLUDING SONNETS TO JENNY
I
Take all, take all these songs from me
That Love at your feet humbly lays,
Where, in the Lyre's full melody,
Soul freely nears in shining rays.
Oh! if Song's echo potent be
To stir to longing with sweet lays,
To make the pulse throb passionately
That your proud heart sublimely sways,
Then shall I witness from afar
How Victory bears you light along,
Then shall I fight, more bold by far,
Then shall my music soar the higher;
Transformed, more free shall ring my song,
And in sweet woe shall weep my Lyre.
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For any of those curious, Jenny was Karl Marx's wife. Who, having read the poem above, he was very much in love with. They had seven children together, but only three of them reached adulthood.
I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but this definitely was not it. I am no poetry expert, but this seems to be pretty well done. Any greet card could benefit from a passage such as this. But I was not prepared for his poetry book to be Book of Love. I actually have to admit that the idea that Karl Marx felt love surprised me when in reality it should not have. Just because he was a famous philosopher does not mean that he was incapable of love. While looking at his works I forgot that he was very human and did, in fact, feel human emotions. He was not a stone man. I feel like finding his poetry made me consider him as a human being and it shows me how all semester I have been considering the works and not the people behind them.
If you want some more of Marx's poem's, look here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1837-pre/verse/index.htm
ReplyDeleteI laughed pretty hard at this one:
"We have boiled everything down to signs,
And Reasoning's done on strict mathematical lines.
If God's a point, as cylinder he just won't pass,
You can't stand on your head while sitting on your----."
Yes, KARL MARX wrote that.
I love this. This is so great. Knowing Karl Marx was a poet makes him more human. And, I love his love that he had for his wife. I feel cultured now.
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ReplyDeleteCaitlin,
ReplyDeleteLike you, I would not have guessed Marx would have written poetry! And it's a pretty good poem at that. I agree that it should not seem like a surprise because philosophers are entitled to having other hobbies, quirks and interests just like the rest of us. Yet when we as students look at them as merely the authors of their philosophies it is easy to overlook the actual person behind the text. Stories that have come up in class such as how Kant was always precisely on time, or the fact the Jeremy Bentham's body is on display at a college shows us there is more to these philosophers than meets the eye.
I think some of our inability to think of the human element of the philosophers we discuss stems, not just from thinking of them as only their abstract ideas and not as concrete human beings, but - at least in the case of Marx - from the attitude in our country towards some of these philosophies. Regardless of any of our views on Marxist philosophy, I think we can all agree that it is hard to see the human side of someone when you're "conditioned" to see someone's ideologies as inherently evil. Obviously this doesn't apply to ideologies that are harmful to others like racism and homophobia, because those ideologies ARE wrong (sorry, not sorry). I am only applying this to ideologies that aren't actually harmful to others in theory, and perhaps are even helpful, such as Marx's.
ReplyDeleteI can't decide what is more amazing: the fact that Karl Marx writes love poems or his facial hair. I'm inclined to go with the latter but I find it pretty awesome that he is also a poet. Like you, I have gone this entire semester trying to understand the beliefs, beliefs that are so important, we still study them today, that these philosophers have presented us with not the man behind them. This post will help me to start looking at the person behind the philosopher.
ReplyDeleteI think that every single human being loves. Even the most despicable person on earth can feel love. Marx was a really wise man. He knew what he was saying, and I think everything he said is true. I am so excited to see a communist society because before knowing Marx's perspective of communism, I thought that a communist society was bad, sad and wothout love, but Marx changed my mind. He is able to combine love and communism in a beautiful way.
ReplyDeleteIt is very funny to think about someone whom we have all built up in our head as this hard, mean man, and then here is his language arts. To show that he not only can express his theories in words but also his emotions is really interesting to me. In my communication theory class we study rhetoric in all angles; I believe it is important to question everything you hear or read. To see that Marx is also skilled with poetry and not just theoretical prose it makes me more weary of his writings. By the way in which you persuade is how you gain followers. Obviously Marx is extremely good at putting his thoughts and words of paper and making someone agree with them.
ReplyDeleteThis was a super interesting take on Marx. I also had no idea that he was a poet! I think this just further illustrates his vast writing and communication abilities. I really wish that this side of Marx could be taught in History classes along side the teachings of his viewings. It adds a whole new layer to him and allows for others to peel back the socialism stenotypes and it makes the entire idea a little less scary for people.
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