The redundancy of Art, and its 'moral' efficacy

 Auden (the poet) grew increasingly vehement as he aged about the complete redundancy of art as an influence on people or society: it became a favourite bit of table talk to assert that ‘the arts can do nothing’ and that ‘the social and political history of Europe would be what it has been if Dante, Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Mozart, et al had never lived.’ That is a startling counterfactual to insist on quite so absolutley -   a pretty punishing crit of 'the moral efficacy of Art

‘The more we love the Arts … the more careful we must be not to overestimate their importance