Considering the social function of art means trying to reflect on a question that has haunted the great literary critics since the Greek philosophers Aristotle , Plato and Socrates. Two minds who both thought about and offered explanations on this question in the 1700s-1800s were the German Friedrich Schiller and the Englishman Matthew Arnold. Both Schiller and Arnold offer explanations that focus heavily on presenting literature as the pinnacle and model of harmony of self and society. Schiller's assumptions from Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man hold that art is the means by which humans can challenge the conflicting nature of a specialized society by presenting literature as a mode of balance that interweaves factions of society. Arnold's arguments in "On Poetry" and "The Study of Poetry" suggest that poetry, itself, is of the utmost importance in the way it harmonizes human ideals above all others. other facets of study and consideration. Although Schiller's and Arnold's theorizations on the social nature of literature are closely related in explaining the primary value of literature in society, Arnold's arguments suffer from precisely the fragmented systems that Schiller warns against. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The second chapter of Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric describes Schiller's assessment of art's ability to transcend fixed professional categories as supreme to Arnold's commentary. where literature functions as both expansion and source of division. In summary of Citizen's second chapter, it is a provocative assessment of race and gender through the juxtaposition of Serena Williams versus tennis, or black versus Zora Neal Hurston's "bright white background" (25 ). In this chapter, regardless of blatant and systemic racism, which Rankine explicitly highlights, global critiques expose blatant white racial and cultural superiority through microaggressions, which occur on a societal scale much larger than the setting of international tennis. Rankine's critique goes on to question the predetermined behavioral patterns that institutions inflict on minorities and how Serena, a black woman who is the best tennis player in the world, is assumed to act as a "smiling blonde goodness" by commentators on the tennis (36). Throughout this chapter, the most poignant moments are those that rhetorically consider language, once pointing out that when Serena was an aggressive tennis player, she was called "crazy, rude, crazy" and having a "bad sportsmanship” (30). Ultimately, Citizen questions the issue of societal harmony by questioning societal and social injustices, guiding readers to consider the harmful nature of language and the systems in which it operates. Citizen then deliberately engages in a component of societal division and is also a work both Schiller and Arnold would say brings the self and society closer to harmony through the poetic address of conflicting society. The multidimensionality of the work, however, would be more greatly and more aptly appreciated by Schiller than by Arnold. The dimensions that add artistic layers to Citizen are found in the presentation and visuals Rankine includes. The presentation of the work functions as an extended metaphor to precisely describe the sphere of tenniswhich Serena is in, as the chapter itself is black letters on a bright white background. Through the presentation and visuals of this chapter, which artistically go beyond words, letters and prose, the paradox between invisibility and hypervisibility for black "citizens" can be addressed in multiple formats and in the multitude of societal formats in which it exists. This paradox lies in the ways in which black citizens are marginalized in mainstream representation, from education to government, and yet ostracized or differentiated when at the forefront of whitewashed funds. Arnold's arguments in "On Poetry" suggest that "poetry is more intellectual than art" and more interpretive (183). Although Arnold accepts literature in a wide variety, he continues to hold that it is "in closer correspondence with the intelligent nature of man" and that "poetry thinks and the arts do not" (183 ). Arnold's broad literary canon can therefore accept the second chapter of Citizen in its evolved dimensions, but it would consider the integrity of the visuals as an autonomous and equal component of the piece. While Schiller's work emphasizes the importance of not fragmenting forms of human knowledge, arguing that when divided, the "inner unity of human nature" would then "also be broken and disastrous conflict would call into question its harmonious nature” (486). Schiller's open mind, which lacks Arnold's literature-centered hierarchy of the arts, is a more practical approach to how the arts could elevate self and human harmony. Another aspect that Schiller and Arnold can be compared critically is the discussion of the difference or commensurable qualities between literature and the rest of the major forms of human knowledge. In terms of history, Schiller does not speak about it directly as a medium, but uses ancient Greece as a historical example of a harmonious society and calls for no division in forms of human knowledge. Using the Greeks as an example of both a harmonious society and a "fallen" society, Schiller notes that "the Greeks were attached to the delights of dignity and wisdom, without falling prey to their seduction", but he warns that the eventual separation and singular specialization of forms of human knowledge creates a division within the “inner unity of human nature” (485, 486). However, in “On Poetry,” Arnold specifically delineates the forms of human knowledge that are literature, art, science, philosophy, and religion. Rather than a harmonious society that calls for measurement between these modes of knowledge, as Schiller does, Arnold creates a hierarchy with literature at the top, in part because "it is the most adequate and most happy through which humans express themselves.” his strength (183). Rankine's work is a work of poetry, but being poetic is not only what makes this work so powerful. To fully consider this chapter of Citizen is also to consider the modern and historical context of the work as it is closely related to history, popular culture, science, and the arts. To assert, as Arnold does, however, that literature encompasses all the best of these categories, while the individual categories themselves are limited and mutually exclusive, is an unfounded conclusion. For example, Rankine's use of the phrase "I feel more colorful when I'm projected against a crisp white background" originates from Zora Neale Hurston's "How It Feels to Be Colored Me." Hurston's essay was published in 1928 during thesegregation and Jim Crow oppression. Unearthing this means not only considering Hurston's work, which partly discusses racial tensions from a childhood perspective, but also drawing parallels between hidden historical forms and blatant, current forms of racial inequality. In terms of forms of knowledge, again, Arnold's lack of clear reasoning and evidence to support literature as the elite culmination of forms of knowledge makes Schiller's open-minded approach more feasible to explain the role of literature in achieving societal harmony. More difficult to explain are Schiller and Arnold's arguments that literature actually plays a role in societal harmony. Schiller's theory is perhaps easier to endorse because it is based on the assertion that specialized society is fragmented. Thus, it is easier to accept that "fine art" is Schiller's key to addressing a disconnected society because the true artist and true art "look upward" with high moral and free standards that s away from the market and “fortune” (491). Both the artist and the observer are shown the freedom of artistic experience which exceeds the confined faculties of fortune, and this free artistic model of art is then the standard of harmony for the faculties which it has liberated from the influence of market-driven specialization. In contrast, Arnold argues that "the reasons why the human mind feels itself achieving a more adequate and more satisfying expression in poetry than in any other of its modes of activity" cannot be fully understood (183). . However, in “The Study of Poetry,” Arnold clarifies that poetry elicits “a higher truth and a higher seriousness” than all other human studies (185). Then, the enduring seriousness and truth that poetry offers are the keys to the actualized individual and a harmonious society. Besides mentioning that truth and seriousness are "inseparable from the diction and movement marking his style and manner", Arnold's theory lacks a clear role and path for the poet outside of the simple being naturally good because great poetry inspires the greatest harmony. Therefore, Schiller's argument once again pairs more seamlessly with Citizen's because of the stipulations clarified for the artist and the depiction of what this harmonious society would look like. In Citizen Rankine takes action against the injustice of racism and artistically meditates on the mentality and institutions that favor its perpetuation. On the subject of art, Rankine criticizes an artist who speculates on the need for black artists to act white and on the separation of black, "slave" art from expansive arts, asserting that "any relationship between white spectator and black artist immediately becomes a relationship between white people. and black property, which was formerly the legal state of things” (34). In doing so, the prose addresses the fragility of race in society by holding a higher moral standard for art, with the end goal of a society not separated by fragility. A reason why this might strengthen Schiller's argument that the artist functions as a mediator is also discussed in the chapter, stating that those who speak out against racism in society are "called crazy, rude, [and] crazy" (30). Although this point may also serve to prove Arnold's point that poetry is truly superior in achieving harmony, the weight of Rankine's argument about racism raises the moral standard to which Rankine holds poetry society above competent writing. The freedom of. 483-490.