Brandes has shown in his essay on Björnson how the attack upon art with a purpose is really often a disguised means of objecting to liberal thought in literature. Art for art's sake occasionally thus becomes an apology for conventional morals too. Most of the great works were written with a purpose. Dante and Milton have left records in their prose works of the purpose of their poems. But no one objected to the purpose of these poets, because they defend conventional morality. Yet as soon as literature tries to advance new ideas we hear the cry against its moralizing and didactic tendency. Art for art's sake is then the shout of even the conventional moralist. Those who declare themselves against the tendency of the intellectual element in literature are often those who fear new ideas; they would want only romance, homely morals, happy endings and impossible adventures, constant triumph of good, etc. They do not understand what literature has to do with problems of marriage and divorce, the state and the individual. They want it to be separated from real life. Nevertheless, they cannot ignore the great books of our day which deal with these questions. They have been driven to the theory of "art for art's sake" by their hatred of liberal ideas.
"The formula, 'written with a purpose,'" says Brandes, "has been far too long employed as an effective scarecrow to drive authors away from the fruit that beckons to them from the modern tree of knowledge."
When Whitman, Ibsen, Tolstoy and Zola brought us messages in ecstatic prose, the enemies of intellect in art called them preachers of filthy ideas, misguided moralists, and would not consider them as artists and poets. The moralist and aesthete joined forces in attacking Balzac and Stendhal when these novelists gave us unpopular ideas emotionally expressed. The critic who hates advanced thought exclaims that he wants no ideas in art at all; he does not wish it to become the vehicle of views he personally dislikes. Hence at times even the Philistine critic who opposed the introduction of intellect in art found himself in harmony with members of the art for art's sake school.
Nothing better illustrates the harm which may result from the theory that shuns a purpose in art, than the neglect it brings about for books with an unpopular message. England, for example, has neglected the best work of one of the poets of the nineties, who intellectually ranks with her best poets. Who reads the later work of Robert Buchanan? Attention is riveted to his early lyrics, and good as these are, his more thoughtful poetry has been forgotten. A. Stoddart-Walker wrote after Buchanan's death _Robert Buchanan, the Poet of Modern Revolt_, and Harriet Jay wrote a biography. Attention was called in these volumes to the later works of Buchanan, where he stood for liberty of thought. Nor was he didactic in his pleas, in such poems as _The City of Dreams_, _The Wandering Jew_, _The Ballad of Mary the Mother_, _The Outcast_, _The Devil's Case_, and _The New Rome_. Lecky called _The City of Dreams_ the modern _Pilgrim's Progress_, and said that it would take a prominent position in the literature of the time. But no one knows these poems, and of Buchanan's work only a few ballads are known. Buchanan is not any more didactic than Browning, but since he represents bold speculation (and also made too many personal enemies) he was throttled by Philistinism.