What Is Art? What Is Art? What is Art? ( "Chto takoye iskusstvo?") is a book by Leo Tolstoy. It was completed in Russian in 1897 but first published in English due to difficulties with the Russian censors. Tolstoy cites the time, effort, public funds, and public respect spent on art and artists as well as the imprecision of general opinions on art as reason for writing the book. In his words, "it is difficult to say what is meant by art, and especially what is good, useful art, art for the sake of which we might condone such sacrifices as are being
What Work Is terribly damaged conditions of American labor, whose circumstance has perhaps never been more wrecked.” After Levine was named Poet Laureate, "What Work Is" reached the top of Amazon.com's "Movers and Shakers" list. What Work Is What Work Is is a collection of poetry by Philip Levine. The collection has many themes that are representative of Levine's writing including physical labor, class identity, family relationships and personal loss. Its primary focus on work and the working class led to it being studied with emphasis on Marxist literary criticism. The focus on work is expressed in thematically different ways throughout the collection.