The Culture Of Healing

By Harriet Barovick, Ellin Martens, Vicky Rainert, Sora Song

For decades art was made to shock. Now people are turning to art for its ability to soothe. Especially popular in e-mails and chat rooms in recent days is W.H. Auden's poem "September 1, 1939" ("The unmentionable odour of death/Offends the September night"), written as World War II began. TIME asked artists and writers what they were turning to.

JHUMPA LAHIRI, Pulitzer prizewinning author: "I've reread Franny and Zooey. There is something reassuring about Salinger, and I also wanted to read a novel set in New York City. Though it is a dark story, Salinger's New York family survives their difficulties with humor and grace."

HAROLD BLOOM, literary critic and author of How to Read and Why: "Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, particularly the passage, 'Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'/We are not now that strength which in old days/Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are.'"

MARK MORRIS, choreographer: "I'm not a religious person, but I find Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ, arrangement for string quartet and vocal quartet, profoundly troubling and serene. And if anything is divine, it's Bach's Mass in B Minor."

TIME.com To hear or read more from the works suggested by the artists and writers above, go to time.com/notebook