- Plato
- Aristotle
- Augustine
- Maimonisdes
- de Pizan
- Sidney
- Hume
- Kant
- Wollstonecraft
- Schleiermacher
The weird things is that Sidney, the poet, didn't even come up with anything particularly novel; A Defense of Poesy is basically Aristotle, Horace, and Longinus glued together into a giant rock of lit crit and thrown at Plato's head. So I think it's pretty cool that at the heart of Romantic theory, there's guys like: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelly, and Keats, all of whom are poets--and not just good poets, but spectacular poets breaking both literary and philosophical ground. I don't want to say that non-poets (or even non-aficionados) can't be good theorists. I mean, look at Kant; his favorite songs were Prussian war marches, and he still did alright for himself. At the same time, it's refreshing to hear from the other side, for a change.
I guess there's just a sense in which talking about the beautiful or the poetic, rather than experiencing it, leads you away from the object itself.
I haven't finished Wordsworth, but something he wrote struck me: he defined poetry as a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings."
I like the idea that it's the feeling that gives importance to the action, rather than the other way around. I like the idea that art can be passionate again, even appetitive, emotional, interested, purposeful. I like to think that there's a purpose to art, and not just a purposeless one. So maybe Hegel rebukes Kant when he talks about things the "subjective inner depth" of the poet, but even Hegel seems to only be able to talk about poetry as part of some larger historical enterprise.
I don't think that art can ever really be separated from its context, or that it doesn't perhaps have some higher purpose. But I can't shake the sense that when theorists like Plato try to attack art, or when theorists like Hume try to take the universal out of art, or when theorists like Kant try to take the feeling out of art, they are taking something truly beautiful and throttling it.
I don't have much of an idea of what the upcoming Romantic theorists are going to be like. You all probably know a hell of a lot more about someone like Wordsworth than I do. But as little as I do know, I really do take heart from the fact that at least one theorist this semester might believe--in the face of Plato, Hume, and Kant, and others--that something like this could be genuinely beautiful:
I don't pretend to know what beauty is, or how to define it. But I do know how I feel when I see something truly passionate. At the same time, that feeling is connected to the work of art itself, and if I distanced myself from it--if I removed my preferences, prejudices, or wants--to experience true beauty, then that connection would be lost.
I don't want to lose that connection. It might make me selfish, and it definitely makes me a bad critic. But does it make something as gaudy, vulgar, yet passionate video above any less beautiful?
Maybe. But not to me.
"I guess there's just a sense in which talking about the beautiful or the poetic, rather than experiencing it, leads you away from the object itself."
ReplyDeletehmm. Well said Bridger. Except, I have a question. Would you say that, once experienced, it's possible to talk about the beautiful or the poetic, but before hand, not? Or that, the more we talk about it conceptually, the more we get away from the reality of it? (I don't ask to challenge, as much as to question. I'm questioning myself. :). I feel that, on the one hand, it's so easy to disengage from the beautiful and the poetic by conceptualizing it, and talking about it forever and ever. But then, isn't that in a way what we do? OR would experiencing it also include reading poetry? Hearing music? Or do we have to be a part of the creative process? You're a writer, much more than I am, so I ask. Thoughts?
Now, I'm definitely on board with you as regards Plato, Kant, and Hume. I would agree that they're in some ways, as you say, "taking something truly beautiful and throttling it." My only question is, do we do the same, but in a different way? We're not tearing art apart in a need to discount it, or explain it, but don't we analyze so deeply sometimes that we might be losing the initial beauty?
Alright, enough questions. I appreciate this post...it made me think. A lot. As evidenced by my many questions.
Also, I'm feeling a Gaga theme on this blog... :)
Bridger, you raise some fantastic points, particularly this:
ReplyDelete"But I can't shake the sense that when theorists like Plato try to attack art, or when theorists like Hume try to take the universal out of art, or when theorists like Kant try to take the feeling out of art, they are taking something truly beautiful and throttling it."
I agree with this, and I also think you're right, Nat--we do often do the same thing, just in different ways. I really feel there's a fine line between "analysis" and "beating [insert work here] to death with a garden hose." I enjoy analyzing poetry, fiction, essays, and film to see what makes them work, what makes them fall short, and what they're trying to say, but when you start analyzing too much, you often kill the love you had for that work. Not only that, but you often remove the mystery from it, which can be what makes something really beautiful. Hence why high school nearly killed my love of T.S. Eliot before it started. And Intro to Critical Strategies caused me to forgo reading anything by Flannery O'Connor because we analyzed the same short stories in so many different ways. It was helpful in understanding different analytic theories, but it really disillusioned me from her work. (We're reading a book by O'Connor in one of my classes this semester... perhaps I'll find a new love.)
So yes, I do think we do the same thing today, which is a shame. But as I grow older, I feel that I do this less and less. Yes, I still analyze stories, poetry, films, and the like, but I also make sure to keep that analysis rather minimal in order to avoid killing off that which drew me to it in the first place.
Sometimes literature just needs to be taken for the love of it, not for our theories or biases, but just because it is passionate and beautiful. Other times a theoretical approach might make a text even better than it is and then the work of the theorist might become an art in itself. A work of discerning intertexual beauty and reiterating it to the world. For instance, I did not particularly love Stoker's Dracula until I began to dream about the theoretical possibilities for the impending seminar paper. So many theoretical structures were so clearly happening in the book I found myself inspired to right about all of them. Apart from how my voice would participate in a larger theoretical conversation, I am unsure how much I actually loved the book. So sometimes theory becomes our art. Theory also can make us snobs about something utterly subjective, which is the problem being discussed in this blog. Is popular art a sell-out? Should we be ashamed to love it? I love Wordsworth for that too. He says to stop thinking so much and let what's inside come out. Instead of creating for the world, the artist is now supposed to create for himself and trust that that will make it beautiful to enough people. Hume says that good art will be determined over time by practiced discerners of beauty and defect, but the poet cannot concern himself with the response of these discerners or their theories. As writers we must write however we will to best fit that which we wish to express (which could easily be nothing at all, as Kant would argue should be the case). As a writer I can try to imitate that which I find excellent from the standpoint of a literature major, but I find that I have to absolutely leave it all behind and find the best artistic vehicle and expression for my distinct purpose or lack thereof. I have more appreciation for theory from the standpoint of a creator than a critic because it gives me more ideas about how to make inspired and exceptional art, rather than imposing constraints.
ReplyDeleteNatalie:
ReplyDelete"I feel that, on the one hand, it's so easy to disengage from the beautiful and the poetic by conceptualizing it, and talking about it forever and ever. But then, isn't that in a way what we do? OR would experiencing it also include reading poetry? Hearing music? Or do we have to be a part of the creative process?"
I do think that in a weird way, the critic is a part of the creative process. S/he is serving to perpetuate, expand, and (although I sometimes feel inclined to think otherwise) bring their love for a medium to an audience that is all-too-often overwhelmed or indifferent. But I do think that there's definitely a balance to be sought between talking about the art and actually experiencing it. I tend to lose myself in the theory; I really do think that it's a real danger, for both interpreters and composers.
"Now, I'm definitely on board with you as regards Plato, Kant, and Hume. I would agree that they're in some ways, as you say, "taking something truly beautiful and throttling it." My only question is, do we do the same, but in a different way? We're not tearing art apart in a need to discount it, or explain it, but don't we analyze so deeply sometimes that we might be losing the initial beauty?"
I think so, in literature as well as in other disciplines. There have even been times when I've written a poem or an essay and stared at it for so long, trying to revise it, that I lost sight of why I had written it in the first place. My intentions were good, but as far as initial beauty goes (if there was any there at all), then I stopped seeing it at some point during the revision process.
Bridger,
ReplyDeleteVery Gaga. I think you've captured some excellent points in that, in a way, it does go back to how we as the audience responds to the work. In that regard, Plato was right and wrong; Aristotle was closer to the point.
Correction to this post:
ReplyDeleteI was incorrect to say that de Pizan wasn't a poet; she actually did publish some poetry during her lifetime. And Wollstonecraft was also a novelist, meaning that she would probably qualify as a "poet" in the sense that I was intending.
(Thanks to Aubrey for this observation).
Bridger: I have felt this way all through reading these critics so far this semester. It's one of the reasons literary criticism tends to make me cringe-- a lot of times it drains the work of beauty. It's one of the hard things about Hume, I think: he's all talking about these flaws and 'good' attributes, but really a flawed work might be good IN those flaws... deconstruction is part of what makes literature wonderful and it's part of what destroys literature. Sometimes my only reaction to something is "Wow. I like that." and that's okay. Usually I can dig deeper and say all these things that the piece does well-- your Lady Gaga video makes excellent use of modal changes and minor keys, for instance-- but that's not really the heart of the matter.
ReplyDeleteI think it comes down to this: as I said when discussing Hegel, we writers write about the particular in order to brush against a universal. In the same way, we theorists might talk about the particulars of good poetry, but it's only going to /brush against/ the 'universal' of beauty or goodness, or whatever it is exactly that we'd like to pin down. Some things are impossible to pin down, despite the fact that they most definitely exist.
PS Bridger I really really like this video.
ReplyDelete