Marx and Hobbes would have gotten in a bar fight

Marx – for all his gloom and doom about loss of identity through forced labor – was something of a disgusting optimist. In Marx’s view, people are caught in a system of “forced labor. It is therefore not the satisfaction of a need; it is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it” (655). Thus people are currently producing not because they need the product, but because they need the financial value associated with that product. In this system, Marx argues that the identity and the worth of the worker is lost as “the worker puts his life into the object…now his life no longer belongs to him by to the object” (652). So far, Marx seems to have a pretty pessimistic outlook on the way the world works. But then we get t his solution to the problem: A “community of free individuals” (669). And that’s where Marx goes off on an overly optimistic jaunt through Never Never Land.

First off, let’s start with the notion of a “community free individuals.” “Community” implies at the very least a relationship in which people are functioning together, which it itself limits total independence. A community requires some sort of compromise in order for it to function as a unit, thus an entirely free individual wouldn’t actually be a functioning member of the community (they would just be functioning as themselves while surrounded by a community, but they would not be part of said community). Thus both the “free” and the “individual” get diminished, and Marx got off to a rather bad start by creating an oxymoron right off the bat.

Moving deeper into Marx’s theory on this community, Marx proves to have overly optimistic view of human nature. In this community, he sees people as recreating the lifestyle of Robinson Crusoe, and the “characteristics of Robinson’s labour are here repeated, but with this difference, that they are social, instead of individual’ (669). Applying Robinson Crusoe’s model – which is the extreme example of the individual producing only for himself – to an entire community simply cannot work. Production for self is never the same as production for everyone, particularly when a system of allotment of goods is put in place, as Marx does. Robinson Crusoe yielded exactly what he built/grew/created/etc, but someone in Marx’s society would still be receiving an abstract value in response to his or her labor. Marx talks about how the community will labor together to supply itself with its needs, and Marx throws in the idea that each man will receive according to his needs in proportion to the amount of work done. Where on earth does Marx get the idea that people will be indefinitely content under this system, or even that any sort of agreement could be reached? The notion of “the share of each individual producer in the means of subsistence is determined by his labour-time” could only work if all labor was the same, but obviously it’s not (669). Eight hours of laboring at a computer as an accountant is entirely different from eight hours of laboring with a sledgehammer as a construction worker. Marx seems to think people could actually agree on what the value of the eight hours of the accountant vs. the eight hours as a construction worker would be worth, and that people would be willing to be distributed to accordingly. Doubtful. And what about those who cannot labor effectively? In Marx’s world, cripples, the disabled, or the simply inept would have to be promptly drummed out of the society in order for this system to continuing functioning.

Then there comes the issue of “the total product of [the] community is a social product” (669). And the issue with that is simply that people aren’t always too keen on sharing. Call it survival instinct, call it selfish, call it just plain normal, after laboring for eight hours a day on a product, the thought of sacrificing it to a common social good isn’t always be a pleasant thought. And what happens if those eight hours are valued at less of a “labour-time” ratio than someone else, and all the efforts of that product yield a small portion value when it comes time for distribution? In some cases, it would then make more sense to keep the product. And in that case, the individual would either remain a dissatisfied member of the community or leave it, and either way, the society has proven to be dysfunctional and failed.

And speaking of products, that brings me to my biggest issue with Marx’s theory, and that is that it is still reductive. Even under this model, people are still only worth what they can produce. Because the “distribution of portion” is based on labour-time, the value is still placed on production (669). How is a person working for “distribution” any different from them working for monetary gain in the capitalist system? The capacity for production is still the dominating factor, shared or not.

Thus while Marx does a good job focusing on the problems in his society, he does a pretty poor job when it comes to his solution. He shifts from his condemnation of the current human condition to an excessively optimistic vision of human nature, and his vision is not conducive to creating a real solution with real individuals. Similar to Percy Bysshe Shelley’s frantic calls for revolution and change, Marx loves pointing out what’s wrong but forgets to suggest how it can be (realistically) fixed.

Russians and The Fiery Liquid of Language.

After reading Nietzsche, I had two thoughts. Well, I had many, but I have two to share with you.

First, that his Übermensch, in many ways reminds me of the superfluous man we have been studying in Russian literature. It is not a perfect comparison, in fact the Übermensch is the goal, where as the superfluous man is a leftover of the Decembrist Revolution and a bored and depressed aristocracy. However, both are above the Herd, both rebel against the Romantics, and both seek to be the meaning on Earth. Eugene Onegin and Bazarov both try to rise to the reaches of the overman.

Second, Nietzsche’s interpretation and description of language was brilliant. For Nietzsche , all language, all words are metaphors. This is similar to that. The this meaning, this groupings of letters, this word. The that meaning, an almost Kantian interpretation of the physical world. Nietzsche notes “everything that distinguishes human beings from animals depends on this ability to sublimate sensuous metaphors into schema” (768). Our very identity as unique in creation stems from this ability, not to tell the difference from good and evil, but from the ability to name similarities.

However, these metaphors are flawed, Nietzsche says they cage us in (deconstructionalism much?), and in order to attain peace, security , and consistency, we must forget the very thing that makes us unique, these words.
Nietzsche declares:

Only by forgetting this primitive world of metaphor can one live with any repose, security, and consistency: only by means of the petrification and coagulation of a mass of images which originally streamed from the primal faculty of human imagination like a fiery liquid, only in the invincible faith that this sun, this window, this table is a truth in itself, in short, only by forgetting that he himself is an artistically creating subject, does man live with any repose, security, and consistency. If but for an instant he could escape from the prison walls of this faith, his "self consciousness" would be immediately destroyed. (769)

Anti-Plato says Norton. What says you?

I say Nietzsche is somewhere between depressed, crazy, and brilliant, possibly with a side of wrong, but a healthy helping of remarkably relevant, especially to the study of literature.

If Nietzsche Read Joyce...

As I was reading Nietzsche the other day, I kept trying to think of writers who I believed that Nietzsche would particularly approve of, especially since he seems to disapprove of writing and language in general (preferring music). I decided that he would be a fan of James Joyce.

Joyce's style is one that deserves reading and rereading in order to get a footing in the plot. He writes in a pure and poetic stream-of-consciousness, thus the reader is bombarded with a mess of "entirely subjective stimulus" (766). Joyce does not draw arbitrary borders between concepts or different thoughts, and thus the concepts of the book become hard to discern.

Once Nietzsche sets up the natural tendency toward conceptualization and therefore convenient lies, he asserts that it is the artist who must fight the process of abstraction and division that we arbitrarily impose upon the world: "[Art] constantly confuses the cells and the classifications of concepts by setting up new translations, metaphors, metonymies; it constantly manifests the desire to shape the given world of the waking human being in ways which are just as multiform, irregular, inconsequential, incoherent, charming and ever-new, as things are in the world of dream" (772). Most people can't make sense of at least parts of Joyce's writing. The overwhelming volume of thought and sense data makes it hard for readers to tease apart meaning. There is minimal selection of detail to guide us comfortably through. Instead, Joyce's reader is left to swim through a sea of another's consciousness. He includes the "inconsequential," and the "incoherent." The experience of Joyce challenges our methods of making meaning; thus, had Nietzsche been alive in Joyce's time, he should have approved of his work as an artist.

Language, and even more so, storytelling, is a difficult area for Nietzsche because language limits the "correct perception" of an object, or the "thing-in-itself." He uses the example of the river, "describing a river, for example, as a moving road that carries men to destinations to which they normally walk" (772). Stories involve even greater exclusion (of entire events or thoughts), but Joyce amends this fault of storytelling. That's why it takes him over 800 pages to tell the story of one day in Ulysses. He needs that much space when he even includes Stephan Dedalus peeing or picking his nose and leaving the booger on the rock. The reader of Joyce comes face to face with the realities that Nietzsche proposes about our blindness to "things-in-themselves." Joyce doesn't give us plot. He gives us a day-in-itself.

Overflow of Spontaneous Manual Labor

Previously, Natalie pointed out that though Wordsworth waxed loquacious on the use of low or rustic language in poetry, he rather failed to adhere to that principle, employing high or distinctly unrustic language (btw: you should totally read that blog post. Go on, scroll down. This entry will still be here when you’re done). I think Marx/Engels has a pretty decent explanation of this inability of Wordsworth’s: “men, developing their material production and their material intercourse, alter, along with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of their thinking. Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life” (656). Wordsworth may have failed in his attempts to glory in low diction because his life was not one of low birth or life. He was the educated son of a lawyer; he was not the working lad of a coalminer or a farmer. And because his life was not one of “rustic” qualities, his consciousness and thoughts—and subsequently his language—was likewise unrustic. Marx/Engels had also stated that “The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life” (655); language, it would seem, still has power. It may not be in direct line with Wordsworth’s ideas of linguistic impact or the same message he believes it capable of conveying, but they agree that language, “real” language, is connected to the mind and, if you stretch it, imagination. After all, imagination exists in the mind and is an expression of ordinary ideas via ordinary diction; consciousness and ideas are directly connected to and intertwined with language. The thread is thin, but it is there.

Our first American!

After Thursday’s class, I began to think about the times in my life I’ve spent with Emerson. This mental trip began with an actual family vacation and ended with a rather nationalistic recollections of the ways Emerson, the Transcendentalists, and for that matter, the Romantics are all still alive and with us, especially in the realm of literary criticism.

When I was somewhere between thirteen and sixteen, (I mean come on, most summers blend together), my family went to the Northeast to sample the bounty of salt water taffy, sea food, and Bostonians that seem to be rather common in that part of the world. One of the days was devoted to Walden Pond, where Emerson’s bud Thoreau, lived (not that) far from civilization to write about the beauty and wonder and cleansing aspects of nature. While I was reading Emerson this week, I couldn’t help but think about that little shed that Transcendentalist disciples attach so much meaning to. Of course now, that little shack outside of Concord is more of a tourist trap than a place where anyone could, as Emerson said in his essay Nature, “become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am a part or a particle of God” (615). Mourning the loss of communing with nature seems to be a popular topic since the first publications of pastoral longings. However, let’s take a look at the rest of that sentence and more of Emerson’s ideas.

Just as Schleiermacher’s scheme and rules in Hermeneutics are still with us, the ideas in Emerson’s works are with us and thriving, even if at times only acting as platitudes. Poetry is honorable, for “the poet chanting was felt to be a divine man” (618).

At times, Emerson, like Coleridge, seems like a parrot of nineteenth century zeitgeists, Hegel and other Romantic thinkers bleed through like crazy. Emerson warns against authors whose text “becomes noxious: the guide is a tyrant” (618), which quickly seems to be a verbatim Lord/Bondsman relationship. Then there’s the time when Emerson channels Kant and declares, “the soul active seems absolute truth and utters truth, or creates” (619). Okay Kant, thanks for trying on an American accent.

All that being said, I learned about Emerson in middle school, not Kant. I learned about Transcendentalists, not Hegel. Maybe it’s partially the part of education, but I also think there’s something to be said for being the first one, (or the most famous one) to introduce the masses to an idea. It turns you into the one that opens the lid of the jar holding the zeitgeist. It means that two hundred years later, your name is still in print, and if you’re lucky, you’re still relevant enough that people put you on greeting cards.

Shedding Self-Externality

Marx, in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, builds on the Hegelian dialectic of the master and slave (which the Norton retranslates as lord-bondsman). While Hegel asserts that the self-consciousness of the laborer allows him to find an independent identity through his work. Marx says that this cannot happen under the conditions of “forced labour” (655). Work falls into the category of forced labor for the following reason: “[Political economy] expresses in general, abstract formulae the material process through which private property actually passes, and these formulae it then takes for laws” (652). This means that while capitalism seems free, the process becomes like law to us, meaning that revolution is necessary to overthrow the “fortuitous fact” of the capitalist laws of economy. The worker cannot be satisfied and find identity in work because the work does not satisfy his own needs, “it is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it” (655). Marx agrees with Hegel to the extent that work can belong to man’s “essential being” (654). He does not say this directly, but implies it when he says, “The fact that labour is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his essential being; that is, in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself” (654-55). In this sense, the distinction that Marx makes requires further clarification from Hegel.

I believe that Hegel would disagree with Marx’s assertion. He would say that even under the conditions of forced labor one could find his or her identity in that labor. The material circumstances of a bondsman leave two options for identity depending on the self-consciousness of the bondsman, not on material change. Hegel would not mind the assertions that the forced laborer is under “false consciousness,” for he says, “The individual who has not risked his life may well be recognized as a person, but he has not attained to the truth of this recognition as an independent self- consciousness” (543). Hegel and Marx also line up in the assertion that the worker’s “essential being is present to it in the form of an ‘other’, or as Marx puts it, “the external character of labour for the worker appears in the fact that it is not his own, but someone else’s, that it does not belong to him, that in it he belongs not to himself, but to another… in his human function he no longer feels himself to be anything but an animal” (655). Thus we can correlate the terms “animal” and “other.” They would even agree that the worker or bondsman “is outside of itself and must rid its self of its self-externality” (543). But is the ridding of self-externality come from within or from material change? Hegel, of course, would suggest not, because in order to do so, the bondsman would have to become lord and the lord is inevitably insecure in his identity. The worker, however, is either a “pure being-for-self” or “and absolute negation” (543). Worker’s choice.

In this sense Hegel is friendly to faith, because the worker in God’s kingdom and make God’s work as satisfying and necessary aspect of his own identity. For Marx any participation in any system will always take something away from the one who labors within it. If I bought everything Marx said, I would certainly be afraid to contribute anything to the world for fear of losing more of myself and my value.

Coleridge deserves some critiquing too

We've all done our fair share of bashing Wordsworth, but I think we should save a few slaps for Coleridge. He's smarter than old Wordy yes, but he's not all that consistent either. For example, we've got him critiquing those who "sacrificed the heart to the head," and therefore critiquing reason as a lower faculty than the Romantic expressions of emotion, but he himself indulges in some more empirical/rational techniques (584). When he's discussing how he came to determine the difference between fancy and imagination, he states "repeated meditations led me first to suspect (and a more intimate analysis of the human faculties, their appropriate marks, functions, and effects matured my conjecture into full conviction)" which sounds a lot like a scientific process (585). For a Romantic man who was supposed to scorn empiricism and value sensibility over rationality, Coleridge seems to do the opposite on this point.
Another issue I have with him is his seeming desire to be writing for the "middle and lower classes of society" it appears that this is not really the audience he wants to have. When he talks about how Wordsworth comes under attack for his ideas, his defense of his friend is that Wordsworth is gaining an increasing number of followers, and "they were found too not in the lower classes of the reading public, but chiefly among young men of strong sensibility and meditative minds" (587). Clearly Coleridge has more appreciation for these kind of readers, who would not have been in the ordinary or lower classes but of a more upper class and educated rank. This suggests an elitism in Coleridge, and while we accuse Wordsworth of being pretty self-satisfied, I'd venture to say Coleridge wasn't entirely humble either.
On one point I do feel Coleridge is consistent (or at least semi-consistent), and that is his value on language and specific words. He says that "whatever lines can be translated into other words of the same language, without diminution of their significance, either in sense, or association, or in any worthy feeling, are so far vicious in their diction" (584). In traditional Romantic thought, words were believed to have incantatory power, and thus the weight resting on a single word would make it so that no other word could replace it. For Coleridge, each word must carry this weight, and therefore if the word can be removed or substituted, it obviously is not bearing the burden of incantatory power and is therefore worthless. Coleridge's emphasis on words continues when he is talking about good poetry, and his emphasis on content fitting the form (such as when he's talking about the "parts of which mutually support and explain each other") (589). So there, he's okay in my book. Otherwise, maybe not so much.

Neo-Platonism: emanation, procreation, and metaphysical goodness

Hey ya'll.  So I've had some exposure to Emerson before, but it was mostly through his journals (which are great) as opposed to his essays, so I never really got to experience some of his weirder strains of thought, most notably those stemming from Eastern religions (e.g. the Vedas) and neo-Platonism, before now.  We talked about neo-Platonism in class today, but I'd like to go further; I find NP fascinating, and I like the idea of tracing its influence throughout history.  Here goes:

First of all, NP is really freaking weird.  It's not so much a philosophy as it is a religion.  However, talking about it as a religion is a little anachronistic; early neo-Platonists like Plotinus would've seen themselves as just being Platonic philosophers, but as time went on, the school of thought became officially mystical, and thinkers started to see themselves as increasingly separate from Plato.

In any case, here's why it's important:

1. Justin Martyr
2. Pseudo-Dionysius
3. Augustine
4. Boethius
5. Bonaventure
6. Maimonides
7. Hegel
8. Emerson

All of these guys (and a lot more) are either neo-Platonic outright, or have pretty deep neo-Platonic roots.  NP basically forms the building blocks of Medieval philosophy and theology.

Justin Martyr, for example, was a church-father.  Aquinas (and by association, Catholic theology) drew a lot of his thought from Pseudo-Dionysius, Maimonides, and Augustine, so between himself and Augustine, there's two of the four church-pillars with Neo-Platonic influences.  The mystical side of NP also permeated into figures like St. Teresa of Avilia.  So, it's a pretty powerful movement, and one that tends to get glossed over.  Here's how it started:

During Plato's lifetime, his school (the Acadamy) was one of the hot-spots for education in the ancient world.  Near the end of Plato's life, he started writing lots of technical dialogues, such as The Timaeus and The Laws.  So, after Plato died, his followers continued this tradition, and the Acadamy became the center for technical philosophy.  This is in contrast to some of the later Hellenistic schools and movements, such as Stoicism, which focused more on ethics and practical philosophy.

Eventually, the Platonic and Hellenistic schools started reacting in opposition to one another.  The Stoics, for example, claimed that knowledge was possible.  The Acadamy, in turn, became very dogmatic about the nature of knowledge, and claimed (in a huge contrast to what Plato actually thought) that we are cut-off from all knowledge, period.  So, at this point, the intellectual ancient world has become fairly segregated between the Academics, the Skeptics, the Stoics, and the Epicureans.

As all of this is going on, around 250 AD, along comes a guy named Plotinus.

Plotinus is the first real neo-Platonist.  He didn't write anything down (mystical!), but his teachings were compiled by his student Porphyry (who was pretty Aristotelian, strangely enough) in the Enneads, meaning "Nine" (there were nine books).  The Enneads makes up the core of NP doctrine.

Plato thought of the Forms as hierarchical.  He thought of lesser forms (e.g. Human-ness) as subordinate to higher forms (Truth and Beauty), which in turn are subordinate to the Good.

What Plotinus did, essentially, was to replace "the Good" with "God."

There's a lot of other weird doctrine going on, as well (e.g. his theory of emanation, in which the higher levels of being "emanate" the lower forms, but frankly, no one really knows what Plotinus meant by that anyway, so I wouldn't worry about it).  The main thing to remember is that Plotinus added a religious element to ancient thought, and that this justified a lot of later thinkers (e.g. Augustine, Maimonides) in utilizing Plato's thought in things like literary criticism, simply because of the belief that philosophy and theology could be reconciled.

The other thing that NP did was make matter the lowest of the low.  Matter (i.e. everything in this world) was considered vulgar and worthless.  So, the only way to connect with the higher reality was through religious experience.

This is huge for the Romantics; NP really anticipated the idea that it's the subject (i.e. the soul of a person and its relationship with God) rather than the object (i.e. worthless matter) itself that matters.  Aesthetic appreciation for Plotinus became much less about mimesis and much more about self-perfection--making oneself able to see the beauty.  At the same time, for NP, sensation is only the beginning of knowledge; they want to go farther than someone like a medieval like Sidney ("the purpose of poetry is to teach and delight"), or even a Romantic like Wordsworth ("good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings").

The concept of matter being worthless is also important for feminist theorists like Wollstonecraft.  The culture that sprung from NP believed that men possessed the Form of human-ness in their sperm, while women possessed the bare, formless matter in their egg.  So, this propagated the belief that men were superior and women were inferior, as well as the idea that any "problem" with the child (e.g. birth defects, still-births, or even if the child was born a female, rather than the more "perfect" male), then it was the fault of the woman, and she was in some sense responsible.  This belief was really not that uncommon throughout the most of the middle ages, and while that's not to say that NP is wholly responsible for the subjugation of women throughout Western history, it certainly played a major role, and definitely influenced some of the major feminist writers, from de Pizan to Mary Wollstonecraft, to speak out.

Another thing about mystical experience is that we can experience the One-ness, but we cannot properly express that experience through language.  In terms of literary criticism, this is huge for Augustine, Maimonides, and even Schleiermacher, whose notion of the hermeneutic circle plays in this doctrine big-time.

So, to sum up, neo-Platonism is big.  We (perhaps justifiably) like to ignore it in today's hyper-analytical Western thought because it's mystical and weird, but NP really does permeate Medieval, Romantic, and (in some sense) contemporary culture.  And it doesn't seem that literary theory (as far as we've experienced it) has been exempt from that fact.  I'm really interested in seeing how NP ties into the postmodern theorists, as well; hopefully we'll get to see some more connections between Hellenistic and contemporary thought down the road.

The S.T.C. Won’t Let Me Be…

Coleridge had a radical youth, what with trying to start up an isolated society of pantisocratic government with his buddies out in the wilds of Pennsylvania. The pantisocracy is defined in the Norton as “a society ruled by equals” (580); though the Norton claims that the plans “collapsed,” I don’t think STC abandoned the ideology completely. In his text Biographia Literaria, he claims that “a legitimate poem…must be one, the parts of which mutually support and explain each other” (589). It may just be me, but those two definitions sound awfully similar. Based on this idea of unity, the concept of the pantisocratic commune would be one of “a spirit of unity,” a “harmonious whole…[with] the remaining parts…preserved in keeping with [it]” (590). That’s how STC describes the work of the ideal poet; good sense, he concludes, “forms all into one graceful and intelligent whole” (591). In the pantisocracy, every person would rule the commune equally, like harmonious parts of one great whole. This ideal society transmuted itself into STC’s concept of real or ideal poetry; so really, how much did he abandon his pantisocratic ideology?

Preface is to 1800 as Reality Hunger is to 2010

Preface to Lyrical Ballads is not a piece of criticism. Wordsworth says this of himself: “I am not a critic” (556). So how do we reconcile this with the way that he talks about poetry and “the Poet?” How can we take his statements, like, “All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings?” (562).

If he intended to propose a standard of criticism or literary interpretation that is universally applicable, he failed, for if all artists strove to the standards he sets up, poetry would be hopelessly boring and unchanging. We would all right in Ballad stanzas! His voice should only be taken in the context of his time. To be frank, his ideas are outdated, but useful and we ought to adapt them to fit our own time and to understand the way that art changed in his. It would be dangerous to the art if we still suggested that poetry derives all of its power in meter alone, especially when that meter is a ballad. Almost no one can successfully write a ballad anymore, as it has become the sound of a child’s song. We like it, but it cannot be taken seriously.

In his collage manifesto Reality Hunger, David Shields asserts that each great work creates and destroys a genre. That is what Shields is doing when he suggests the impending rise of nonfiction and the lyric essay over the novel. Shields says of his manifesto, “People will either love or hate this book. Its converts will see it as a rallying cry; its detractors will view it as an occasion for defending the status quo. It is certain to be one of the most controversial and talked-about books of the year.” I’d say Shields’ makes the same type of arrogant claims about our day as Wordsworth did in his. Sounds a bit like Wordsworth when he says, “I flattered myself that they who should be pleased with them read them with more than common pleasure: and on the other hand, I was well aware, that by those who should dislike them they would be read with more than common dislike” (560). Both artists expected that their departure from the traditions of a genre would have a polarizing effect, and deemed it a good thing. Both works declare generic change. Wordsworth helps us understand the ways in which he means to depart from the poetic conventions of his time and shape the movement of future poetry. But today we must depart in new ways.

I appreciate his idea that there is a contract between a poet and a reader, “The metre obeys certain laws, to which the Poet and Reader both willingly submit because they are certain, and because no interference is made by them with the passion but such as the concurring testimony of ages has shown to heighten and improve the pleasure which co-exists with it” (571). The meter idea is outdated, but the principle from which he derives it can be useful. The Poet must maintain some consistency so as to make sure the reader can acknowledge the genre, but then he must departs from it for interest (although I may have added to his thoughts with that last part). The only line that really drove me crazy was the one that suggests it is important for the Poet to be “treading on safe ground” (570). Art is risk and I believe that he is taking some risks in his poetry or this Preface would not be necessary. Artistic manifestos, which is what the Preface really is, are in their nature at least a little self-important.

In his broad assertions, Wordsworth falls into the same trap as Hegel. Hegel says that Romantic art is the best, yet he does not seem to account for the fact that his theory about history is very forward-looking toward future perfection. His satisfaction with the status quo suggests that he thought in some way that Romantic art was the self-consciousness that that constituted the ultimate perfection. In the same way, Wordsworth asserts that all good poetry will be like his. His aim is to shape the direction of poetry, redefine the genre for future artists. I admire this move, but I believe that his pendulum swing has become lost in the history of poetry and there are other great poets now who are the voice of a new time, which is by Hegel’s theory a superior artistic age than any that has come before, right?

Because It Hasn't Happened Yet...

Alright, time to rant a little about Wordsworth. I feel like there haven't been too many extreme rants as yet...so I'll just get the dialogue going (don't worry Doug...this will be a substantiated rant).

Don't get me wrong. I do enjoy a good Wordsworth poem. He's not my favorite poet ever, but he's not half bad. What I would first like to point out, however, is how pretentious Wordsworth is. I love that, first page (practically) of his preface, he says he was unwilling to write a preface, "because, adequately to display my opinions and fully to enforce my arguments, would require a space wholly disproportionate to the nature of a preface" (560). Essentially, he doesn't want to write a preface, because, he has just too much to say (even though he also says "I am not a critic" (556)). Fascinating. He wouldn't do justice to his thoughts in a short preface, so instead he writes one approximately seventeen pages long. I don't know how long the average preface is...but this one seems a little lengthy. Also, I love how Wordsworth classifies the poet. He says that "among the qualities which I have enumerated as principally conducing to form a Poet, is implied nothing differing in kind from other men, but only in degree" (570). Don't worry, we're not different, just a little better.

Alright, more substantiation. I don't know how many of you have read Wordsworth's poem "Daffodils" (link included so you can look and I'm not copy write infringing or anything...), but it's not the...simplest word choice. I don't know that I'd call it "a selection of language really used by men" (561). I'll admit that I may be completely wrong here, but I don't know that words like "jocund," "oft," and "o'er" are necessarily common language. They're definitely not "low and rustic," nor is his scenario of a man relaxing and contemplating on a couch (561). Perhaps I read Wordsworth wrong, and by low and rustic he doesn't mean the working class, but the educated class. In that case, by all means use "jocund." One thing Wordsworth does claim, that this poem is particularly strong to emphasize, is that "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility" (573). "Daffodils" itself is a poem about recollecting something beautiful while lying tranquilly on a couch.

Thinking back Wordsworth's pretentious behavior, I love that he sets up poetry as a universal. I do honestly appreciate this, as up to this point, poetry itself hasn't been quite so highly elevated. Now, however, Wordsworth claims that "the Poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth, and over all time" (569). I don't say Wordsworth is wrong; he does make a pretty good argument for his claim. I just appreciate that, as a poet, he takes this stand. Really, if I was a poet, so strongly invested in my work, I'd probably make the same stand. (Also, anyone feeling Hegel's zeitgeist? "Poetry is the image of man and nature" (568)?)

All this to say, I don't think Wordsworth is a bad poet, and I don't think everything he says is pretentious, artificial, and to be disregarded. He makes a strong argument for poetry, and I appreciate that he's not so buried in technical terms that we can't make out what he's saying. As a poet, I think we need to read him. We need to consider what he's saying, and what impact that is making on the evolution of poetry. But, that doesn't mean we can't laugh, just a little. I know I did.

Line of Sight

The main idea that Hegel seeks in art is unity between form and spirit. He takes the three forms of art, symbolic, classical, and romantic, and describes each in “relations of the Idea to its shape in the sphere of art” (555). The key relationship he is looking at is how the spirit is portrayed. We are to ask ourselves how direct of access the reader of a work of art has to the “inwardness of self-consciousness?” (554). For the most part, I agree with this idea. Art should not be merely mimetic when it means to capture something sublime, however his philosophy on aesthetics seems to negate, in part, that of Kant, who says, “In order to find something good, I must always know what sot of thing the object is supposed to be, i.e., I must have a concept of it. I do not need that in order to find beauty” (416). Kant does not believe that art should have a concept. It should merely be universally pleasurable without interest. Perhaps that pleasure is the “spirit” or “inward self-consciousness” of the object without interest and Hegel goes a step farther to give a purpose to Kant’s initial conception of art for art’s sake.

This pinning down of the meaning initiated by Kant, however, I find limiting, because Hegel once again imposes a purpose on art. Good art will have a spirit, even art with no concept. But maybe the “spirit” one is trying to achieve in art, is merely the visual interest of the forms in themselves. Perhaps, the difference here is in the fact that Kant is talking about beauty and Hegel is talking about art.

Do you find Hegel’s idea of “spirit” to be in contradiction with Kant’s idea that beauty does not need a concept?

Today we hang onto romantic ideas of art. We look for meaning and symbol as well as expressiveness and spirit, but many artists, such as Timothy C. Ely (who has an exhibit at the MAC right now, called Line of Sight) create beautiful, elaborate works of art with no purpose or meaning. Can we fit that art into this Romantic Ideal? Is there something in Ely’s passion for creating strange books that could be considered a sort of post-post modern zeitgeist?

To me, at least, it is evident that Ely's work has a spirit and passion, but it is not intentionally there to mean something or be something. Both Hegel and Kant, I am sure would agree that this work is "productive" rather than "mimetic" and "compels the imagination to proceed in accordance with a determinate law" (430). It has what Kant would call "purposiveness without an end" (430). I can make and find meaning in it without the anxiety of guessing to what end the artist created it.

Metaphysics and Aesthetics

So you all may have noticed that many of the theorists have wildly different views concerning aesthetics, and so it may not surprise you to hear that these largely come out of their varying ontological and metaphysical views (i.e. understanding of what exists and the systems affecting it). We have alluded to many of the relevant metaphysical views, but it may be helpful to provide a quick summary for clarification and later reference.

Plato: Many of you have had Plato's theory of the forms beat into you from various places, so this will be brief. According to Plato, spiritual substance is the only “real” stuff in the universe, and exists as the Forms. The material world that we perceive is only a shadow of these forms which we perceive through limited sensory and cognitive faculties. The cognitive faculties can be elevated since they are essentially spiritual, but the sensory faculties are only useful in perceiving the material world. At best they give us incomplete impressions of the forms.

In terms of aesthetics, art only further removes us from the Forms through μίμησις (i.e. mimicking/imitation). If one wanted to learn about human anatomy, he/she would not use a doll. The implicit moral maxim for humanity is to move closer to true reality, and therefore one must distinguish between the permanent and the impermanent.

Aristotle: Though Aristotle was sympathetic to the idea of Forms, he did not take them to be something separate from the material world. Instead, Aristotelian forms exist within each particular thing. Forms are a binding principle, more akin to a blueprint. This suggests an even larger binding force, or ultimate Form which Aristotle identifies with the immovable mover, or God. God is the first cause, which sets matter in motion and gives form to everything that exists. It is all like an intricate machine. As such, each existing thing has a function within the whole, (i.e. τέλος). A good thing is one that performs its function excellently.

The function of the human being is to live a rational life. Reason dictates a number of virtues, such as wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice, but these all ultimately support the rational activity. Likewise, art functions to support this rational life through κάθαρσις, or the relieving of passions. By relieving the passions, one is able to focus on rational projects.

Augustine: Augustine's metaphysics are probably at least somewhat familiar to everyone, since they are grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Everything that exists proceeds from the creative action of God and exists for the glory of God. Human beings have within in them the image of God, which is generally taken to be the rational, creative mind.

To perform art is to create as God creates. It is an act of worship and recognition of the beauty of Creation. The difference between God's Creation and human art is that the former occurs ex nihilo (i.e. out of nothing), while the latter is simply a restructuring of what is. As such, all human art is a sign of something that God has already created, whether it be a physical thing or abstract concept.

Maimonides: Though proceeding out of a similar tradition as Augustine, Maimonides has slightly different views regarding the transcendent nature of God. In this sense, Maimondies is to Augustine as Plato is to Aristotle. Maimonides sees God as wholly above His Creation and as such, beyond philosophic analytical distinction. God can be apprehended, but only through more direct, intuitive communion. We experience God, but God cannot be contained within the mind of man. This is not to say that Augustine believes that God can be wholly comprehended, but he does think that we can say certain thing about God through reason.

Because Maimonides holds God and Creation to be beyond analytical distinction, he thinks that meaning/definition becomes an ambiguous and largely nebulous project. Again, this is not to say that it is wholly worthless, but the answers are neither clear nor concise. Knowledge may come and go as quick as a flash of lightning. Through empirical activity we come to know God, but this knowledge is not like the knowledge of a fact, but more akin to an acquaintance with God. It is a relational knowledge.

Christine de Pizan: Yet another writer coming out of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Christian Tradition, like Aristotle, holds the Creation to be orderly. This order extends to varying degrees depending of what particular Christian tradition one comes from, but the ancients and early medievals focused quite a bit on essential natures. This extends even to particular natures of men and women.

De Pizan's feminist critique centers largely around the grotesque misapprehension of the feminine nature that had evolved from an increasingly ascetic focus within Christianity. A key characteristic of Christian asceticism was the denial of sexual passions. As such, the patriarchal structure of the Church increasingly saw women as malevolent temptresses and necessary evils. De Pizan sought to return to an earlier view of women as the helper and companion of Adam, equal in glory but different in kind. She is not so progressive as later feminists who sought to erase all distinctions between men and women; rather, she focused on what it means to be a virtuous woman.

Sir Philip Sidney: Sidney, like Augustine, understands art to be a type of worship as well as a virtuous activity. He is profoundly affected by many figures within the western tradition, including Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine. As such, Sidney holds beauty and truth to within the universals, but also within the content of human experience. He identifies heavily with Aristotle here, seeing the universals in the particular and seeing the apprehension of these as leading toward a virtuous life. The application of wisdom towards this end he calls αρχιτεκτονική. The poet seeks to “teach and delight,” as he says or to, “affirm the rule of justice and order,” according to the Norton Anthology.

Ultimately, Sidney makes a distinction between philosophers, historians, and poets. He asserts that between philosophers and historians, philosophers have the more valuable enterprise as they focus on universals while historians only focus on particulars. As such, philosophers conceive of what the end of man is, while historians only say what has happened. Unfortunately, the abstractions of philosophers often leave the layman (and often the philosophers themselves) at a complete loss as to how to apply universals to everyday life. The poet rises above both, however, in that he crafts universals into particular stories in order to ground them in human experience.

These figures will have to suffice for now as other homework is demanding my attentions. Later figures will have to wait for a later post.

Hegel and Twombly's Femme Fatale

In 2007, painter Cy Twombly exhibited a valuable ($2m) painting in France.  Rindy Sam, a fellow artist, was charged with criminal damage after she was, in her own words, "so overcome with passion" that she felt compelled to kiss Twombly's painting, later saying that she "had wanted to make it even more beautiful."  The otherwise bone-white painting was smudged slightly.  In the picture above, Twombly's lawyer is holds up the damaged painting (right) next to a close-up of the smudge (left).


I think this scenario gives rise to some interesting questions concerning the nature of art, but setting those aside for now, I would like to consider the close-up (we'll call it "KISS") as an independent aesthetic artifact, and examine it according to the criteria that Hegel sets for symbolic art.


Criteria for the symbolic form of art:

1. The Idea and the shape (i.e. external form) of the art object are incompatible.
   
2. The Idea is unsatisfied with the defective, arbitrary shape of the art object, and so transcends it to manifest as the sublime.
3. The art process applies an absolute meaning to worthless objects.
4. The art object is mimetic, but in a grotesque sense. (Norton 552)

(4) is clearly met; KISS is without argument a grotesque imitation.  In being such an imitation, it is also attempting to apply meaning to an object.  The question, then, is whether it applies an absolute meaning, as well as whether the object itself is worthless.  In terms of the latter, I think the object is worthless; it clearly only serves as exaggerated forensic evidence for the true artifact (i.e. the original painting), which is now itself worthless, due to the fact that it has been damaged to the point that Twombly was seeking reparations in the first place.  In addition, KISS is being used to conflate the slight damage that had been done to a (very overpriced) painting.  So, it's an attempt to apply absolute meaning, not just to an object, but to a now-worthless object, of which it is only a worthless copy.  So, (3) is fulfilled. 

(2) is a little tricky.  Here's what Sam, the kisser herself, had to say on the subject: "A red stain remained on the canvas... This red stain is testimony to this moment, to the power of art."  The power of art: in Hegelian terms, Sam had been compelled by the Idea's dissatisfaction with the "defect, arbitrary shape" of Twombly's painting to cause the suppressed power of the Idea to actualize it's true potential: to emerge from inferiority as a manifestation of the sublime.  So, (2) is fulfilled, and what this ultimately implies is that the Idea and the shape of KISS are incompatible.  The dissatisfaction of the Idea has stemmed from an incompatibility between the Idea and the shape of the art object itself.  Because (1) is entailed by (2), and (2) is fulfilled, it follows that (1) obtains, as well.

So, we can conclude that because KISS meets all four of Hegel's criteria for the symbolic form of art, it follows that, if taken as an art object, KISS would be symbolic, as opposed to classical or romantic.  While it's certainty interesting and raises some fascinating questions concerning authorship and perfection, I nevertheless argue that Hegel would nevertheless consider it to be inferior and in desperate need for the sense of freedom and perfection of spirit that infuses the romantic form of art.



The original story can be found here.
The image can be found here.