Universality and Literature

[JBI]

From Mortalterror on this thread: http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39806&page=7

In order to stop sidetracking the thread, I decided to post my response in a new one, to continue the discussion:


JBI wants literature to be words and symbols without meaning because it allows him to dismiss content out of hand. He's probably reading a lot of Saussure, Chomsky, Derrida and guys like that right now for a modern criticism class, and in contemporary criticism there's a large movement to make meaning plastic or reinterpretable. If he wants to get good grades then his opinions naturally have to be aligned with those of the people he's reading. He has to minimize the universal, downplay all previous theories, and make a big deal about signifiers and signified. Ceci n'est pas un critique.

By focusing our primary value upon the particular rather than the general attributes we are actually privileging an interpretation or point of view. In this case, the position is very clearly an elitist view of art as it seeks to minimize the importance of less finely executed works of art which happen to share the same themes as great works or art. It may not be intentional, but the emphasis of language to the exclusion of content has that effect. It discredits less polished, more popular forms of art. It delegitimizes the masses experience, monopolizes the power (who gets to interpret, or create), brands less crafted works as different, other, alien, pretends various people are not enjoying the same thing. This bastardization of the popular experience is disenfranchisement, a negation of the pleasures regular people experience from reading, framing aesthetics as either right or wrong. The populace says, “Look here, we like the same things. What we read is more or less the same.” But the elitist says, “No, it is our differences which matter. There is no common bond. We do not enjoy the same things. Our enjoyment is different. Our books are different. We are different.”

If we admit that content is primary and language secondary, or if they were equal, or if perhaps there were such a thing as a universal then that would mean that the popular would share a common ground with the elite and would have to be judged on a gradient rather than a good/bad mutually exlusive dichotomy. Back in March we had this discussion on the Byron, Shelley, or Keats? Thread, and there also I made the case for theme, subject, and content. StLukesGuild and Petrarch's Love illustrated their position with the example of Arthur Brooke's Romeus and Juliet. They claimed that what made Shakespeare's version better was his skillful handling of language. What they failed to address, and what I was too tired to point out, was that although Brooke's Romeus and Juliet was inferior to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the content probably raised it above the main of Brooke's own oeuvre.

JBI's stand has a second effect in that it allows him to raise works of art with unworthy themes, minimal content, obscure application, and oblique language, which wallow in narcisistic eccentricity to the level of greatness by virtue of their individual diction. Case in point, his mention of Finnegans Wake. There is no subject more frivolous than that of sophistry, the splitting of hairs, and disection of language. Authors who make words their subject are prone to the worst abuses of language and self-conscious navel gazing. The authors he would raise from oblivion to the heights of Mount Parnassus are the ignoble pygmies who would gild a lily, polish a turd, and pen beautiful words in a cause for which it would be waste of breath to speak. “These same people also think themselves clever if one has to be clever to understand them, as Diomedes wittily remarked, and prefer to write something that will result in amazement rather than comprehension(Erasmus, De Copia).”

Finally, JBI and StLukesGuild are fond of saying that literature is not translatable. They quote Frost and say that “Poetry is what get's lost in translation.” This is one more view that can be extrapolated from their position. If the phonemes are more important to you than the enthymemes, then of course you are going to say that nothing is translatable.



Language isn't translatable, and the more complex it is, the more it relies on rhetorical devices, the less translatable it seems to be. The reason is not that language has no meaning, as you insist in stating that I got from Derrida, but it is that it has no meaning unless someone knows the meaning. The meaning is brought by the reader, not by anyone else. Depending on what the reader brings, the result of the read will be different.

That is why we notice things on rereads that we missed the first time - because we know more. That is why we read something and get different reactions. It's the fact that the text contains things within it that challenge our memories, and what we know about a) the world, and the author and his world, b) ourselves, and c) the text.

I personally see no problem with judging literature without acknowledging that it is on the grounds of a universal truth. The concept of a universal truth, or a fundamental value to a text is perhaps the most rhetoric, elitist enterprise there is. Just look at all the Alan Blooms of this world, and the whole neo-con group, who preach watered down F. R. Leavis about the "moral" being the center of the text, or some other junk.

Language is clearly the fundamental facet about literature. It is what literature literally is, a written form of language.

And being language, literature is subject to the limits of language, being that only someone who can understand the certain language, is able to understand the text.

If I cannot read Arabic, and am not even able to speak it, how am I able to even begin to read texts in it? If I do not understand a culture, how can I understand its art.

Even those who claim to understand cultures usually just absorb them in a watered down form. For instance, I read French Canadian literature, but am I able to understand it? No, not really. First there is the language issue, and second there is the context issue. I try to understand the translations of the texts of course, but am I able to? No. Is someone like Etienne more capable of reading Hubert Aquin than I am? Of course. He understands the French, and lives in French Canada.


But what it really comes down to, is whether or not something "universal" is able to be captured by the text. I think that is a rather silly notion. The texts themselves aren't even able to be read universally, kind of defeating the idea.

But when we get to aesthetics, I don't think it is the "universality" of the text that really makes us enjoy them. After all, we must remember the history of literature. Plato himself accuses poets of being liars. In terms of view, the history of poetry hasn't been to uncover a "truth" but merely to entertain.

The language of metaphor itself isn't a "truth". Anything explained by metaphor isn't actually explained. But one may, for instance, simply take delight in it. One can simply "suspend their disbelieve" as Keats put it, and for a while believe in the fiction, the contradiction.

It is not elitist to say that the concept of a "Fundamental truth" is a) a lie, and b) not the central preoccupation of great literature. When it comes down to it, if something is so universal, why would we even need a writer to tell us about it. And even so, why would we care, seeing as how most people don't enjoy reading about physics facts, even though those contain "truths".

There are things that remain true in our society, as our societies are shaped by traditions, and our pasts. But that doesn't mean works that are truthful, or somehow more truthful are better.

Homer has cyclopes and Gods.
Shakespeare has talking Ghosts.

Would you suggest we remove these things from the texts? Of course not. They are part of the text, and add in one way or another to the enjoyment of the text.

I think one of the ways good literature functions is on its ability to inspire more than one reaction, more than one interpretation. That doesn't mean both are right, or both are wrong, simply that both are within the text's ability. That's why irony is so interesting. It allows us to hear one thing, and think another. That is why there is so much contemporary scholarship on metonymy, and its inconclusiveness. Because quite frankly, these things allow the reader to take them wherever they really want.

But on translation. Find me one translation that can capture, lets say, Homer. There are clear differences between all the major contemporary ones, Fitzgerlad and Fagles or Lattimore, or whichever other. The simple inability to recreate the metre is enough to prove that translation can never accurately recreate a work. But we can stretch it further. Can we recreate idiom? Can we recreate the sound of words, the feel of words, the order of words, or the overall feel of them. Of course not. I cannot recreate even an Esperanto writer into English. You can't even recreate, for instance, Chaucer into modern English. It isn't possible, you can only create an image.

That doesn't mean translations are bad, it means they aren't the original. I think most translators will agree that much of the original is lost in translation. Perhaps that can be good - I personally prefer the King James to the Archaic Hebrew Old Testament. But does it matter? No. The point is, it doesn't translate. Trust me, I've read the original, and it's not quite there in translation.

Do you think Hemingway, for instance, would be Hemingway in Italian? No, he would be an Italian Hemingway.


Actually, lets take it further. Is Hemingway what he was to his original audience what he is now? IS Shakespeare? Is even Thomas Pynchon? Or some other still living writer? No. They are not. In fact, it is the ability of these works to adapt to new visions which contributes to their stature as great. The point though, is that the works are able to change.

But on the notion of elitism. All opinions of good and bad are elitist.


Take this for example:

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=29&pictureid=2443

There is no "universal meaning" to this portrait. It simply looks pleasing. So is with literature. The words sound good, what the responses we have to the words feel good. Would someone from some culture perhaps not like this painting? Possibly.

But the true beauty, I would argue, lies in the form. Raphael was a master of the form - a master of the portrait, the same way Tennyson was a master of the Poem. It is not for their universal appeal that we like them, but for what they can do:

Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

It is the form of expression - the way that which has been expressed is being expressed. Poetry itself functions, I would argue, as one long question on what it means to be creative - to have a creative impulse.

In that sense, one could argue poems about death deal with a question of expressing the feelings of death, not of death. Death is universal, but the expression is a mere form - a vision.

[stlukesguild]

Mortal Terror- JBI wants literature to be words and symbols without meaning because it allows him to dismiss content out of hand. He's probably reading a lot of Saussure, Chomsky, Derrida and guys like that right now for a modern criticism class, and in contemporary criticism there's a large movement to make meaning plastic or reinterpretable. If he wants to get good grades then his opinions naturally have to be aligned with those of the people he's reading. He has to minimize the universal, downplay all previous theories, and make a big deal about signifiers and signified. Ceci n'est pas un critique.

SLG- I'll make no comments about where JBI is or is not coming from. That is for him to say. I will note that I have very little use for the sort of criticism that you mention... and had even less respect for it when I was confronted with it during my undergrad studies (and yes, some art majors did take classes on literature).

By focusing our primary value upon the particular rather than the general attributes we are actually privileging an interpretation or point of view. In this case, the position is very clearly an elitist view of art as it seeks to minimize the importance of less finely executed works of art which happen to share the same themes as great works or art.

My own position is admittedly "elitist" if by "elitist" we denote a position which places the aesthetic pleasure of a work primary. I suppose that such does lead to a position of placing form over content... but I would argue that the two are intrinsically intertwined. What I would suggest is that content or theme alone without the form to match is nothing. There are endless works of art... paintings, novels, poems (shall I again select Maya Angelou as an example... or perhaps To Kill a Mockingbird?) that convey themes that are certainly of great merit... that I certainly empathize with... and yet as a work of art they fall short due to aesthetic short-comings.

It may not be intentional, but the emphasis of language to the exclusion of content has that effect. It discredits less polished, more popular forms of art. It delegitimizes the masses experience, monopolizes the power (who gets to interpret, or create), brands less crafted works as different, other, alien, pretends various people are not enjoying the same thing. This bastardization of the popular experience is disenfranchisement, a negation of the pleasures regular people experience from reading, framing aesthetics as either right or wrong. The populace says, “Look here, we like the same things. What we read is more or less the same.” But the elitist says, “No, it is our differences which matter. There is no common bond. We do not enjoy the same things. Our enjoyment is different. Our books are different. We are different.”

I don't think that a preference for works of the highest aesthetic merit need be seen as elitist in this way whatsoever. In a way I would say that such accusations made by MortalTerror are but a marvelous use of rhetoric to suggest his own camaraderie with the masses... his own "being down with the folk" as opposed to snobby over-intellectualized "elitists"... but such is belied by his own aesthetic preferences and his own education (I doubt too many of the folk have ever even heard of Saussure, Chomsky, and Derrida). I might suggest this is not far from the sort of rhetoric spouted by certain politicians in attempting to suggest that their opponents have less in common with the common voter than they do.

If we admit that content is primary and language secondary, or if they were equal, or if perhaps there were such a thing as a universal then that would mean that the popular would share a common ground with the elite and would have to be judged on a gradient rather than a good/bad mutually exlusive dichotomy.

I personally do not imagine form (language) as primary... but neither would I suggest content is first. I have stated before that I feel that form and content are intertwined. Content without a strong form is nothing. Simply writing about important subjects (racism, class struggle, ethical choices, etc...) is not enough to assure a work a place among the great works of literature. On the other hand... the form married to a shallow or empty subject matter can certainly lead to rather trite... albeit beautiful... works of art. One thinks immediately of the candy-cane paintings of the French Rococo. The greatest works of art have always exhibited a marvelous merger of form and content... perhaps to the point that the two cannot be separated. Neither do I feel that the suggestion that some works of art are towering achievements immediately disqualifies everything else. Shakespeare, the Bible, Homer, Dante... and I suspect the Shanameh may be achievements that far surpass most works of art... but that does not mean that works not of this level are to be immediately excluded. I quite like Augusto Monterroso, Edgar Allen Poe, H.G. Wells, J.S. LeFanu, Lord Dunsany... and many others I am more than certain are not on the same aesthetic level. I find much to enjoy in Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir John Davies' Orchestra, and Michael Drayton's Nymphidia... in spite of the fact that they most certainly are not the equal of A Mid-Summers' Night Dream, let alone Hamlet.

Back in March we had this discussion on the Byron, Shelley, or Keats? Thread, and there also I made the case for theme, subject, and content. StLukesGuild and Petrarch's Love illustrated their position with the example of Arthur Brooke's Romeus and Juliet. They claimed that what made Shakespeare's version better was his skillful handling of language. What they failed to address, and what I was too tired to point out, was that although Brooke's Romeus and Juliet was inferior to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the content probably raised it above the main of Brooke's own oeuvre.

Mortal... you mistake me. I most certainly would not have ever made such a comparison... having never read anything by Brooke. On the other hand... I would certainly be willing to point out endless works of art that have a theme of real merit and fail to achieve the greatest level of success due to the failings of the form. Again... I don't think such comparisons are always a dichotomy of good/bad... but rather a scale of mediocre, good, better, even better, etc... Of course we all know that Mallarme's famous exclamation of ennui ("Life is long... and I have read all the books"... or words to that effect) was but empty rhetoric. None of us has the time to read... let alone fully devour and digest everything that has been written. Thus we make aesthetic decisions... and we need to make aesthetic decisions.

JBI's stand has a second effect in that it allows him to raise works of art with unworthy themes, minimal content, obscure application, and oblique language, which wallow in narcisistic eccentricity to the level of greatness by virtue of their individual diction. Case in point, his mention of Finnegans Wake. There is no subject more frivolous than that of sophistry, the splitting of hairs, and disection of language. Authors who make words their subject are prone to the worst abuses of language and self-conscious navel gazing.

Here I would raise the question as to what subjects, themes, or contents are more worthy than others... and who decides? Do we assume that erotic love or the adoration of beauty and nature are but trivialities in contrast to confronting issues such as mortality, honor, and injustice? Do we then assume that the works of art which focus upon such "trivialities" can never achieve a rank equal to the best works of art... or even equal to any work which deals with a theme of great import? Such was not far from the theory put forth in the filed of painting known as the "heirarchy of painting" in which it was suggested that any painting of a great historical painting was inherently better than even the best landscape or still-life. Undoubtedly it was against similar prejudice that the Art pour l'art movement was begun. By declaring the importance of the form or the aesthetic merit of a work of art, such artist were not so much negating the content as they were suggesting that external standards or considerations (religious, political, moral, social, etc...) should not be the measure of a work of art. Certainly the abuse of such a concept has led to self-indulgent and narcissistic schlock... but it has also meant that I can appreciate the Shahnameh, Dante's Inferno, Plato's Republic, etc... in spite of my not sharing the same religious or political values. I won't speak upon Finnegan's Wake. I was deeply impressed with Ulysses... although I far prefer Proust... but have yet given Joyce's final book the effort due.

The authors he would raise from oblivion to the heights of Mount Parnassus are the ignoble pygmies who would gild a lily, polish a turd, and pen beautiful words in a cause for which it would be waste of breath to speak. “These same people also think themselves clever if one has to be clever to understand them, as Diomedes wittily remarked, and prefer to write something that will result in amazement rather than comprehension(Erasmus, De Copia).”

Again... such seems rather false rhetoric. I have yet to hear JBI suggest we offer undying allegiance to any writer... nor have I ever suggested that even the greatest do not have their flaws and the mediocre their moments of brilliance.

Finally, JBI and StLukesGuild are fond of saying that literature is not translatable. They quote Frost and say that “Poetry is what get's lost in translation.” This is one more view that can be extrapolated from their position. If the phonemes are more important to you than the enthymemes, then of course you are going to say that nothing is translatable.

Again you wrongly accuse me. I have repeatedly defended translation:
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38922

[Virgil]

Language isn't translatable, and the more complex it is, the more it relies on rhetorical devices, the less translatable it seems to be.

Well, I just fundementally disagree with this. It's translated every day. Sure, one can pick a word that requires amplification. And if one comes across such a word then it eqires amplification and context. So instead of translating word for word it requires a paragraph to give the full context.


Do you think Hemingway, for instance, would be Hemingway in Italian?
If it were translated well, yes.


No, he would be an Italian Hemingway.
Huh? Double huh? ;)


Actually, lets take it further. Is Hemingway what he was to his original audience what he is now? IS Shakespeare? Is even Thomas Pynchon? Or some other still living writer? No. They are not. In fact, it is the ability of these works to adapt to new visions which contributes to their stature as great. The point though, is that the works are able to change.
This is philisophic nonsense. You have to fill in the context because times and language has evolved, but that does not mean it's not translatable. Ask a Shakespearean scholar and see if he understands Shakespeare.

[JBI]

Look at classical reactions. For instance, look at responses of Enlightenment thinkers, even Dr. Johnson, to what have been called by them "Shakespeare's Quibbles" that is, his use of puns and other rhetorical devices loathed by the Enlightenment audience.

There is a long history of staging plays with modified endings of Shakespeare too. King Lear with a nonsensical marriage at the end, or Othello with Desdemona living, and Iago getting punished. Such is the differing response.

The actual meaning of the words is only one part of literature. The rhythm of the words, is another. The way they are interpreted is also a subject of variance. I am told that Russian audiences find The Taming of the Shrew to be Roll on the Floor funny, and the torturing of Kate the Cursed to be hysterical, but do, lets say, American audiences react the same way? Do individual persons react the same way?

But beyond that though, there is always a loss of something when translation goes through. Even the best translators cannot recreate the original. We merely accept this, and decide that having some notion is better than none, or allow the translator liberty in saying that we can appreciate the art of the book, or poem, despite it not being the original. But the fact remains, it is not the original.

Just look at this from Leopardi with a rather accurate, though dull rendition into English:

Oh Nature, Nature
why do you not give now
what you promised then? Why
do you so deceive your children?

And now in the original, humor me please by reading it aloud.

O natura, o natura,
perché non rendi poi
quel che prometti allor? perché di tanto
inganni i figli tuoi?


Which sounds better? Clearly the original. What is lost? The flavor.

[Jozanny]

Falling back into a debate about the canon, or lamenting the art of translation, seems to offer little, if anything, about universality, or the lack of it. (shrug) I do not know if linguistics is in reality a hard science, since the field seems to be about the (universal) function of language, which, at least for me, leaves me less frustrated than JBI about notions of equivalence. Just because I don't understand Arabic, this doesn't mean that Arabic authors don't write about love with the same sense of fatality, and if we include the modern rise of sharia, maybe even brutality--that we find in Donne, or an old Hollywood Gene Kelly score, where domestic violence is alive and well, and still an American trope, long before it gave rise to the identity politics of the late 20th century. When this discussion gives me a reason to care, I'll let you know.

[JCamilo]

I am rather confused here...
There is anyone arguing that literature is not moved by interpretations and those interpretations are constantly changing with time and perspective ? (Considering that any aesthetic effect depends on context and not only on the production...)

[Bitterfly]

JBI, long and thought-provoking post, as usual. :)
But I have a few remarks.

Your basic premise is that literature is language, and that's why it cannot be universal, because it is dependant on a particular language and therefore loses much when is translated. I suppose you believe Shakespeare would not have been Shakespeare had he written in another language, right? Second premise: that literature is dependant on context, once again particular. Third premise: that books are read in so many different ways that it is illusory to believe that they point to a universal truth.

I sort of agree with you, probably in part because I've been to the same post-structuralist school of criticism as you! But the structuralists, with their quest to find universal structures - and therefore truths, in a way - seem to have been too quickly forgotten and disparaged. The painting you say there is nothing universal about seems to me to take up a universal motif: the mother with child (be she a Madonna or a pagan goddess, or just a peasant). When you speak of a multiplicity of interpretations for each book, OK, but don't you agree that in most works there is something which cannot be read differently by each reader. Take a simple example, Donne's "The Flea": isn't the poem, at a very basic level, showing a man who wants to have sex? Is there something more universal than that? For me, two themes at least are universal - sex and death, with their correlatives of birth, sickness, resurrection etc - even if the manner in which they are treated is necessarily relative.

You can't explain everything with universal structures, but you can't deny they seem to exist - as long as there is a human condition, with universal characteristics, why shouldn't they? I think your identification of literature only with language is far too reductive: there is something else in art, that speaks about what we are. And we're not only products of discourse and context.

It is difficult to understand art from other cultures, when you haven't been steeped in them. But that is, I think, because we're not capable of going beyond the forms they take on. Under the surface of Arabic art, as Jozanny expressed it, we can find the same emotions as in Western art, if we're ready to look for it.

I'm also very surprised to find you of all people defending relativity. Maybe you don't like Harry Potter because you don't understand it, then? :p

This debate has raised another question for me: is there a "national genius", ie something which makes French literature French, American literature American, etc.? Or does art in general transcend such divides?

[promtbr]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativism

[Drkshadow03]

I am rather confused here...
There is anyone arguing that literature is not moved by interpretations and those interpretations are constantly changing with time and perspective ? (Considering that any aesthetic effect depends on context and not only on the production...)

Most of the time meaning or the "universal truths" that power literature don't significantly change with time. Significance, however, does change.

[JCamilo]

So, it is all about the old alegory controversy or the whole "Every man is either platonic or Aristolean" remark by Coleridge?
It should be rather obvious that calling a few symbols, vallues or themes as universal is a matter of interpretation and not truth. And vice-versa? In the end no work of literature is great because it uses universal anything or particular anything, but for the combination and conflict between both mindset, coming from the vallues and perspectives of the writer to the vallues of the public reading it ?

[Jozanny]

Bitterfly--

I am increasingly impressed by your moderating influences! I can respect post-structuralist anxiety over meaning, and I can respect, and even believe, that cultural norms inform upon interpretation. For example, I think barbara, a member here, has a much better grasp of Grass'es ironies in The Tin Drum than I do, because she is fluent in German and I'm not. But by the same token, I believe that any person can put their mind to studying and understanding what fascinates them. Conceptualization is not ultimately shrouded and mysterious, not in terms of understanding ourselves. It is not enough for me simply to assert that because translation is an approximation, that we are still driven off from the Tower of Babel.

[Drkshadow03]

So, it is all about the old alegory controversy or the whole "Every man is either platonic or Aristolean" remark by Coleridge?
It should be rather obvious that calling a few symbols, vallues or themes as universal is a matter of interpretation and not truth. And vice-versa? In the end no work of literature is great because it uses universal anything or particular anything, but for the combination and conflict between both mindset, coming from the vallues and perspectives of the writer to the vallues of the public reading it ?

So you're arguing that the literature gets its greatness through the dialectic tensions between the values of the writer versus the values of the reading public?

On what grounds, what evidence, can you show to demostrate that there aren't universal themes at work in Literature?


It is the form of expression - the way that which has been expressed is being expressed. Poetry itself functions, I would argue, as one long question on what it means to be creative - to have a creative impulse.

In that sense, one could argue poems about death deal with a question of expressing the feelings of death, not of death. Death is universal, but the expression is a mere form - a vision.

I'm not even sure this debate is worth having. Mostly because I feel like we've all had this debate in various forms over multiple threads in this forum. The usual suspects will agree and disagree with each other.


What is the core of this debate? Reading through JBI's post this is going to turn into the same old argument: content versus aesthetics. I think literature is about meaning. Aesthetics are important to a degree and I appreciate them, but getting at the heart of what a story is about, a symbol means, a character's action tells us is the real meat-and-potatoes of literature. Language is just the delivery device. Now in the last sentence I admit to be overstating my own views somewhat, as I already pointed out I do in fact appreciate original use of language and beautiful sentences and all the other rhetorical techniques for the pure pleasure that they derive, but there is no denying I am much more interested in the ideas of literature.

In response to JBI's ideas that I linked to above, I think there is far more going on in poetry and novels than a tradition that is nothing more than one long self-reflexive commentary of itself and the nature of creativity. I know how quaint of me. ;)

[JCamilo]

So you're arguing that the literature gets its greatness through the dialectic tensions between the values of the writer versus the values of the reading public?

Not the vallue, the dialogue between them. The intent of the writer against the interpretation of the reader. Both are going to use watever is universal vallue or symbols to influence the reader or the reader to use the work. But they will also use particular skill, symbol etc. And it is a fair game.


On what grounds, what evidence, can you show to demostrate that there aren't universal themes at work in Literature?

In none, how could I if I said nothing about it? You can classify several themes as universal, put them in the same bag - Let's say Campbell Hero's Journey. All fine. Star Wars, Lord of The Rings, Jesus's stories, Ulisses and Superman (the movie) have elements that can be in found in hero's journey. What this tell me ? I know you can break the system and still have a good artwork (after all, a lot of artistic acomplishment is originated from breaking old systems and themes), I can follow it and have good work also. I am abhored when someone uses this kind of classification to analyse artworks because it always seems to me like someone pointing to a iguana, a grasshopper and a mariner with green camouflage and telling "they are green, they have all the same color" and saying it is an analyse, insteand of telling me how this was developed, the path followed for mimetism, what is means for each being, etc.
But yeah, I am very uncertain of anything universal or the idea that something carries within this power , but I can not deny that some symbols and stories are easily understood by the majority.


What is the core of this debate? Reading through JBI's post this is going to turn into the same old argument: content versus aesthetics. I think literature is about meaning. Aesthetics are important to a degree and I appreciate them, but getting at the heart of what a story is about, a symbol means, a character's action tells us is the real meat-and-potatoes of literature. Language is just the delivery device. Now in the last sentence I admit to be overstating my own views somewhat, as I already pointed out I do in fact appreciate original use of language and beautiful sentences and all the other rhetorical techniques for the pure pleasure that they derive, but there is no denying I am much more interested in the ideas of literature.

I think if Literature is about meaning would mean that any text would be judged by the vallue of the information and the clarity to understand it. Therefore, Eistein and Darwin would replace Shakespeare and Joyce in the literatary cannon.
Seriously, I think in Art (not just literature) Style is substance. I can always agree with Chechkov that both must work together when we produce a good story. Someone was powerful as Joyce would be mumble jumble if he didnt found a theme to deal in Finnegans Wake. That aesthetic experience to tell a detective story would fail and at sametime, Borges's clarity would fail if used t tell the experience of a mind asleep, dreaming, being affected only (mostly) by memory. Or, imagine the precise idea of Dante expressed with Whitman's free versing? Or Whitman trying to conform his hymm to freedom and equality using Dante's precision ? So, always, Style is Substance.

[Virgil]

I didn’t have time last night to give a full response. Let me try to fill in my thoughts.

First of all I believe whatever gap exists in between a writer and a reader can be summed with two words, imprecision and context.

The easier one to explain is context. Context may be required to explain cultural differences, either from contemporaneous but different groups or those separated because of time. If there is a phrase that doesn’t translate, one then may need a fuller explanation, a whole sentence, a paragraph, or even a whole book to explain the context and usage and connotations or folk pattern or religious belief. But it is translatable. Look at a scholarly edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy and see how each line, sometimes phrases and words are explicated. Of course it is possible to have lost through history the complete context of a word or a phrase, but that’s not because it wasn’t translatable, it was physically lost. That is the job of a scholar, to read as much of an era as possible, learn as much as possible of the customs and habits and thought processes of an era, and use that knowledge to fill in the context of a work. To say that an American cannot understand Flaubert’s Madam Bovary from a good translation and scholarly commentary is just wrong. To say that an Italian cannot understand Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises from a good translation and scholarly commentary is wrong. Today I was thinking of my reading of Gilgamesh. It is quite possible, actually likely, that context has been lost to history. Sure, that is the case, but that does not mean that the language itself has caused that gap? Not at all.

As to imprecision, there are a number of places where it can occur. Let us assume full context is understood. One, the writer may imprecisely formulate a thought or observation; two the writer may correctly formulate the thought or observation and imprecisely express it; three the reader may imprecisely understand what the writer intended; and four if a translator is involved imprecisely translate the language. Imprecision is a failure of stating what one means clearly, it is not a failure of language. All you have to do is look at freshman papers and you will find the writer’s failures at clarity. It’s not the failure of language that a freshman wrote the way he did, it’s the freshman. And do not confuse a writer striving for ambiguity and complexity as a failure of language. Great writers are consciously creating interlocking connections between words and experiences. True, it may be hard fully comprehend the meaning. That’s not a failure of language, but a not fully understanding the context. Yes, back to context.

Let’s just assume for a second that JBI is correct and that some element of language is untranslatable. How much? A little tiny bit as far as I can see. 99.9% of Flaubert’s meaning in Madam Bovary must come across to an American reading a translation. Well, nothing in life is perfect 100%. Is a fraction of a percent inaccuracy justify the huge leap that JBI makes? That language is inadequate? If it is adequate 99% of the time, then why would one derive a conclusion on frankly less than one percent? Because, in short, academics have gone off the deep end in tha last forty years.

Under JBI’s notion, my conversation with my own mother is futile. We can’t communicate. We are speaking different languages.

JBI, let me also apologize for my crankiness on this issue. Academic arguments that defy common sense just bug me.

[JBI]

What about Flaubert's precise vocabulary, in which he chose each word specifically for its sound, and the possible meanings it could carry. What about the context in general?

Knowing the trends in historical writing, the context is always obscured, no matter what. Context can only be guessed at. We know how the Renaissance writers probably thought, but the spirit of the age, in the sense that they understood it, is definitely lost.

Not even that though - the way we read literature is completely different now than in the past. Our tastes are atuned to different things, our expectations are idfferent, are reactions more subtle, and I would argue less emotional.

Shakespeare's sonnets for instance, cannot possibly be read the same way as they were in the first few additions, or even in 1950. Our reaction to the text alone, regardless of meaning, has clearly changed.

Our society is different, so we can't look at the texts the same way. We don't expect, or get the same things from literature. Take this for example:


Sonnet 30
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.

I think contemporary readers would, putting asside the authors reputation, generally agree that the poem is quite hyperbolic, and a bit a flop. The ending doesn't satisfy the argument, and to us, I think the speakers thought of his dear friend quenching his sorrows is rather silly. I think also, that the periphrasis in the first 3 quatrains would, to us, seem a little over the top. The language seems hyperbolic and manipulative, echoing itself in the couplet, where the resolution isn't really one. The poem, as a poem outside of the poets reputation therefore, can be taken to be a bit of a flop.

In truth, different scholarly opinions show the destruction of a so called "universal". Lycidas for instance, Milton's famous Elegy, was considered a failure by Doctor Johnson, and perhaps now gets its reputation thanks to the works of William Hazlitt, expressing the opposite.

Alexander Pope, for instance, wrote a modified version of Shakespeare, brought into the "Tastes" of his time, that is, long couplets and couplets to cure Shakespeare of his "technical mistakes". Ironically enough, the poor reaction to the text led him to write probably his best poem, the Dunciad, but that isn't the point. The point is, he saw it fit to fix Shakespeare. The same way Louis Zukofsky would, in the 20th century, remove all the words he deemed "pointless" from the Sonnets.


What we think we know about a context of a text is a mere guess. We cannot possibly recreate the reaction that the text a) originally had on audiences and b) was intended to have on audiences. We can try to interpret texts within their historical context, but we cannot read them in their original context. We can only say this fits with a, and this fits with b, and this was influenced by c.

[JBI]

Just to add, compare these two:

In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows:
"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,
"The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
"The wonders of my hand." The City's gone,
Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.
We wonder, and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragments huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.
—Horace Smith.

And the more famous:

OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley


Both deal with the same topic, same theme, and essentially same things. One is clearly better than the other. I would argue one is a decent poem, whereas the other is completely rubbish. The reason? Clearly style.

[Virgil]

What about Flaubert's precise vocabulary, in which he chose each word specifically for its sound, and the possible meanings it could carry. What about the context in general?

Knowing the trends in historical writing, the context is always obscured, no matter what. Context can only be guessed at. We know how the Renaissance writers probably thought, but the spirit of the age, in the sense that they understood it, is definitely lost.

If context is lost, then it is not a failure of language, but an unknown understanding. Context can be fill in and I fully believe one can get 99.9% of Madam Bovary as Falubert intended. Have you read a scholarly edition of Dante's Divine Comedy? Do you see how line by line annotation fills in the work?


Not even that though - the way we read literature is completely different now than in the past. Our tastes are atuned to different things, our expectations are idfferent, are reactions more subtle, and I would argue less emotional.
But that's what scholars are not supposed to do. If they are doing their job well, they are getting atuned to the writer and his culture and times. You or I may not get all of Shakespeare as he wanted, but we have not filled in all the context.


Sonnet 30
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.

I think contemporary readers would, putting asside the authors reputation, generally agree that the poem is quite hyperbolic, and a bit a flop. The ending doesn't satisfy the argument, and to us, I think the speakers thought of his dear friend quenching his sorrows is rather silly. I think also, that the periphrasis in the first 3 quatrains would, to us, seem a little over the top. The language seems hyperbolic and manipulative, echoing itself in the couplet, where the resolution isn't really one. The poem, as a poem outside of the poets reputation therefore, can be taken to be a bit of a flop.
I like that poem. :lol: But none the less our rating a work varies form time to time, I agree. But that's not a failure of language. That's because our values may have shifted. One can still read that poem the way Shakespeare intended and understand it the way Shakespeare intended.


In truth, different scholarly opinions show the destruction of a so called "universal". Lycidas for instance, Milton's famous Elegy, was considered a failure by Doctor Johnson, and perhaps now gets its reputation thanks to the works of William Hazlitt, expressing the opposite.
Like I said, that's a shift in values, not a shift in understanding the language.


What we think we know about a context of a text is a mere guess. We cannot possibly recreate the reaction that the text a) originally had on audiences and b) was intended to have on audiences. We can try to interpret texts within their historical context, but we cannot read them in their original context. We can only say this fits with a, and this fits with b, and this was influenced by c.
Perhaps some context can be lost. I agree. I still don't understand how that leads to a failure of language.

[JCamilo]

If context is lost, then it is not a failure of language, but an unknown understanding. Context can be fill in and I fully believe one can get 99.9% of Madam Bovary as Falubert intended. Have you read a scholarly edition of Dante's Divine Comedy? Do you see how line by line annotation fills in the work?

Understanding is the last important thing ever. Catholic Church inputed on Virgil interpretations that had nothing to do with the a roman writer and that didnt affected Virgil quality at all.
It is worst, do you claim to have understand all Kafka, Mallarme, Joyce, William Blake even Dante's works? I know I have not, and since i read the Comedy for the first time (when I had no idea even about Virgil and the copy I read just had historical notes) I was appalled. Art is about emotion and impact, not explantion or understanding. Even Dante would deny it with his four different meanings, only one of them had any relation with the context.
One can argue a basic level of understanding on vocabulary is necessary, but that is all.



But that's what scholars are not supposed to do. If they are doing their job well, they are getting atuned to the writer and his culture and times. You or I may not get all of Shakespeare as he wanted, but we have not filled in all the context.

Neither we ever will with all historic revisionism Shakespeare is taited. Any Shakespeare a scholar will see is his Shakespeare. It is not relevant, Shakespeare is not alive because the Romantics discovered the spirit of his time, but because they transformed him in such way that he fit on XIX century.



Perhaps some context can be lost. I agree. I still don't understand how that leads to a failure of language.

Context is lost, always. But that is irrelevant. His point seems to me how the change of context changed the vallue given to a work, not about failures.

[JBI]

Not just the value, but the work itself. The way we interpret texts in general has changed. The way certain phrases sound in our heads has changed. The way the sound itself of the language has changed effects our reading.

There is always something changed by time. Homer is not the original Homer today, especially in translation. Our ears hear different things, our bodies react in different ways. If we see a tragedy for instance, I would argue a contemporary western audience has less of an emotional reaction than audiences in the past. If we read a poem, the act of reading itself is different, as we have access today to millions of poems.

Language itself seems to have different effects on the reader than it did in the past. The weight of words is different, and no amount of scholarly reading is likely to reinforce the initial feeling. We may guess at the pronunciation of Chaucer, but the point of it is irrelevant to the reading, as we cannot possibly recreate him. We can read the words in the margins, explaining the text, but do you mean to tell me it doesn't affect the over feel of the text?



It's not just politics that has changed, and "corrupted our reading". And this is not just the rambling of those evil "contemporary critics".

I see no problem with stating that something isn't universal. That is perhaps better - it allows the works more room to grow. Textual ambiguity, and variance of interpretation is necessary for the well being of the text.

Each reader brings something different to the text, and each reading brings something different. The text doesn't have a "truth", or point to a "truth", and there is no "truth" of the poem, but merely an ability for the reader to come up with whatever truths he sees fit.

[Virgil]

Each reader brings something different to the text, and each reading brings something different. The text doesn't have a "truth", or point to a "truth", and there is no "truth" of the poem, but merely an ability for the reader to come up with whatever truths he sees fit.

I can accept that. But I still maintain that a writer had something in mind to express and that is fixed with the text. The text didn't change. It is up to the reader, if he so cares, to find the context that reaches the author's meaning.

[JBI]

Yes, but the text transcends its maker. What the author had in mind is generally irrelevant. Romantic notions of getting to know the artist through the work are silly at best. The goal of the work is for the reader to experience the text, not the text's author. As soon as the pen is put down, the author ends, and the reader begins. Otherwise we would only seek to find out what the "author thought" about his text, and try to piece context and author's biography in the text, and not piece together our understanding of the work from the text itself. And there are critics who still dig for the author in the work, even amongst the evil "contemporary critics", perhaps especially amongst them.

Abrams Diagram from the Mirror and the Lamp is still probably the best definition of critical schooling and approaches.

[Virgil]

Yes, but the text transcends its maker. What the author had in mind is generally irrelevant. Romantic notions of getting to know the artist through the work are silly at best. The goal of the work is for the reader to experience the text, not the text's author. As soon as the pen is put down, the author ends, and the reader begins. Otherwise we would only seek to find out what the "author thought" about his text, and try to piece context and author's biography in the text, and not piece together our understanding of the work from the text itself. And there are critics who still dig for the author in the work, even amongst the evil "contemporary critics", perhaps especially amongst them.

Abrams Diagram from the Mirror and the Lamp is still probably the best definition of critical schooling and approaches.

I have to go look up the Abrams diagram. I don't recall it. And I do agree that digging for the author in the work is a silly notion, though understanding an author's life can help one arrive at the full context of his work. I completely agree with this: "The goal of the work is for the reader to experience the text, not the text's author." And while I understand that the reader brings his perceptions to a work, he's not allowed to think up anything he wants. If a reader decided that Moby Dick was about Ahab's sublimated love of animals that would just be an erroenous reading. The text didn't fluctuate. The reader was imprecise.

[JBI]

I have to go look up the Abrams diagram. I don't recall it. And I do agree that digging for the author in the work is a silly notion, though understanding an author's life can help one arrive at the full context of his work. I completely agree with this: "The goal of the work is for the reader to experience the text, not the text's author." And while I understand that the reader brings his perceptions to a work, he's not allowed to think up anything he wants. If a reader decided that Moby Dick was about Ahab's sublimated love of animals that would just be an erroenous reading. The text didn't fluctuate. The reader was imprecise.

Here you go. Usually now though, most people envision it being text and not work in the middle, and the arrow towards reader pointing in both directions.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9e/Abrams_mirror_and_the_lamp.svg

Then those theories can be broken down into Expressive ones, dealing with the artist, Mimetic ones, dealing with the universe, Pragmatic ones, dealing with the audience, and Objective ones, dealing just with the text, though I think the last one is unobtainable.

I think it is somewhat ironic that people become obsessed with finding "truths" and "universalities" in texts, when really, even from Plato, fiction, and poetry was viewed as a lie, and the poet (in this case Homer) a "liar", one who simply obscures reality. The language of metaphor, and rhetoric in general, has been traditionally viewed as deceitful, but it is the foundation of literature as a whole.

[Virgil]

My computer won't let me open that link. I wonder why?

[JBI]

My computer won't let me open that link. I wonder why?
Maybe because it points to the image. Try this link, and click the image.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Abrams_mirror_and_the_lamp.svg

[JCamilo]

I have to go look up the Abrams diagram. I don't recall it. And I do agree that digging for the author in the work is a silly notion, though understanding an author's life can help one arrive at the full context of his work. I completely agree with this: "The goal of the work is for the reader to experience the text, not the text's author." And while I understand that the reader brings his perceptions to a work, he's not allowed to think up anything he wants. If a reader decided that Moby Dick was about Ahab's sublimated love of animals that would just be an erroenous reading. The text didn't fluctuate. The reader was imprecise.

Here is the thing, readers should be allowed to do all mistakes in the world. That is what put readers apart from critics. Simple because some of those "mistakes" are going to allow 1 in a thousand of those readers to be a writer with something original to say.
Think about Virgil - his vision of Homer and mostly, of Homer's heroes are obviously mistaken. Odisseus is not exactly an example to be followed because the kind of morality he represented for the greeks was not well accepted during Octavio's age. This "misinterpretation" of Virgil allowed him to build up a stronger Aeneas, more suited for his work and objective. There is more examples such as the various changes on 1001 Nights translations, Milton's Lucifer, Borges's Pierre Menard (This a proposital mistake) and there goes.
Obviously it will generate a lot of garbage and watsoever (People often when someone says there is a mistake as censorship) but it is also what allows literature (and art) to be constly new.
I would also point how is hard to tell : the text is writen down. Homer and Shakespeare's texts are writen up...

[Bitterfly]

I think it is somewhat ironic that people become obsessed with finding "truths" and "universalities" in texts, when really, even from Plato, fiction, and poetry was viewed as a lie, and the poet (in this case Homer) a "liar", one who simply obscures reality. The language of metaphor, and rhetoric in general, has been traditionally viewed as deceitful, but it is the foundation of literature as a whole.

Careful careful about using Plato - he writes that the plastic arts and poetry are deceitful because they consist in the imitation of an imitation (they are mimetic of the physical world which is a mere appearance). You contradict yourself, since I don't understand how you can defend art both as mimesis and as a primarily linguistic construct existing independantly from all reality. It's either one or the other.

I think Plato's approach to art was also somewhat complex than what you present it to be - he also wrote that the contemplation of beauty in the physical world was one of the ways of reaching the Forms (which you can identify with eternal Truths). He also used what he called "noble lies", myths, in order to make his thought understandable to everyone - behind the lie, lies the truth, ultimately.

To go beyond traditional representations of metaphor, I'd advise reading Paul Ricoeur.

I suppose that lots of us are "obsessed" with finding truth in texts because it bestows gravity on the whole task of studying literature. If you admit that there is no truth but only a myriad of meanings in every text, what is your purpose in analysing them? It gets a little depressing, not to say vain. That's why I like to think the critical enterprise is in its modest way "metaphysical" - going beyond to understand the world, even if it only boils down to understanding oneself.

[Virgil]

I think it is somewhat ironic that people become obsessed with finding "truths" and "universalities" in texts, when really, even from Plato, fiction, and poetry was viewed as a lie, and the poet (in this case Homer) a "liar", one who simply obscures reality. The language of metaphor, and rhetoric in general, has been traditionally viewed as deceitful, but it is the foundation of literature as a whole.
This is true. I was only pointing out that universalisms exist. I did not mean to imply that they are a necessary function of art. Whether the writer consciously is striving for something universal is a decision on theme selecton. I'm not sure that Henry James strives for universalism, but I do think he is an artist. I did not comment on "truth." I probably have not given that enough thought. It does ring with the famous Keats ending of "Ode To a Grecian Ode": "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."


Maybe because it points to the image. Try this link, and click the image.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Abrams_mirror_and_the_lamp.svg
Thanks. It worked here. Abrams is a fine critic. I see he is still alive, and born in 1912, he is almost 100. In Wiki he catagories literary theories as such:
Classification of Literary Theories in "The Mirror and the Lamp"


The classification used by AbramsLiterary theories, Abrams argues, can be divided into four main groups:

Mimetic Theories (interested in the relationship between the Work and the Universe)
Pragmatic Theories (interested in the relationship between the Work and the Audience)
Expressive Theories (interested in the relationship between the Work and the Artist)
Objective Theories (interested in close reading of the Work)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._H._Abrams

That kind of Aristotilian formulation works wonders to my mind. :D


Careful careful about using Plato - he writes that the plastic arts and poetry are deceitful because they consist in the imitation of an imitation (they are mimetic of the physical world which is a mere appearance). You contradict yourself, since I don't understand how you can defend art both as mimesis and as a primarily linguistic construct existing independantly from all reality. It's either one or the other.

I think Plato's approach to art was also somewhat complex than what you present it to be - he also wrote that the contemplation of beauty in the physical world was one of the ways of reaching the Forms (which you can identify with eternal Truths). He also used what he called "noble lies", myths, in order to make his thought understandable to everyone - behind the lie, lies the truth, ultimately.

To go beyond traditional representations of metaphor, I'd advise reading Paul Ricoeur.

I suppose that lots of us are "obsessed" with finding truth in texts because it bestows gravity on the whole task of studying literature. If you admit that there is no truth but only a myriad of meanings in every text, what is your purpose in analysing them? It gets a little depressing, not to say vain. That's why I like to think the critical enterprise is in its modest way "metaphysical" - going beyond to understand the world, even if it only boils down to understanding oneself.
Good points!! Let me also say, though I think I implied this in one of the posts above, that some writers consciously strive for imprecision (through ambiguity), and therefore make the work already on its surface incapable of being pinned down in meaning. There is a wonderful book on rheteoric that really defines precise and imprecise writing that has shaped my thinking on this subject. It is called Clear and Simple as the Truth by Francis-Noël Thomas and Mark Turner. Here: http://www.classicprose.com/ and here: http://www.denisdutton.com/clear_and_simple_review.htm. It divides writers between those that strive for clarity and those that strive for ambiguity, and this manual outlines how to strive for clarity. Most of it is writing manual, but it did have an interesting theoretical understanding of language at the beginning. For me I think it is important that one consciously writes with a purpose, and that purpose includes a decision to be clear or not.

[Drkshadow03]

JCamillo, you're obviously misunderstanding me. I am not arguing that style doesn't matter at all; I am just saying it's slightly less important than substance. The best literature is produced when style and substance work together as in the Shelley poem JBI quotes above; if the style is bad or even silly, as I personally found some of the imagery and word choices in the first poem by Horace Smith, then it's going to distract from the substance. However, I do think authors tend not to write for the Russian Formalist reason because it was a good excuse to write an allegory or it was a good reason to write a sonnet or they wanted to show off their style, but the primary reason writers write is they have something to say about the world they live in and the issues that matter to them and us.

Now before we start whipping out references, I'm sure we can all find quotes from a writer or poet who claims they write to bring beauty into the world or aesthetic pleasure, but I think by and large the real impulse behind writing is to share important thoughts about the world and existence.

JBI keeps alluding to Plato as if Aristotle never happened to challenge Plato's views on art.

His slippery slope argument that universal themes would be a waste of time to write because we would already know and understand them is not only fallacious, but complete nonsense. It would be all too easy to counter that assertion with another slippery slope, in fact its complete opposite end of the spectrum, that if literary works are so different between cultures we would never be able to understand them, even translated, because they are so alien to our own understandings; I wouldn't of course seriously make that argument and claim it as my own because it too is fallacious for exactly the same reason.

Likewise, his argument that universal themes would act as a buzzkill for artistic interpretation and appreciation, and that they only stay fresh and vibrant because interpretations and tastes change, is also dubious. One could easily argue the opposite is true, that it's precisely what's universal about a particular work of art, the universality of the issues it raises, and the universality of the problems, conflicts, and situations that the characters face is what allows us to continually relate to the work. Not because we keep re-reading it in a new light.

Almost all the points people raised about changing values from period to period are aesthetic considerations rather than drastically different reinterpretations of meaning. Of course when you go so far as to change the ending of Shakespeare so that at the end of Romeo and Juliet everyone lives, then yes, I suppose you're doing more than engaging in aesthetic changes and you're changing the substance too. However, one could also argue that such drastic changes really isn't Shakespeare anymore.

In all fairness, I am interested in literature as part of the history of ideas (philosophy, history, and other disciplines). JBI seems to have more of a poetry background, while I have more of a novel/short story/fiction background. I think when you consider some of these elements it also gives some context to where each of us is coming from.

Bringing us full circle back to translations.

Berasheet bara Elohim eit HaShamayeem v'eit Haaretz. Haaretz Hatah tohoo vahvohoo vechoshech Al-penay Tehos. ve'ruach Elohim Merachefet al-penay HaMayeem. - transliteration of Hebrew by me (pardon any errors), The Soncino Edition of the Pentateuch and Haftorahs ed. Dr. J. H. Hertz

In the beginning G-d created the heaven and Earth. And the earth was without form , and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of G-d moved upon the face of the waters. - KJV

In the beginning, when G-d created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters. - The New American Bible

When G-d began to create heaven and earth--the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from G-d sweeping over the water--" - JPS Tanakh

Three different translations. What we see here is none of them are exactly the same, yet one can easily tell they were all translated from the same source (well, I suppose some might be translated from the Greek rather than the Hebrew). Major differences are almost all Grammatical; however, grammatical differences do in fact change the meaning.

By ending the first line with a period in the KJV, the events in the narrative change from the other version. G-d created the heavens and earth. Period. He performed this task, then stopped. Then the already formed earth created in the first sentence was form and voidless. So He gave the already created earth some shape.

In contrast, the JPS Tanakh's grammar significantly changes the events and to a degree the meaning. By adding the word "began" and starting with "When" it means G-d is in process of doing. Instead of a period we find dashes. This creates the effect that before the creation began, the universe and world were unformed and void, covered in darkness and the deep. And the process of creation is going to change this.

In one version G-d creates the heavens and earth. Then what he created at that point is formless and a void. In the other version, G-d creates the heavens and earth from the formlessness and void itself.

I think JBI is correct to point out the problems with translations. All three of these English translations are very different. Sometimes they can even have slightly different meanings based on little things like where they put the period or how they translate the Hebrew word "ruach" (which can be translated either as Spirit or Wind I believe).

With that said, as usual I think he goes too far with the problems he raises. I agree that a translation is sort of an imitation, a copy that does its best to capture the original, but will ultimately fail to do so completely. The main reason being certain concepts, word-play within the language, cultural references, and other stylistic issues cannot always be expressed or have no linguistic equivalent in another language or culture. On the other hand, I think he overexaggerates the problem when he starts claiming that the Chinese Shakespeare is not the English Shakespeare, the Italian Hemingway is drastically different from the American Hemingway, etc. In this regard, you might say I also agree with Virgil. Quite a bit might be lost in translation, but a lot of its retained too, especially the core of a book; so we really aren't reading fundamentally different books or authors. Once again looking back up at the Bible translations, for all the differences I think there are far more similarities.

[JBI]

I don't know, I think most writers write for money, well perhaps just a large number of them. To even some of the "great" authors, Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf, George Eliot, Money was the objective of the art - expression is part of it, but financial success is one goal.

On the subject of the Bible though, the Tovuvavohu (transliteration mine) mentioned doesn't translate. The actual meaning is ambiguous. Is it Chaos? Void? what is it? There has been significant debate amongst scholars on the very subject.

[JCamilo]

JCamillo, you're obviously misunderstanding me. I am not arguing that style doesn't matter at all; I am just saying it's slightly less important than substance.

No, no. I understood you. That is why I am saying they are equally important. I agree that is however idealistic. Mallarme was more stilish than substancial (and of course, when we get flaws about guys as good as Mallarme, i must say those flaws are minimal) and Dostoievisky is more substancial than stilish. Of course they are awesome but they didnt get the perfection or near it from a guy like Dante, and on him, substance and style cannt even be apart.


The best literature is produced when style and substance work together as in the Shelley poem JBI quotes above; if the style is bad or even silly, as I personally found some of the imagery and word choices in the first poem by Horace Smith, then it's going to distract from the substance. However, I do think authors tend not to write for the Russian Formalist reason because it was a good excuse to write an allegory or it was a good reason to write a sonnet or they wanted to show off their style, but the primary reason writers write is they have something to say about the world they live in and the issues that matter to them and us.

Of course, no disagreement, except that even a bad writer thinks he have something to say when writting.


Now before we start whipping out references, I'm sure we can all find quotes from a writer or poet who claims they write to bring beauty into the world or aesthetic pleasure, but I think by and large the real impulse behind writing is to share important thoughts about the world and existence.

I do not disagree with you here. I just add that a writer does not put apart How and What. They work with both, so even a pursue pure aesthetic delight will only use think to use his capacity with something behind. Of course, I would argue that the message : World needs beauty is valid as World needs food or Kill the dictador...


JBI keeps alluding to Plato as if Aristotle never happened to challenge Plato's views on art.

I do not like to use Plato because he is indeed the first steep, someone which notion of what is art is nowhere as developed as what we have now and truly worried with Truth and not aesthetics.


His slippery slope argument that universal themes would be a waste of time to write because we would already know and understand them is not only fallacious, but complete nonsense. It would be all too easy to counter that assertion with another slippery slope, in fact its complete opposite end of the spectrum, that if literary works are so different between cultures we would never be able to understand them, even translated, because they are so alien to our own understandings; I wouldn't of course seriously make that argument and claim it as my own because it too is fallacious for exactly the same reason.

To me you guys seems to discuss how each prefer to approach a study and I hope it does not get mixed with the object being studied. You can discover truths about War and Peace from the point of view of russian reality in XIX century and also from the point of view of significance in the development of XIX century Romance. Both would be useful and both would not cover the entire aspects of the work.


Likewise, his argument that universal themes would act as a buzzkill for artistic interpretation and appreciation, and that they only stay fresh and vibrant because interpretations and tastes change, is also dubious. One could easily argue the opposite is true, that it's precisely what's universal about a particular work of art, the universality of the issues it raises, and the universality of the problems, conflicts, and situations that the characters face is what allows us to continually relate to the work. Not because we keep re-reading it in a new light.

Sometimes it is like that. Freudian interpretation of literature can produce a lot of mistakes. Otherwise seeking only what is particular about Kafka does not help much either.


Almost all the points people raised about changing values from period to period are aesthetic considerations rather than drastically different reinterpretations of meaning. Of course when you go so far as to change the ending of Shakespeare so that at the end of Romeo and Juliet everyone lives, then yes, I suppose you're doing more than engaging in aesthetic changes and you're changing the substance too. However, one could also argue that such drastic changes really isn't Shakespeare anymore.

Not always. Virgil was seen as some short of prophet for christianism, there is always the Bible, or the historical revisionism that affects the views on guys like Melville, Stevenson, Conrad and Twain.


In all fairness, I am interested in literature as part of the history of ideas (philosophy, history, and other disciplines). JBI seems to have more of a poetry background, while I have more of a novel/short story/fiction background. I think when you consider some of these elements it also gives some context to where each of us is coming from.

Yeah, I understand you. It seems to me that sometimes in the forums (which are not exactly the best place in the world for debates), because one poster defends a notion that was ignored, it was understood that he ignores all other point of views, only because it was not quoted. Often I think that if one follow only one school of criticism or completelly ignore any other, he will lack information.


With that said, as usual I think he goes too far with the problems he raises. I agree that a translation is sort of an imitation, a copy that does its best to capture the original, but will ultimately fail to do so completely.

I often think Translation is creation. But I think you are wrong about the copy is failure because it will sound as the copy being worst. Of course, spanish to portuguese, very little is lost, etc.


The main reason being certain concepts, word-play within the language, cultural references, and other stylistic issues cannot always be expressed or have no linguistic equivalent in another language or culture. On the other hand, I think he overexaggerates the problem when he starts claiming that the Chinese Shakespeare is not the English Shakespeare, the Italian Hemingway is drastically different from the American Hemingway, etc. In this regard, you might say I also agree with Virgil. Quite a bit might be lost in translation, but a lot of its retained too, especially the core of a book; so we really aren't reading fundamentally different books or authors. Once again looking back up at the Bible translations, for all the differences I think there are far more similarities.

I think we should approach the criticism on translation in the same way we look for a book. This means it is a good book, the influence (what is left from the original), etc. I have seen authors which translation asks for a complete creation (Finnegans Wake translation to portuguese is nothing alike the original, except the basic line, which is not what Joyce worked to the point I find almost impossible to translate Finnegans Wake. I saw english translations of Guimarães Rosa and boy, it is no wonder this guy is not highly vallued in the english countries.) and some not...
But I understand you, a few weeks I read Snow Country by Kawabata and the translation was made by a good brazilian writer (Marina Colasanti). So the language was soft, poetic. Today I finished White Birds, and the translation was older, much poorer. Yet, there was still some identidy that allowed me to relate style with Snow Country.