Is literature universal?

[LitNetIsGreat]

Does literature transcend time and place, or is it completely bound in the social and political aspect of when it was written? It is an over-simplification, but some theorists, such as Marxist, New Historicist and Cultural Materials would argue that literature is firmly rooted in the time and place of its making, while others, such as the humanists would argue that literature conveys “universal values”. As I said, this is an over-simplification on both parts, but I am interested to hear people’s views on the matter nevertheless. (I am particularly thinking of Shakespeare as a prime example and not more contemporary works of literature.)

I know exactly where I stand on the matter, but I’ll not say anything just yet.

[LukeS.]

I'd rather reframe the discussion to ask whether Literature can be universal. Some isn't. It's topical, often on purpose.

[The Comedian]

I know mine is an antiquated, out-of-date, out-of-fad notion, but I think the best literature is universal -- that while maintaining roots in time & culture, it leafs out beyond that anchor so that we all may see and feel its beauty and meaning.

Of course, the same can't be said for all writing. This post, for example, is all culture and history. But Walden? Belgian beer? They are forever.

If I may indulge in more metaphor -- great literature is as universal as the pleasure of the first sip of a fine brew; culture and history are merely the bottle and paper label. So too in literature, while one shouldn't ignore culture and history with literary texts, certainly. These elements are more often than not trivia and play to the universal experience of genius that the best literature offers.

My graduate professors would call this universal idea naive, dated, elitist, patriarchal, and a host of other fancy, socially acceptable, high-brow swears. But I swear, this feeling of universality is what keeps me reading literature. For culture and history, there's T.V. ;)

[mal4mac]

I know mine is an antiquated, out-of-date, out-of-fad notion, but I think the best literature is universal ...

If I may indulge in more metaphor -- great literature is as universal as the pleasure of the first sip of a fine brew; culture and history are merely the bottle and paper label. So too in literature, while one shouldn't ignore culture and history with literary texts, certainly. These elements are more often than not trivia and play to the universal experience of genius that the best literature offers.

My graduate professors would call this universal idea naive, dated, elitist, patriarchal, and a host of other fancy, socially acceptable, high-brow swears. But I swear, this feeling of universality is what keeps me reading literature. For culture and history, there's T.V. ;)

Sit in the front row with Harold Bloom's "The Western Canon" on your desk. That'll really upset them :-) He outranks them, unless they are full ivy league professors. They'll hate to be reminded of that, never mind the presence of a greater mind than theirs telling them they are wrong (and you are right.) Show up their crass trendiness for what it is.

[DanielBenoit]

I'll have to go with The Comedian who made an excellent point. Though I do think that many works of literature have the possiblilty of being rooted in their own culture/time, they are still resurrected through the inherient universality of the themes. Take for example Kafka's Metamorphosis. Let's say for sake of argument, that the insect was meant to represent explicitly the apathy of the working class man in the early 20th century. Well, there are still universal themes which can be found in there, such as the absurdity of our surroundings once we are forced out of our everyday world, the role of being a parasite, etc.

[African_Love]

I don't know how much 15th century Polish history applies to modern day Papua New Guineans but I truly believe that fiction is universal, people of all cultures and all generations appreciate a good story, whether it's in the form of a movie, a play, a novel or a small group of people huddling around a fire listening to a village elder tell the myths and legends of their 'tribe'.

[Lokasenna]

Different cultures will interpret the same literature in different ways. I think that often says more about the culture than about the literature. Personally, my favourite reading comes from medieval Scandinavia, which is thus entirely removed from my actual sphere of existence. One of my best friends, despite being entirely Caucasian, is obsessed with Japanese folk tales.

To each there own... so yes, literature can be universal.

[Modest Proposal]

I think, for the most part, that literature can and often does transend its particular epoch and touch something "universal". As has been already stated, it is not a popular notion these days, but if it is not true than we don't need to study literature.

If all literature does is give us a glimpse into the racial/economic/gender politics of a certain time then why don't we just study history?

I believe that, if nothing else, the study of literature should be the search for the universal in writings.

[JBI]

It is not universal - I don't personally believe in "Universal truths" - but some things across cultures have remained constant - both horizontally across cultures, and vertically across time. The reason? Technologically there have been exchanges, politically, religiously, and philosophically there have been exchanges, and, quite simply, there are similar events in people's lives that almost all people have - birth, puberty, marriage/romance, reproduction, and death - throw in there the same cycles for those around people, and it seems like people generally live according to the same general plot line.

As such, certain things - certain traits remain relatively common in all societies - something like love, in essence is there in almost every society (dark ages Europe, up until around 1050 as a literary movement I would argue lacks a sense of love, whereas it emerges again at the beginning of the next millennium) - yet the way love is conceptualized, and what it means are completely different depending on tradition - I would stress a difference even between something like English, French, and German literature - not to count wider discrepancies, like England-India, or something.


The study of literature is hardly the search for the universals in writings - try that, and you won't make it passed graduate school, if you get there. Just assume everyone has read Derrida and Foucault and nobody really believes in universals anymore, and you'll have a much easier time come essay time.

[Modest Proposal]

It is not universal - I don't personally believe in "Universal truths" - but some things across cultures have remained constant - both horizontally across cultures, and vertically across time. The reason? Technologically there have been exchanges, politically, religiously, and philosophically there have been exchanges, and, quite simply, there are similar events in people's lives that almost all people have - birth, puberty, marriage/romance, reproduction, and death - throw in there the same cycles for those around people, and it seems like people generally live according to the same general plot line.

As such, certain things - certain traits remain relatively common in all societies - something like love, in essence is there in almost every society (dark ages Europe, up until around 1050 as a literary movement I would argue lacks a sense of love, whereas it emerges again at the beginning of the next millennium) - yet the way love is conceptualized, and what it means are completely different depending on tradition - I would stress a difference even between something like English, French, and German literature - not to count wider discrepancies, like England-India, or something.


The study of literature is hardly the search for the universals in writings - try that, and you won't make it passed graduate school, if you get there. Just assume everyone has read Derrida and Foucault and nobody really believes in universals anymore, and you'll have a much easier time come essay time.

I've read Foucault and Derrida and Kristeva and Lacan... Also, I was admitted to several graduate schools--including one ranked as one of the top English schools in the US--and preform most often at or near the top of my class.

I am sorry but you just said your opinion. Not the fact.

I agree with you about the construction of such things as love, and their subjectivity to time and place. However, I am speaking from a standpoint of personal belief when I say that there is something universal in humanity. And I am speaking from a long line of brilliant writers and critics in saying that it should be a reader's job to try and find it.

And to clear things up, I don't believe that what is universal all men necissarily accept--and I do know this is an arrogant and terrible thing for me to say--but that it exists whether we want to believe it or not. One thing: the search for the good/correct life. I think that like most things universal it is more of a question than an answer, though glimpses of an/the answer can be found. Also, the existance or duty to, God. I think these types of things will ALWAYS be with us and always have as long as there has been civilization.

[The Comedian]

The study of literature is hardly the search for the universals in writings - try that, and you won't make it passed graduate school, if you get there .

I did. Of course, I had to put my true values aside to get through that trough of lexiconic backwash. "You mean Walden's value is not the sense of spiritual elevation I feel when reading it or how others have felt likewise?" I said to them.

"Correct!" they'd say to me, and continue, "Walden's true value is where it falls in the transcendental hierarchy of late 19th century. Of course we have to admit that book's relevance has only been maintained based on the subjugative values of the patriarchal establishment of the cannon, which helped to promote Thoreau to cultural iconic status. And while we must acknowledge the book's debt to English romanticism, particularly Wordsworthian romanticism, we must also see elements of naturalism in it that serve a a precursor to the more urban naturalism of Dreiser in latter part of the century. . . " and so on. And so on. And so on.

So, to succeed in graduate school, I learned to take fancy jargon words such as "subjugate", turn them into an adjectives that MS Word doesn't like and to quote the critics du jour (they are legion) in my essays. And I succeed splendidly in graduate school. All the while knowing that the arbitrary lines drawn between periods, historical events, literary movements are just as abstract, remote and un-nameable as a profound personal connection to a text's universal appeal.

So I guess, JBI, while I disagree with your judgment that literature does not offer us the opportunity to connect with the mystical realm of universal ideas, I do agree that such views will not get you far in graduate school. To succeed in literary studies in graduate school, you have to learn the rules and play the game.

In sum, "A thing of beauty [may not] be a joy forever" but post-structuralist discourse just lives on and on and on and on and on. ;)

[JBI]

I dunno - I think Foucault's discourse on discourse shows us enough things - universals hardly mean anything - just look at cultural discrepancies between nations - the Bible, for instance, cannot, or could not at least, be translated into Inuktitut, because the language wasn't really built on the same set of ideas - the concept of the Bible as "universal truth" has been ebbing for a while, and the stories are appearing more and more foreign.

Beyond that too, language changes, and ideas change - when we translate, or modernize, we aren't keeping the original anyway - Fagles' Iliad isn't Homer's, keep that in mind.

What happens then, is a realization that there right now are very few languages that allow for a close exchange over time - namely Chinese and Japanese, whose reliance on Hanzi or Kanji enabled somebody from the Qing dynasty to read what was written in the Zhou dynasty some 2600 years earlier, if they were educated, and to understand things in a contemporary sense, and allude to the works in their own works, without altering their form - we cannot do that with Greek - unless somebody is proficient, we can merely footnote things, and re-appropriate them within the context of the new, so is the tradition rooted.

And beyond that too, if all these "great texts" were showing universal values, then ultimately, we wouldn't need new texts would we? where is the value in change then, where is the drive to create art, if we have so much "universal literature" that one cannot read it in one's lifetime.

The whole notion of universal is such a load - there's no proof - even the best authors, Shakespeare and Dante for instance, are very, very rooted in their time. Are we to say that Dante's work is relevant then to, lets say, an audience 1500 years earlier? Of course not. The very thought of it is ridiculous.


The biggest problem I have though, is the whole notion of universals as a whole - it seems quite restrictive - especially when you make the study of literature a pursuit of the universal. It seems more a game of bullying than anything else - so we get "The Bible" as universal (the Vulgate or the King James? What about the original), and we get Shakespeare as "universal" then what happens when people disagree? They get opted out of the tradition. So is the nature of such a discourse.

Literature has been so powerful over time because it is able to change, meanwhile reference the past well. Poetry has done it better than prose, I think, since poetry really conceptualizes time differently than novels, but ultimately, things have progressed, time has progressed - just take a look on the Homer Subforum about the discussion on Greek and Trojan sympathies, for an example - the whole concept of "Arete" and the great idealism of the Greeks has now become so obscure to us, that we can no longer see the heroes as heroes. Agamemnon now is a tyrant rather than brilliant ruler and hero, and Achilles is a whiny brat, rather than an idealized man.


I think I make my point. Besides, Walden is one of the most boring books I have yet encountered - I get it, but honesty, such a snooze. I wouldn't call it too big a stretch to agree with your professor, and say "yes, it is a part of American transcendentalism" and then extent that to add "and that's why it's being read now, and for no other reason, since outside of its context in literary history, it's so damn boring."

[The Comedian]

. Besides, Walden is one of the most boring books I have yet encountered it's being read now, and for no other reason, since outside of its context in literary history, it's so damn boring."

What! Walden "boring"!!!. I suppose next you're going to say that sex is boring and beer over-rated? ;)

Seriously, you need to get in "touch" with your universal roots if only to appreciate the undying entertainment of Thoreau living by a lake and navel-gazing. ;)

Okay, really, seriously -- I totally appreciate your input and I do acknowledge the "hokey"ness of universality because, ultimately, I think its more of a feeling than an idea. The other stuff. . . history, culture, movement, are easier to track and verify, and while they may not be more "real" (to me at least) they are more approachable from a scholarly standpoint.

[JCamilo]

The question is a mistake, the works are rooted in their time and place because the author belongs to this time and place. And some stuff (plot, characters, interpreation, appreciation, etc) can be said to be "Universal" simple because human beings are those who are reading it and we are quite not so original. There is not antagonism in both things , just like anything related to art, because the re-organization of vallue is also charmed by aesthetical power - so if necessary I will find excuses to praise tyrants, hunt whales, pray for god - just like christianity found ways to transform Virgil in a christian writer of shorts.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I think there has been some very good points raised thank you for your responses, very interesting indeed. I've not been able to add anything because my home computer has died and my internet connection with it (god it is such a pain :flare:, I can't imagine life without it now) but that should be fixed soon, new computer. Anyway, I more or less entirely side with Comedian here. Of course the subject is not an either or situation, we all probably meet somewhere in the middle.

Literature in a sense is in reality both rooted in its history and is universal, is it not? I take on board JBI's points, about Dante and Shakespeare but on a simple note (because I am rather simple:goof:) literature must in some way be universal otherwise these texts wouldn't speak to us today in the way they do. For me such works tap into something meaningful which we recognise and which we can all relate to. Again an oversimplification which doesn't take into account how works become constructed and representative of truths, such as Shakespeare as "the bard" and cultural icon of Britain in all that is good and honest, and everything else which comes with it, the values (conservative) etc. But overall, I think that literature is something that is far from only rooted in its time and place.

[mal4mac]

Different cultures will interpret the same literature in different ways. I think that often says more about the culture than about the literature. Personally, my favourite reading comes from medieval Scandinavia, which is thus entirely removed from my actual sphere of existence...

Is "The Prose Edda: Norse Mythology" (Penguin Classics) Snorri Sturluson trans. Jesse Byock a good place to start?

With Tolkein making an irritating come back everywhere in the modern west, and Wagner popping up now and again, I can't see how you can say Scandinavian mythology is *entirely* removed from our sphere of existence. (Or do you just totally disown Tolkein & Wagner :D )


It is not universal - I don't personally believe in "Universal truths" - but some things across cultures have remained constant - both horizontally across cultures, and vertically across time. The reason? Technologically there have been exchanges, politically, religiously, and philosophically there have been exchanges, and, quite simply, there are similar events in people's lives that almost all people have - birth, puberty, marriage/romance, reproduction, and death - throw in there the same cycles for those around people, and it seems like people generally live according to the same general plot line.


Only some people have birth and puberty? Does the universality of biology provide a ground for the universal in literature?


Just assume everyone has read Derrida and Foucault and nobody really believes in universals anymore, and you'll have a much easier time come essay time.

Unless your tutor is Harold Bloom, or one of those professors who wanted to deny Derrida a Cambridge degree :)


I am speaking from a standpoint of personal belief when I say that there is something universal in humanity. And I am speaking from a long line of brilliant writers and critics in saying that it should be a reader's job to try and find it.


Who are your favourite critics in this line?



And to clear things up, I don't believe that what is universal all men necissarily accept... One thing: the search for the good/correct life. I think that like most things universal it is more of a question than an answer, though glimpses of an/the answer can be found. Also, the existance or duty to, God. I think these types of things will ALWAYS be with us and always have as long as there has been civilization.

Are there any universal answers? Is the universality of the human body an answer? Certainly not a final answer of course!

God is not a universal concept - Dawkins, Buddhists, and many others do not believe in him.

Is the pursuit of happiness universal?

[Drkshadow03]

A couple of quick thoughts:

I think the real answer is both. Literature is both particular in its concerns and universal. I think one mistake that occurs is to assume universal means everybody at all times. In the literal sense of the definition, sure that's what the word "universal" actually means, but what we tend to mean is themes that deal with behavior or issues that underly human behavior cross-culturally. So, in other words, "universal" themes are issues that many different cultures across time can relate to because either the issues never disappear or it re-shifts slightly into a new form, but is essentially the same issue.

Take something like greed and greedy elites. There is a ton of literary works dealing with this concept and containing characters representative of that class of people across time and across cultures. I suspect almost every society in the world has greedy people. A text might explore this issue through the cultural milieu of French Revolution or American 1920s, etc., but the sentiments in general are ones that I think all people can identify on some level.

The beauty of literature is you can experience a particular culture's, society's, or time period's concerns, enjoy unique and familiar aesthetics, while exploring ideas, themes, and concerns that are universal, that span across those vast distances, that help us think about what it is to be human and what experiences we all share together. So I would say literature allows us to explore the differences between peoples from different cultures and times, while also reminding us of the similarities in our experiences that seems to be part of a larger human condition.

[Modest Proposal]

Is "The Prose Edda: Norse Mythology" (Penguin Classics) Snorri Sturluson trans. Jesse Byock a good place to start?

With Tolkein making an irritating come back everywhere in the modern west, and Wagner popping up now and again, I can't see how you can say Scandinavian mythology is *entirely* removed from our sphere of existence. (Or do you just totally disown Tolkein & Wagner :D )



Only some people have birth and puberty? Does the universality of biology provide a ground for the universal in literature?



Unless your tutor is Harold Bloom, or one of those professors who wanted to deny Derrida a Cambridge degree :)



Who are your favourite critics in this line?



Are there any universal answers? Is the universality of the human body an answer? Certainly not a final answer of course!

God is not a universal concept - Dawkins, Buddhists, and many others do not believe in him.

Is the pursuit of happiness universal?

I will just answer the questions directed at myself to make things easier.

My all time favorite critic is Doctor Johnson, but I also like alot of the things the Scriblerus club wrote as far as criticism goes. I admit that most of my favorite criticism is written by writers, not professors--though I think Bloom IS the best critic out there right now. Joseph Campbell--though I know he is out of vogue--also argued for universality. Oh, and George Steiner.

I don't know if there are universal answers but I think that the human body and is a great place to start. What about the fact that all bodies die. There is a universal theme, whatever the ultimate decision.

As far as God goes, I think you proved exactly my point. Dawkins and many others don't believe but still find the topic of whether they or others do/should important enough that they write books about it. This is what I mean, it is not that there is an answer, but there are universal questions. Is the world naturally good or innately bad? Is this world real--in the Platonic or Christian or Buddhist sense--or is it illusory? Like I said I'm not selling anything, I just think it will always be a question that people discuss.

And yes I think the persuit of happiness is universal. Because many will have different views and opinions, but ultimately they are trying to live their lives the way they want--maybe spiritually, successfully, hedonistically, altruistically--and their will always be some sort of bais by authors as to what they think is right. Maybe not every author in everybook, but I think that the question of "how should one live" is almost completely ubiquitous in literature.

[kelby_lake]

This question reminds me of 'Julius Caesar':
How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted o'er,
In states unborn, and accents yet unknown

History repeats itself; history follows patterns just as human nature does. Technology may advance but most things stay the same.

The theatre would be dead if literature wasn't universal. Shakespeare's plays would be dead.

[JCamilo]

The word "universal" is not universal enough...

[PeterL]

The best literature is universal. There are a few matters that interest all humans, and all good literature touches upon at least one of those matters. Authors who focus on the major universal concerns always have a wider appeal than those who focus on a narrow band of the human experience, and those who ignore the universal interests don't even get published.

[Drkshadow03]

You know, I was looking at the similar threads below and noticed we pretty much most of this ground already in this thread (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40106). Now what we really need is another Harry Potter thread!

[La Pluma]

.....

[wat??]

Do universal values even exist?




Literature in a sense is in reality both rooted in its history and is universal, is it not? I take on board JBI's points, about Dante and Shakespeare but on a simple note (because I am rather simple:goof:) literature must in some way be universal otherwise these texts wouldn't speak to us today in the way they do. For me such works tap into something meaningful which we recognise and which we can all relate to. Again an oversimplification which doesn't take into account how works become constructed and representative of truths, such as Shakespeare as "the bard" and cultural icon of Britain in all that is good and honest, and everything else which comes with it, the values (conservative) etc. But overall, I think that literature is something that is far from only rooted in its time and place.

But you're reading books written by authors living among cultures similar to your own dating from... what, two thousand years ago max?

[LitNetIsGreat]

But you're reading books written by authors living among cultures similar to your own dating from... what, two thousand years ago max?

Yes, I certainly focus almost entirely (for the present) on Western literature, but even so culture in the last 2000+ years could hardly be said to have remained the same.

[mal4mac]

Try Gilgamesh, a story that was (until recently) totally disconnected from Western Culture, and was written circa 2700 BC. It's transparent to modern people because it deals with universal human emotions (love of power, sexual attraction, friendship, fear, pleasure...)

[PeterL]

Try Gilgamesh, a story that was (until recently) totally disconnected from Western Culture, and was written circa 2700 BC. It's transparent to modern people because it deals with universal human emotions (love of power, sexual attraction, friendship, fear, pleasure...)

I love Gilmagesh. It is quite relevant to modern culture. It hits most of the basics of human activity.

[mal4mac]

I love Gilmagesh. It is quite relevant to modern culture. It hits most of the basics of human activity.

Which version(s) did you read? I really liked Stephen Mitchell's version, and will probably re-read it. Or should I try another tranlsation?

[PeterL]

Which version(s) did you read? I really liked Stephen Mitchell's version, and will probably re-read it. Or should I try another tranlsation?

I don't remember, but after reading the direct translation you might also want ot read Robert Silverberg's novelization of it.

[kiki1982]

Try Gilgamesh, a story that was (until recently) totally disconnected from Western Culture, and was written circa 2700 BC. It's transparent to modern people because it deals with universal human emotions (love of power, sexual attraction, friendship, fear, pleasure...)

How is that truly disconnected? It had a profound influence on Homer's Odyssey (Kakridis) which is one of th basic works of Western literature... Nothing is ever totally disconnected.

Other than this I do beieve there are certain parts of literature that are universal, otherwise we would not be able to read what we do read now still. But, a lot of it is connected with ways of the times that literature was written. But I suppose that was already said by a load of others...

[JBI]

How is that truly disconnected? It had a profound influence on Homer's Odyssey (Kakridis) which is one of th basic works of Western literature... Nothing is ever totally disconnected.

Other than this I do beieve there are certain parts of literature that are universal, otherwise we would not be able to read what we do read now still. But, a lot of it is connected with ways of the times that literature was written. But I suppose that was already said by a load of others...

Keep in mind, you are limited to the writing - if Gigamesh had such an influence, ultimately, it wasn't through writing but through telling, and naturally, such a form of narrative isn't static like text - it isn't authoritative, so a universal isn't confirmed - merely the narrative could bend, as would interpretations of the narrative, creating a much different perspective.

Virgil as prophesying Jesus for instance, has nothing to do with Virgil 1, the person- it is merely an adaptation, not a universal - Augustine read The Aeneid as the tragedy of Dido, whereas Romans probably read it as the emergence of Rome - there are certainly perspectives of change, even within great works.


I think the whole notion of the "universal" really cheapens literature - what we call canonical literature is merely literature that has, for one reason or another, remained present over time, despite the way the world changes. To equate this with an "Universal" factor within the text itself cheapens the creative drive of the artist.

Shakespeare is still revered not because he is universal, but his works have continued to seem relevant, and enjoyable over the course of the past 400-odd years. It has nothing to do with memesis - the goal of art isn't to reveal universal truth, but rather, to construct construct, or comment on relative truths within a culture, and tradition.

Certain author's works have just been lucky, or perhaps so well constructed, that they have managed to appeal and age well - to be appreciated once their contexts were removed. This isn't because, for instance, Homer was discussing "universal" themes - it's merely because society itself hasn't changed too much, and the tradition Homer belongs to shaped itself partially around his aesthetics, so that in form and content, his thought has come down.

The same can be said of, for instance, Confucius' work. Are we to say the Book of Changes, probably the best-seller throughout Chinese history, is revealing "universal truths", or even accurate prophecy or philosophy?


Seriously, just because society hasn't changed as drastically as we may think, doesn't mean things are universal. It just means there is some cultural stasis, and some things have yet to really change - our modern concept of violence and heroism are completely different than Homer's, but perhaps our conceptualization of Epic Poetry, and on narrative hasn't changed so drastically - maybe that is the reason for his endurance - I don't believe he is preaching any myths that are "universal" or any ideals that are very current, and have never altered - the Roman usurpation of authority over the text, with the emergence of Roman idealized narrative in Virgil clearly suggests as much.


Hell, everything is discourse, everything is relative, and constructed within subjective frames - what is universal is only deemed universal if you deem it so - quite simply, until anyone here can offer a concrete example of something "universal" within a text, that a) attests to its merit, and the drive to study texts in search of universals, and b) stands up to all criticism, and changes within every frame of reference, and every known civilization of mankind, meanwhile remaining fundamental, and factual in each, nobody can claim the universal. There has been no evidence shown, and, I would argue, enough concreteness in example going against it. Merely saying "love is universal" doesn't quite cut it, because, quite simply, even the concept of love has been debated and changed throughout literary history - just look at Shakespeare's sonnets, namely the famous 116, as discourse and dialog on love, and 130, as a debunking of Petrarchan conceptions of love to get the idea.


Until then, don't bother quoting Harold Bloom, or whomever, because, quite ironically, I don't even think he believes in an Universal - his notion of the Western Canon, and Western Aesthetics, rooted in Frye of course, clearly demonstrate a sort of relativism within frames - he clearly conceptualizes literature of the "Occident" as fundamentally different, and expressing different ideas than literature of the "Orient" (I use these terms because I believe he rationalizes along these lines, in keeping with post-Anderson criticism of boundaries and borders, I would note that I personally don't believe in a divide between the world or such arbitrary notions).

[wat??]

Yes, I certainly focus almost entirely (for the present) on Western literature, but even so culture in the last 2000+ years could hardly be said to have remained the same.

It is certainly similar.

[JCamilo]

"It is universal" is also similar to "It is not universal", there is only a slightly difference...

[Modest Proposal]

Hell, everything is discourse, everything is relative, and constructed within subjective frames - what is universal is only deemed universal if you deem it so - quite simply, until anyone here can offer a concrete example of something "universal" within a text, that a) attests to its merit, and the drive to study texts in search of universals, and b) stands up to all criticism, and changes within every frame of reference, and every known civilization of mankind, meanwhile remaining fundamental, and factual in each, nobody can claim the universal. There has been no evidence shown, and, I would argue, enough concreteness in example going against it. Merely saying "love is universal" doesn't quite cut it, because, quite simply, even the concept of love has been debated and changed throughout literary history - just look at Shakespeare's sonnets, namely the famous 116, as discourse and dialog on love, and 130, as a debunking of Petrarchan conceptions of love to get the idea.

I don't think you have given due attention to the thread if you think nothing has been suggested that is universal. You seem to be looking at literature from a quantitative mindset, if you actually believe someone should poor a solvent over literature and hold up what remains saying, 'this, this is universal and cannot be reduced.'

I said it before, the universal aspects are the questions, not the answers:

The search for the correct way to live life.

The awareness of enevitable death.

One's responsibilty to family or country--the individual and their society--.

The existance of good and evil.

These are issues, as opposed to answers, that are universal. I have yet to hear of any culture that does not and hasn't always deemed these issues worthy of man's time. Instead of claiming that no one in acadamia thinks there is anything universal, why don't you give an example of a society whose literature contains no example of a coming of age story. Or a story dealing with the actuality of death. I don't see why the burden of proof needs solely be on those who believe, but I am reminded of the question in the 18th century of the ineluctable modality of the visible. Many said it was a theory that couldn't be disputed.
Doctor Johnson kicked a rock and said "I dispute it thus."

Well, I hold up to your post man's search for meaning and say, 'I dispute it thus.'

[wat??]

"It is universal" is also similar to "It is not universal", there is only a slightly difference...

I hope you're only talking about the sentence structure.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I think the whole notion of the "universal" really cheapens literature - what we call canonical literature is merely literature that has, for one reason or another, remained present over time, despite the way the world changes. To equate this with an "Universal" factor within the text itself cheapens the creative drive of the artist.

Shakespeare is still revered not because he is universal, but his works have continued to seem relevant, and enjoyable over the course of the past 400-odd years. It has nothing to do with memesis - the goal of art isn't to reveal universal truth, but rather, to construct construct, or comment on relative truths within a culture, and tradition.

I don't think I can agree with you here. I get what you are saying outside of what I have quoted above, but still I can't agree that the "universal" cheapens literature, in fact I think the opposite.

Also, whereas Shakespeare is concerned, I must side with the much quoted Ben Jonson and disagree again. Although I agree that the goal of art isn't to necessarily to reveal anything, I only see literature strengthened by universal traits.

Take the obvious Hamlet for an example. Even in pagan societies, can not the majority of people appreciate the fear and mystery of death? Is that not something which we are all connected to? Is death not universal?

[mono]

The question is a mistake, the works are rooted in their time and place because the author belongs to this time and place. And some stuff (plot, characters, interpreation, appreciation, etc) can be said to be "Universal" simple because human beings are those who are reading it and we are quite not so original. There is not antagonism in both things , just like anything related to art, because the re-organization of vallue is also charmed by aesthetical power - so if necessary I will find excuses to praise tyrants, hunt whales, pray for god - just like christianity found ways to transform Virgil in a christian writer of shorts.
Sorry to chime in so late in the discussion, but I wanted to type something along these lines, too, JCamilo - thanks for sharing your opinions. I dislike using words like "objective," seeming too reminiscent of thinkers like Ayn Rand, but what makes a piece of literary work objective and absolute proves solely only to its composer; I think it safe to say, for example, that no one comprehends Finnegans Wake more thoroughly than James Joyce, but one could certainly state the same of a more simple book, such as The Green Mile by Stephen King. Joyce and King wrote these books in their specific mindsets of their ages, times, places, moods, etc., and, given the opportunity, if Joyce still lived, I doubt neither Joyce nor King could write another Finnegans Wake or Green Mile, in the Herodotus sense that "one never steps in the same river twice." According to even a literary work's composition, it does not prove universal in the sense of having an absolute presence amid the composers' mind(s); no artist can fully capture that mood, his/her surroundings, the era of a work's composition to recreate a work perfectly.
Without readers, with the exception of continuous printing and publishing, a piece of literary work dies, and the only thing that keeps a work alive, as well as contributes to its universality, seems a literary work's merit and validity. Religious texts have survived centuries and millenia because their interpretative values measure nearly endless, not to mention how strongly they have grown in rooting themselves in media, politics, etc., but the composers of the most popular religious texts no longer live and no longer write, as only the readers have kept these texts alive, quite literally creating their universality (for better or worse :D).

Personally, I adhere to the Socratic idea that to prove a theory, one must disprove its opposite. With all of the varieties of literature, other than religious texts, I would consider fiction the most widely read (questionably religious texts seem fiction, but that involves another discussion on another day); I would think it safe to say that the ideas communicated through fiction often appear entirely subjective, frequently requiring thoughtful interpretation, and in the forms of metaphors, similes, and the like. In a Kantian sense of universality, for an idea (a general term, but bear with me) to seem universal, everyone must agree upon its subject matter, its concepts communicated, its worthiness to universality, and its composer's merit; in other words, for universality to occur, by no exceptions, the literature must appear accepted by, not some, but all.
With the ever-growing diversity of literature and its subsidaries, even in the presence of this forum, we cannot agree upon what book makes the best classic, who seemed the best Lost Generation writer, whether Shakespeare wrote all of his plays alone, and what Henry James fully intended in The Turn of the Screw. Professionals in their fields and amateurs alike debate over who ought to earn the Nobel Prizes for Literature or the Pulitzer Prizes, over censorship in schools and libraries, over plagiarism, the Canon, and we debate today over the subject of literature's universality vs. particularity. Literature can appear inherently universal only with an immortal author (impossible) writing upon subjects accepted by all (even more impossible, if such a contiuum of possibility exists), both literally and interpretative in value, and every other primary and secondary value that a piece of literature may bring; otherwise, such an idea implies that readers have no purpose to a literary work's merit other than its economical reproduction and distribution.

[JBI]

I don't think you have given due attention to the thread if you think nothing has been suggested that is universal. You seem to be looking at literature from a quantitative mindset, if you actually believe someone should poor a solvent over literature and hold up what remains saying, 'this, this is universal and cannot be reduced.'

I said it before, the universal aspects are the questions, not the answers:

The search for the correct way to live life.

The awareness of enevitable death.

One's responsibilty to family or country--the individual and their society--.

The existance of good and evil.

These are issues, as opposed to answers, that are universal. I have yet to hear of any culture that does not and hasn't always deemed these issues worthy of man's time. Instead of claiming that no one in acadamia thinks there is anything universal, why don't you give an example of a society whose literature contains no example of a coming of age story. Or a story dealing with the actuality of death. I don't see why the burden of proof needs solely be on those who believe, but I am reminded of the question in the 18th century of the ineluctable modality of the visible. Many said it was a theory that couldn't be disputed.
Doctor Johnson kicked a rock and said "I dispute it thus."

Well, I hold up to your post man's search for meaning and say, 'I dispute it thus.'

Are they universal because you say they are universal, or do you say they are universal because they are universal?

Do all cultures have a tradition of seeking the "correct way to live"? is this true in every society, or, is it arguable that some societies do not question their traditional practices, and merely function within a frame of perpetuated notions of their own lives as being correct. I don't think, for instance, such a notion is fundamental, or really present in traditional Inuit thought - the notion of Survival is far more prevalent, but a search for the correct way to live is not really, from my reading of anthropological, as well as some literary works (translations of transcriptions of traditional oral material) I would argue the notion of "searching for the correct way to live" is not exactly there - I think, for instance, the idea of "what survival entails" is more central, and the question of right and wrong is not measured out within the same frame of reference. Of course, a search for the correct way to live cannot be an universal. Quite simply, the nuance in types of searches, in results, and in conceptualization of "correct" would suggest too much fluctuation to give a trace the power of "universal" rather than merely a trace. Perhaps you are suggesting Aporia itself is a literary theme - but even that, I would argue, isn't thematic in an universal sense.

The Awareness of Inevitable Death - How is this as a theme universal? What death means itself is fluctuating - of course, death "comes for us all", but what death means is relative to the cultural perspectives of the conceptualizer. The awareness of inevitable death though, is not a "universal" perhaps that everything dies, arguably, is universal - but even that depends on a perception - a believer in reincarnation would argue, for instance, only a body dies, but a person lives on - so is the nature of the discourse that the "awareness of inevitable death" can be debunked by displaying beliefs that contradict the very notion of death. Namely texts like the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna pushes Arjuna forward into the future - not into death, but into the inevitable cyclical rebirth and self-betterment.

One's responsibility to family or culture - what is family, and what is culture? Are these abstractions? Where does family start and stop, and where does culture begin and stop? And better yet, where is the universal here? Do all cultures question concepts of family? is it possible, for instance, to create a situation where notions of family crumble - perhaps within diagrams of communal living and/or reassignment/anonymity within communal frames?

The Mosuo tribe which for the most part currently resides in Modern Day Yunnan Province in China conceptualize family very differently than Westerners, for instance. The emphasis put on the mother, over the father, and in lineage forces a reconstruction in thinking of patterns of family - the whole notion of responsibility too must be taken into account - what does responsibility mean? Is it relative, or a fixed thing? if it is a topic within a discourse of family and culture, ultimately it as a discourse must be deconstructed as well. Since the notion of responsibility is relative, how can a discussion of specific "responsibility" or relative concepts be universal?

And what is culture? Do we define culture, as Harold Innis would suggest, as a game of have and have not? Where does the line between have and not have begin? Where does culture begin? What is culture? What are the arbitrary categories we associate with culture? Is culture too not just an arbitrary word? How then can we say a discourse on responsibility, as applied to the individual (another discursive frame), or the group (another discursive frame), in relation to culture (another relative, discursive frame that isn't universally defined) is universal? The simple answer is, we cannot.


The existence of Good and Evil - Do all cultures discuss such things? Do all cultures conceptualize Good and Evil, right and wrong, as absolutes? How then is it universal to question good and evil, when different traditions and discourses have completely redefined the notions? The Yin and Yang school mentality, for instance, is completely different than the Platonic ideas expressed within Plato's academy - binaries are defined within discourses, and the very notion of binaries is relative - Laozi, for instance, described Good as being defined against Bad, and Bad being defined Against Good - but where is the definition outside of that frame? Where does the universal come into play?


Do you see what I am getting at? Where does the actual "fundamental" right and wrong actually come from? Does it even exist? where then is the universal - what is universal about such discussions - what can art tell us that is universal.


Lets be honest, you haven't given examples of "universals" you merely have given examples of the shifting perspectives and discourses within which we work to create personal conclusions - these are all traces, not signified - we can't say an Aporia is a universal, can we - perhaps that plays with Socrates' paradox, but ultimately, is that mode of thinking really universal either?



Language itself isn't universal, and the ways in which we represent things, communicate things, and understand things are hardly universal - the way we rationalize, the way we think, hardly universal - how then is anything really universal - if it is possible to conceptualize a situation where something is outside it, then naturally the thing is not universal. Even if an historical precedent does not exist within record, or a piece of empirical evidence supporting a different situation, merely even conceptualizing a situation outside of the proclaimed "universal" is enough to discredit a discourse as assumptive, rather than "universally true".



Now, lets really take things home - if we cannot even agree on the meaning of things, on how thought works, on how we see things, how we react to the world, how we think - if all these things are relative, how then could literature display something which is "universal" - something which is prevalent over all. Inductive reasoning does not "find" universals, it merely shows trends of similar thought over space or time.


That doesn't mean, I would argue, everything is pointless as Lyotard seems to have argued - it merely means we must question the subjectivity of claims, and realize everything is rooted within a discourse, which functions on rules of authority, and of exclusion and inclusion. We enjoy Shakespeare, because he still, after all these years, seems to say things which we view as culturally relevant - his ability to get to the very bottom of issues that are still prevalent within our society allows for us to read him as still speaking - but there is a perspective frame that we could view Shakespeare in where he couldn't be understood - where he would be taken as a "madman" in keeping with the Foucault theme. We could conceptualize that, therefore, he can't be speaking universal truths.


Seriously, I respect the idea of reading in search of "truths" as relevant to certain frames of reference - discussing why, for instance, Shakespeare's thoughts on love still resonate within our culture's context, and speak about the way see see and interact with each other - but to say "his thoughts on love are universal" is not really saying anything, and not really provable. Hamlet is a product of his authors time's, the same way the Achilles of the Iliad is a product of the mind(s) of that which we call Homer, but also, beyond that, of the way readers and audiences understand things. Nobody reads Shakespeare the same way - nobody sees the world the same way, I would argue - then how can we say we can read the same "universals" within texts? The idea seems ridiculous.


I hope I have justified myself, somewhat. A lot of this post-structuralism is a little bit difficult for some to really digest though.

[Modest Proposal]

Are they universal because you say they are universal, or do you say they are universal because they are universal?

Do all cultures have a tradition of seeking the "correct way to live"? is this true in every society, or, is it arguable that some societies do not question their traditional practices, and merely function within a frame of perpetuated notions of their own lives as being correct. I don't think, for instance, such a notion is fundamental, or really present in traditional Inuit thought - the notion of Survival is far more prevalent, but a search for the correct way to live is not really, from my reading of anthropological, as well as some literary works (translations of transcriptions of traditional oral material) I would argue the notion of "searching for the correct way to live" is not exactly there - I think, for instance, the idea of "what survival entails" is more central, and the question of right and wrong is not measured out within the same frame of reference. Of course, a search for the correct way to live cannot be an universal. Quite simply, the nuance in types of searches, in results, and in conceptualization of "correct" would suggest too much fluctuation to give a trace the power of "universal" rather than merely a trace. Perhaps you are suggesting Aporia itself is a literary theme - but even that, I would argue, isn't thematic in an universal sense.

Are you telling me that Inuit tribes don’t have concepts of honor or bravery. That they merely eat to sustain their bodies, sleep to rest their muscles, copulate to reproduce? So you think that “what survival entails is more central”, well it probably is. It is more central in almost every society. Deep thought, contemplation is in some ways a luxury, but there is no group that I have heard which hasn’t deemed it worthy of purchase, and you still have not provided one. The last three sentences of this argument seem fairly typical examples of language being used to obscure meaning rather than reveal it—oh, the plague of post-structuralism--, but the truth is that you CANNOT provide an example of a culture that doesn’t grapple with issues of what is the right way to live. Sorry to use such a weak source, but 11 seconds on Wikipedia revealed “The principal role of the angakkuq in Inuit society was to advise and remind people of the rituals and taboos they needed to obey to placate the spirits, since he was held to be able to see and contact them.” That sounds a lot like what I was talking about.

The Awareness of Inevitable Death - How is this as a theme universal? What death means itself is fluctuating - of course, death "comes for us all", but what death means is relative to the cultural perspectives of the conceptualizer. The awareness of inevitable death though, is not a "universal" perhaps that everything dies, arguably, is universal - but even that depends on a perception - a believer in reincarnation would argue, for instance, only a body dies, but a person lives on - so is the nature of the discourse that the "awareness of inevitable death" can be debunked by displaying beliefs that contradict the very notion of death. Namely texts like the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna pushes Arjuna forward into the future - not into death, but into the inevitable cyclical rebirth and self-betterment.

Actually it is into death, but death is the just a step in the cycle. What this entire paragraph boils down to is your representation of “other” ideas of death than that common in the west. Right. Exactly. Different cultures have different views on that universal theme. Now I will get you a list of cultures that DO have death as a theme in whatever literary history they have, but you cannot provide ONE example of a society that has not orally or in written form grappled with that mighty question.

One's responsibility to family or culture - what is family, and what is culture? Are these abstractions? Where does family start and stop, and where does culture begin and stop? And better yet, where is the universal here? Do all cultures question concepts of family? is it possible, for instance, to create a situation where notions of family crumble - perhaps within diagrams of communal living and/or reassignment/anonymity within communal frames?

I’m sorry but this paragraph and possibly the next don’t really warrant a reply past what my last paragraph was. I never said the universal issues I raised were concrete, just ubiquitous. The fact that they are abstract and malleable is probably why they have lasted for thousands of recorded years. Sure you can create as many diagrams as you want, but the lack of familial connection will be just as impactful and central as the opposite presence. Again show me an example where there is not some concept of familial or cultural—say social if it’s easier—obligation. If it is in a commune people will still be responsible to and for each other. The fact that culture and family have blurry delineations does not diminish their importance, it just dilates their capacity for eluding definition.

The Mosuo tribe which for the most part currently resides in Modern Day Yunnan Province in China conceptualize family very differently than Westerners, for instance. The emphasis put on the mother, over the father, and in lineage forces a reconstruction in thinking of patterns of family - the whole notion of responsibility too must be taken into account - what does responsibility mean? Is it relative, or a fixed thing? if it is a topic within a discourse of family and culture, ultimately it as a discourse must be deconstructed as well. Since the notion of responsibility is relative, how can a discussion of specific "responsibility" or relative concepts be universal?

Right. Again, you underline the fact that despite the worlds many different climes, weather, history et al, certain things are always existent. As I said before, I am not trying to suggest there is a right answer, nor am I trying to point out some essentialism with the West and the East. I am saying that certain things have always existed as issues—universal issues one might say—and I believe one of them is the obligation to/of families. Here you have provided a lovely example of this occurring in a different though no less important and ingrained manner as what one in the West finds. I think you are getting caught up in your own use of phrases like “specific”. I never said specific; you did. Sure, there is no specific family dynamic that is passed down in all literature but Chinese mythology, just like Japanese, just like European, just like African contains issues of sons defying their fathers, parents sacrificing for their children, soldiers dying for their kings. Show me which of these cultures does not have a concept of this sort of responsibility of the individual to their family/society.

And what is culture? Do we define culture, as Harold Innis would suggest, as a game of have and have not? Where does the line between have and not have begin? Where does culture begin? What is culture? What are the arbitrary categories we associate with culture? Is culture too not just an arbitrary word? How then can we say a discourse on responsibility, as applied to the individual (another discursive frame), or the group (another discursive frame), in relation to culture (another relative, discursive frame that isn't universally defined) is universal? The simple answer is, we cannot.

This is the part of your argument that bothers me, and why I have gone through so much of my University experience shaking my head. Does it cross your mind that people understand culture/gender/Marxist… theories but just do not agree? Mencken noted—even last century—that professors claimed a sort of scientist position, but they are more like barbers. They change with the fashion. Psychology, a field for a long time running parallel to English has all but abolished theory from the upper echelon. Cold statistics just have trumped it every time. English professors may love theory, but it doesn’t change the fact that thousands of years of history fly in the face of their claims. Once again, show me a group of isolated people in any given area that a 5th grader wouldn’t be able to tell you had their own culture. Sure the term is loose, so what? Say what you want, people interact; when they do on a large scale… viola: culture. These cultures develop systems of belief and governance.

The existence of Good and Evil - Do all cultures discuss such things? Do all cultures conceptualize Good and Evil, right and wrong, as absolutes? How then is it universal to question good and evil, when different traditions and discourses have completely redefined the notions? The Yin and Yang school mentality, for instance, is completely different than the Platonic ideas expressed within Plato's academy - binaries are defined within discourses, and the very notion of binaries is relative - Laozi, for instance, described Good as being defined against Bad, and Bad being defined Against Good - but where is the definition outside of that frame? Where does the universal come into play?

Again, this one doesn’t warrant much of a response past what was said. Yes Yin and Yang are a DIFFERENT conceptualization of the idea of Good and Evil. More proof of the pervasiveness of the issue. The universal comes into play exactly where you mentioned. Man’s infinite proclivity, no impitus, for defining something as good and other things as bad, and choosing how to reconcile their existence. Christians have a “redeemer”, Yin and Yang serve a similar purpose to this universal issue.

Do you see what I am getting at? Where does the actual "fundamental" right and wrong actually come from? Does it even exist? where then is the universal - what is universal about such discussions - what can art tell us that is universal.

No one said anything about fundamental right and wrong. Art provides a platform for the discussion/examination of things, one such being the universal theme of good and evil, however it plays out. Show me a culture that… never mind.

Lets be honest, you haven't given examples of "universals" you merely have given examples of the shifting perspectives and discourses within which we work to create personal conclusions - these are all traces, not signified - we can't say an Aporia is a universal, can we - perhaps that plays with Socrates' paradox, but ultimately, is that mode of thinking really universal either?

I don’t see how this provides any argument so I won’t address it.

Language itself isn't universal, and the ways in which we represent things, communicate things, and understand things are hardly universal - the way we rationalize, the way we think, hardly universal - how then is anything really universal - if it is possible to conceptualize a situation where something is outside it, then naturally the thing is not universal. Even if an historical precedent does not exist within record, or a piece of empirical evidence supporting a different situation, merely even conceptualizing a situation outside of the proclaimed "universal" is enough to discredit a discourse as assumptive, rather than "universally true".


Now, lets really take things home - if we cannot even agree on the meaning of things, on how thought works, on how we see things, how we react to the world, how we think - if all these things are relative, how then could literature display something which is "universal" - something which is prevalent over all. Inductive reasoning does not "find" universals, it merely shows trends of similar thought over space or time.


That doesn't mean, I would argue, everything is pointless as Lyotard seems to have argued - it merely means we must question the subjectivity of claims, and realize everything is rooted within a discourse, which functions on rules of authority, and of exclusion and inclusion. We enjoy Shakespeare, because he still, after all these years, seems to say things which we view as culturally relevant - his ability to get to the very bottom of issues that are still prevalent within our society allows for us to read him as still speaking - but there is a perspective frame that we could view Shakespeare in where he couldn't be understood - where he would be taken as a "madman" in keeping with the Foucault theme. We could conceptualize that, therefore, he can't be speaking universal truths.


Seriously, I respect the idea of reading in search of "truths" as relevant to certain frames of reference - discussing why, for instance, Shakespeare's thoughts on love still resonate within our culture's context, and speak about the way see see and interact with each other - but to say "his thoughts on love are universal" is not really saying anything, and not really provable. Hamlet is a product of his authors time's, the same way the Achilles of the Iliad is a product of the mind(s) of that which we call Homer, but also, beyond that, of the way readers and audiences understand things. Nobody reads Shakespeare the same way - nobody sees the world the same way, I would argue - then how can we say we can read the same "universals" within texts? The idea seems ridiculous.


I hope I have justified myself, somewhat. A lot of this post-structuralism is a little bit difficult for some to really digest though.

Wow, you wrote a lot and, honestly, it’s well written. But I think I proved my point. Theory is fun and empowering but really doesn’t do much for me anymore. In some ways it seems an attempt to give relevance to the Humanities after they abandoned classical modes of criticism. I wonder if you have read Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language.” It really rung true for me about all the complex discourse that Universities engage in and what it is really about.

It seems strange though, that you keep assuming I don’t understand your arguments BECAUSE they are so complicated, when it seems you don’t understand mine DISPITE their simplicity. I really don’t know what to say. These views will take you far in acadamia, unfortunately I find them sadly lacking in the outside world.

Honestly, I think I should withdraw from this arguement. You are providing well written, well thought out and supported material, but I just disagree with your whole basis. Basically imagine someone arguing something with you straight from the Bible which they consider gospel. Now, they do not consider themselves wrong unless proved so by their book. This is what it is like dealing with theorists. Some essay gets "gospelized" and it is worshipped. Now no matter how many clear indications I show you in the real world that there are ubiquitous issues throughout humanity, all you have to do is say that there is not because theory says there is not. And unless I prove it otherwise with theory, then it cannot be. Then you say, "and what do you mean by the 'real' world"?

[JBI]

I am sorry, but I would argue you are coming off as a bigot, namely because you appropriate cultural nuance into your own terms to fit your agenda of "The Universal". In truth, you seem to see all discourse as either agreeing with your conceptualization of the world, or flat out wrong. In that sense, post-structuralism is dismissed as "trivial", and cultural nuances and traditions are appropriated into your own terms. Your misunderstanding of traditional Inuit culture is used as a vehicle for you to speak for them.


You take my words, and you draw rather bizarre conclusions, and illogical arguments to support a wacko hegemonic idea of you as having all the "universal knowledge and truths". Quite simply, if you had bothered to look into the traditional practices of, lets say the Mosuo tribe, you would realize that the very concept of family is different, and of lineage is completely alien to a Western conception of father, mother, children.


Seriously, your argument is getting to the point of ridiculousness. You have changed your mind to imply that because all cultures are different, one can say that the difference in conceptualizing is a universal... right. so because family structures are relative to culture, you say that questions of what proper family structure are are universal - sound like a ridiculous argument? Well, it is. Like I said, an Aporia does not justify a universal. An absence of a universal does not justify something as an universal theme, which can be sought out in literature - it merely allows for a space where conflicting view points, if somebody is open minded, and not obsessed with an "Universal conceptualization" can communicate amongst each other to create an open ended discourse.


Just because most literary traditions discuss the nature of relationships doesn't mean something is universal - it in fact, shows that it is very relative. Read for instance, Soseki's essay My Individualism against something like Ayn Rand's Fountainhead to get an idea - the concept of the individual isn't static, and the concept of responsibility isn't static, so how can the responsibility of the individual to society, another relative concept, be universal?


Perhaps it is you who should withdraw - you ultimately are too close minded, or reluctant to see other view points, and only can see things out of a scope of reference where things "prove your point" rather than speak within their own terms - that which agrees with you then is taken as right, and that which disagrees is taken as ridiculous - you dismiss my good points because they prove you wrong, and appropriate my empirical points within a bigoted frame that doesn't appreciate cultural nuance.


But, let's just kill the whole concept of the universal right now. The fact that I do not believe in universals, and others do not as well attests to the fact that the whole notion of a "universal" is not universally held. If that is so, how do we proceed from there? How can we discuss universals if people do not think things universal? We cannot, because, quite simply, nothing then can be universal, as the whole notion of something being universal is not universally held - there are those who deviate and go against the current of the discourse, and naturally, if the discourse is arguing to speak for everything, then those that it cannot speak for, or to, ultimately discredit the discourse as excluding.

The irony with a universal is an universal must be universal - it cannot have one deviation, otherwise it ceases to really be universal. It also, needs direction - the only real "universal" that seems to have been proven is that there are no universals, in the sense that you have provided only traces, and nothing that can be called "universal thought," or "universal theme."

When you deconstruct the language, ultimately you get to a point where you realize such discussions over the universal and whatnot are alright for an highschool class room, but ultimately, when you get into the big leagues of discussion, as soon as you slam the notion of universal down on paper, within five minutes if someone hasn't cracked and destroyed what you have called universal as merely a discourse, they will most likely find a way to have you branded some form of bigot (rightfully) as the whole notion of positional authority in determining "universals" is assumptive of a sort of arrogance that assumes one opinion over the rest.

[The Comedian]

First, I greatly enjoy reading the posts in this thread. And as one who thinks there is something universal about the literary experience, I feel that I can also appreciate the arguments of those who dispute it. JBI's discussion of linguistic fragility under the weighty hammer of post-structuralist criticism is tough to reconcile.

This one, though, is more quickly put into question (for me at least).


But, let's just kill the whole concept of the universal right now. The fact that I do not believe in universals, and others do not as well attests to the fact that the whole notion of a "universal" is not universally held.

Universals could certainly still exist even if some don't see them. God (whoever he/she/it is or isn't) would/could exist regardless of whether we believed of not.

This small tiff aside, I think that when we get to specific textual analysis the idea of a "universal" in literature gets taken to task, and rightly so. When an issue seems overly complicated to me, I like to try to simplify it. So, I asked myself: "Self, what is it that makes you feel a universality when reading that timeless tome of excitement Walden, when, perhaps, there is likely none in the book?"

My answer to myself is that universality is not in the literary text; it's the experience of our engagement with it. It's the delight and comfort of a story; it's human association with the abstract. It's like love, which also doesn't stand up to a rigid structural analysis, but acts on us as profoundly as gravity.

I know this comes off as wishy-washy stuff -- but reality cannot always be seen or cut apart. Some of what's real is merely felt in a moment. So what's "universality in literature"? To me, it's when I feel connected to a scene, a description, a character, a plot that never happened (to me, at least) but acts on me as if it had. I see this same connection in my daughters when I read to them and in my students at the college. The texts may vary, as they are wont to do, but the experience doesn't.

[Modest Proposal]

Perhaps it is you who should withdraw - you ultimately are too close minded, or reluctant to see other view points, and only can see things out of a scope of reference where things "prove your point" rather than speak within their own terms - that which agrees with you then is taken as right, and that which disagrees is taken as ridiculous - you dismiss my good points because they prove you wrong, and appropriate my empirical points within a bigoted frame that doesn't appreciate cultural nuance.

JBI, I said in my post I would withdraw, I wonder about your need to tell me to withdraw after I said I planned to...

Let me make some things clear because I feel a little bad. What I meant by the last part of my post was essentially that we are coming from seperate points and are thus trying to prove things to eachother but only admitting evidence that is contained within our starting ideology. That is why I made the reference to Religion, not that I have anything against it, but that is all I can conclude when talking to theorist:that they are religious about it. I like empirical evidence, traditional logic. That is why I asked you to show me a society who has no concerns in the areas I mentioned.

I don't want to turn this into a rant against theory so I will just end this part by saying theory designates intellegence and correctness, by how close the individual/idea is to the theory's proposal. In this way, theory cannot admit anything running contrary. Whereas logic admits anything logical and thus inspires debate about which has the stronger evidence. There is a reason that the life is being choked out of University English programs and it is in large part due to this fact.

Anyway, back to the real issue. I have no idea why you called me a bigot, so I wil not address it as serious.

As to the issue we keep coming against I don't see how someone coming from a theory standpoint could agree without renouncing the infallability of theory. Basically I am saying that, DESPITE what theory says, there are issues that bind us as people and always have/will. THey are not answers as I have said, but questions or issues. I feel I've made this point and I can't really understand the exception you take to it. I think the fact that the issue is handled in different ways means only that it is clearly a big enough issue that there are many answers. Thus the discussion of family. Do you see what I mean that different structures don't take away from the idea that the dynamics within these structures are universally important?

As far as your non-belief in the issue, that doesn't mean anything in the scheme. I am talking about universals in literature, the idea of the universal doesn't necissary have to be universal in cultures. You are mixing the title with the content. It is not about belief but existence or non. As someone aptly put it, it doesn't matter what you believe if God exists, he exists. We are talking about existance, I think universal issues exist and I have seen nothing, not even your non-belief, to make me feel otherwise.

As I said I can see no resolution here and was answering in part because I think I got a little rude last night at 1 in the morning replying. You are certainly correct that one who buys into the current theory will NEVER agree with the universal prospect. But just keep in mind that theories are theories, and they come and go. The search for the correct way to live however, I think that keeps marching.

[JBI]

Oh come on, that literature contains universal truths is just as theoretical as post-structuralism - it simply is a worse, more closed minded, dated discourse.

There's all this rant against theory on these boards, but how many really understand it? How many have really looked at comparative literature, and seen just how the universal is applied, and how appropriations of "truths" create new biases.

Pound for instance, writing about the qualities of Chinese verse and the concepts of poetics is, for instance, inventing a perspective on Chinese verse, which ultimately, constructs an "authentic Chinese" out of false translations and misconceptions.

The same thing comes when we apply a universal - we invent a theory, and then everything that supports it we put in with "being universal" - but is it universal or do we just construct it as such? Is this not as theoretical in approach as Foucault or whomever then?


But lets be honest, this isn't "new current theory" or whatever. These ideas have been around for thousands of years. The concept of relativism, and subjectivity has been here forever - the lack of definites is essentially the fundamental of the Dao De Jing - the opening lines of the text completely refute the whole concept of there being a definite universal - only the nameless, structureless void is constant - what he called the Dao.

I believe similar things occur in other philosophies. Protagoras, for instance, before Socrates pointed to a complete lack of proof, and argued that simply argument, what we could perhaps call discourse now, is the only determiner of right and wrong, existence and non existence - Plato spends hundreds of pages in the Republic trying to refute this, but what is the conclusion? Well, ultimately, I think he fails.

In the same way, culturally, there has always been a current of thought that holds with relativism in what we call "western philosophy". It sort of tuned itself out during the Christian-dominated period, but popped its head up every now and then.


But when we apply this to literature, we get different things. I would argue, that the subjectivity is what makes literature - the way that things are presented based on constructed ideas of aesthetics - language, form - the way things are discussed based on current trends and passed traditions - content, argument, discourse - the way things fit into a chronology, or spacial association - location and relevance - all these things allow for us to really appreciate them as art. So we can say, for instance, that though Titian's Venus of Urbino doesn't hold with an Universal idea of beauty, still, from its perspective, it shows us a presentation of a vision which still has aesthetic merit for our society - the way the figures are drawn, their manner of pose, all these things speak to our culture still, so, alas, the picture within our frame is still beautiful. The same thing occurs with a poem, or a novel - the author pens a vision of something, and the observer creates a reading of it - if the reading of the vision is deemed culturally relevant, we call that good, aesthetically merited literature. If it is deemed culturally relevant over a long period of time, we call it canonical.

The actual "truth" behind the text though is not relevant. Nonsensical poetry, for instance, is still considered aesthetically merited, despite it not showing anything "universal", or "truthful" - it's playfulness still resonates with our culture.

I don't believe in God, but the argument of John Donne's sonnets still speaks to me - does that mean they are preaching universal truth? I don't believe in "death being vanquished by resurrection" or whatever, so, probably not in the grand scheme of things, but I am still able to find them beautiful, for what they are to me.

The subjectivity of literature allows for it to become something beyond the limitations of "objective truth" - the fact that it isn't objective allows for an audience to change it, to personalize it, and to reinvent it in new, exciting terms. Nowhere is this more apparent probably, than in theatre, where each actor, director, and audience member acts to create an interpretation - the actual text is merely a background of traces - what is done with it is always fluctuating.

[JCamilo]

I hope your only talking about the sentence structure.

I hope not. It would be a waste to talking only about anything in a topic about what is universal...

[Modest Proposal]

JBI, I don't know how to continue you this, and find it ironic that you call ME close-minded. You have basically said that no one can make any sustainable claim, besides the claim that nothing is completely sustainable... So where does that leave us? You've made the classic argument in which the only way to admit discussion is to a prior deside that the platform may be fallible--which you wont do. You are being close minded, not me. You asked what something Universal was and I gave you examples. I then asked you to provide counter examples--that is, examples of societies in which the questions I proposed are not discussed--. You told me that theoretically such a society could exist, but provided no counter examples; rather, you provided evidence to my point.

I guess what I really want is for you to just admit that your theory is just a theory. There is no scientific proof. It's not so hard to say it, millions of people pronounce themselves believers in Islam, millions Hindu, millions Buddhist, just admit that you read articles you believe in and decided to buy in. There is nothing wrong with it, but I will tell you what I have bought into.

There are a seperate group of people who believe in the universal, most that I follow are writers. I never understood why English programs give more credence to the critics who write about art than the artists who create it. I would much rather admit the evidence shown me by Melville about the irreducable ambiguity and futility of humanity's search for justice in "Billy Budd", then I would follow the claims of Michel Foucalt about systems of Power.

In case you must have critics opinion here is a short list of Universalists: Joseph Campbell, Harold Bloom, George Steiner, John Gardner and of course Samuel Johnson.

As to aesthetic merit being existent despite a lack of deep universal exploration, I believe it is Harold Bloom himself who is the staunch standard bearer of a universal aestheticism.

Please, next time you answer answer this specific question. Why do professors and critics cling to a notion that almost all of the literature they study decries? Issues of God/death/Good and Evil/individual and society are discussed in EVERY cultures literature--I am assuming since you keep avoiding providing evidence of one without that you agree--, why then do critics ignore this in constructing huge theories whose only sustainment is their own writings. Think of it like this, literature is read by masses, theory is read and writen almost exclusively for and by people in the field. Could it be that theory is just something to keep them busy, to give relevance to their study, to provide a platform to voice their complaints?

[JBI]

Since when did Harold Bloom believe in a universal Aestheticism? I think you misread him - he never claimed that, and never would - the whole idea of a Western Canon is completely in contradiction to the notion of the Universal.


You make assumptions that certain things are discussed in every culture, but that is hardly true, and doesn't imply that something is universal anyway.


The reason for theory is, quite simply, if you just assume "universal truths", then ultimately, you end up having a group speaking for everyone - all poetry deals with x - that means I am making a statement on poetry. All societies discuss x - that means I am speaking for all societies - within that frame, you get people who appropriate voice, and end up doing so at the expense of other, mostly ex-centric people. So, for instance, First Wave Feminism claimed itself as a universal feminist movement, but by the end, one can't help but realize it was hardly speaking for all women - even second wave feminism made the same mistake, and third wave feminism does to - but by the end, we get to the question of, "so what exactly is female, and what exactly is a woman?" - the question can't be answered, so we simply allow for a frame of reference for pragmatic reasons, but also must realize the voice being heard isn't every "woman"'s voice, but a "woman"'s voice, or perhaps a discourse amongst many others.


The problem with the universal then is its tyrannical implications. It puts certain conceptions of truth as being true everywhere, and then limits how we understand things. The classic example is the claiming of the Bible as universal truth - how does that act to limit other perspectives and traditions - well, quite simply it was used as justification for slavery, colonization, war, and genocide, so when you start playing with these things, you realize that you are juggling fire.


Theory then keeps literary criticism in check, by making known the limitations of literature and discourse. Without that, things become violent and can lead to a new form of power-hierarchy, where what is right and wrong become too defined, and too limited - what is considered good literature biased over certain "universals" for instance - like the ones you mentioned, when, quite simply, another voice and questioning is perhaps just as valid.

[Drkshadow03]

But lets be honest, this isn't "new current theory" or whatever. These ideas have been around for thousands of years. The concept of relativism, and subjectivity has been here forever - the lack of definites is essentially the fundamental of the Dao De Jing - the opening lines of the text completely refute the whole concept of there being a definite universal - only the nameless, structureless void is constant - what he called the Dao.


So . . . you're basically conceding that in fact we have been dealing with and arguing over the same questions for the last two thousand three hundred years, which was part of Modest Proposal's point. Ah, irony.

[JBI]

So . . . you're basically conceding that in fact we have been dealing with and arguing over the same questions for the last two thousand three hundred years, which was part of Modest Proposal's point. Ah, irony.

I told you, it all comes down to Socrates' paradox - of course we have been arguing over nothing - argument itself is an assumption.

[Drkshadow03]

I told you, it all comes down to Socrates' paradox - of course we have been arguing over nothing - argument itself is an assumption.

Oh sure, as I already hinted at I think we are framing this topic in the wrong way. It seems to me reading literature as an academic topic boils down to two things really:

1) literary works can offer individuals wisdom about life.

2) literary works function as a sub-area of history.

It really isn't that complex.

Foucault is a problematic scholar to say the least. One of the biggest criticisms is that he cherry-picks documents from historical periods to prove his theories. Another is that part of his theories are unfalsifiable. Nevertheless, some of his more basic ideas that are pretty much snatched from anthropology anyway are useful and accurate. If you read the text of a particular culture, say Ancient Greece, you'll notice certain culturally specific themes and ideas that preoccupy the people of that society. However, the bigger suprise always come when you read a text and find elements that seem just as modern as today.

The fact is there are universal experiences. We ALL are going to die. We all recognize that the world can be a cruel and rotten place (and pretty much every religion recognizes this on some level or another, although they provide different reasons for why it is), we all have a desire to find answers to these questions (even if our cultures regulate which questions are more important than others and in what ways we go about answering those questions), we all seem to have a desire to tell stories and create art, we all have some form of sexuality (although, granted they do vary from culture to culture), as I already noted certain types of people seem to exist in all societies: such as greedy people, noble warriors, angsty disillusioned adults, wise men, etc.

[kiki1982]

Let's have another one:

We will keep seeking the universal, both writers and readers. Sometimes we will see a glimpse of it (that is what we are discussing here), but we will never be able to see it totally. The Universal does exist, only not identified in time and space. The toughts of writers and readers are identified in time and space, but possibly Literature has a constant universal Idea that is not. Only the execution might be imperfect.

That clears up the Socrates-paradox. There is something like argument and Argument. argument might be an assumption whereas Argument is the constant version of it, something we are not able to discern. :D

[mal4mac]

Let's have another one:
We will keep seeking the universal, both writers and readers. Sometimes we will see a glimpse of it (that is what we are discussing here), but we will never be able to see it totally. The Universal does exist, only not identified in time and space.

How do you know that your 'absolute' universal exists? How do you know your glimpse isn't just a bright flashing light or a fantasy? How can anything be identified outside of time and space? To do the identification you need to do it in at least the time it takes for a synapse to fire, and in the space between your ears. So how can you have thoughts beyond time and space when your human limitations mean you can only have thoughts within time and space?

I take universal to mean 'universal to humanity'. So great literature is universal if it can be appreciated by, and be of great value to, any human. But humans are relative -- humans evolved, and might not have if circumstances had been slightly different.

[Madame X]

I take universal to mean 'universal to humanity'. So great literature is universal if it can be appreciated by, and be of great value to, any human. But humans are relative -- humans evolved, and might not have if circumstances had been slightly different.

And we all know that evolution doesn’t work in ideals. ;) This seems more a semantical problem than anything else.

[sixsmith]

Upon first reading this question I answered in the affirmative. However on reflection, and having read this thread, I am less certain. The Comedian succinctly captures that uncertainty when he says ‘it’s more of a feeling than an idea.’ Indeed, it’s a very attractive feeling; one that would give credence to our own ideas and experiences and reaffirm the notion that great art is the conqueror of division and distance.

JBI has made some strong points. In doing so, he has marshalled (at least implicitly) aspects of literary and cultural theory which I loathe, and that fact, naturally, troubles me. I’m more prosaic (and less enlightening) in my approach. The OED (granted a culturally biased document, but I’m not going there) tells me that universal means: 'of, affecting, or done by all people or things in the world or in a particular group; applicable to all cases'. Prima facie, it seems to me that under that definition, claims to universality, even for works at the very heart of our ‘canon’, are rather brazen. I think JBI has made this same point. Don’t get me wrong, part of me would love it if a member of the Musuo tribe could sit down with Shakespeare and relate to or even recognize Hamlet’s existential woes. But the likelihood of that happening seems nigh on absurd.

I suspect that certain literature contains themes, narratives, characters etc which affect and speak to people of a great many groups, some of whom are ostensibly very disparate. I also suspect that we can widen our understanding of the universal until we are not really making any claims for literature at all. To say, for example, that death is a reality we all face and thus is a universal theme, is not advancing the pro-universal case; its just setting up the potential jumping-off points.

[kiki1982]

How do you know that your 'absolute' universal exists? How do you know your glimpse isn't just a bright flashing light or a fantasy? How can anything be identified outside of time and space? To do the identification you need to do it in at least the time it takes for a synapse to fire, and in the space between your ears. So how can you have thoughts beyond time and space when your human limitations mean you can only have thoughts within time and space?

I take universal to mean 'universal to humanity'. So great literature is universal if it can be appreciated by, and be of great value to, any human. But humans are relative -- humans evolved, and might not have if circumstances had been slightly different.

It is clear that you don't have the faintest clue to what I am alluding and that for a philosopher... The light is not given to everyone (and that is not a stab, that is also part of it. Lookit up). This is one of the basics of philosophy, by the way.

And what is 'appreciated'? Not only easthetically, I hope, because then the vast amount of work that writers do is futile.

[mal4mac]

The light is not given to everyone...


What is this light? How do you know it is not given to everyone?

[kiki1982]

The light is the light illiumines certain things for us. If you do not understand what I am on about it is clearly not given to you at least... I said look it up or ask someone on the Philosophy forum. I thought you read philosophy...

I did a lot of studying on this for Jane Eyre, so I do not think I'm off my nut. And this is everywhere to read on the internet and in any good bookshop.

[Drkshadow03]

What is this light? How do you know it is not given to everyone?

Kiki is alluding to the allegory of the cave in Plato's Republic.

[Scheherazade]

~

Please do not personalise the discussion.

Inflammatory/personal posts will be removed.

~

[Modest Proposal]

Upon first reading this question I answered in the affirmative. However on reflection, and having read this thread, I am less certain. The Comedian succinctly captures that uncertainty when he says ‘it’s more of a feeling than an idea.’ Indeed, it’s a very attractive feeling; one that would give credence to our own ideas and experiences and reaffirm the notion that great art is the conqueror of division and distance.

JBI has made some strong points. In doing so, he has marshalled (at least implicitly) aspects of literary and cultural theory which I loathe, and that fact, naturally, troubles me. I’m more prosaic (and less enlightening) in my approach. The OED (granted a culturally biased document, but I’m not going there) tells me that universal means: 'of, affecting, or done by all people or things in the world or in a particular group; applicable to all cases'. Prima facie, it seems to me that under that definition, claims to universality, even for works at the very heart of our ‘canon’, are rather brazen. I think JBI has made this same point. Don’t get me wrong, part of me would love it if a member of the Musuo tribe could sit down with Shakespeare and relate to or even recognize Hamlet’s existential woes. But the likelihood of that happening seems nigh on absurd.

I suspect that certain literature contains themes, narratives, characters etc which affect and speak to people of a great many groups, some of whom are ostensibly very disparate. I also suspect that we can widen our understanding of the universal until we are not really making any claims for literature at all. To say, for example, that death is a reality we all face and thus is a universal theme, is not advancing the pro-universal case; its just setting up the potential jumping-off points.

Very good post and thank you for calmy laying out what has been discussed by both sides rather heatedly. I understand your comment about Hamlet's existential issues, but would maybe suggest that the issue is more one of Shakespeare's density than of his themes limited scope. Let me go however to the next issue you bring up because, though you make a good point, I think that is the point of conflict this thread is myred in.

As far as the inevitability of death goes, I agree that it as merely a fact is not definative enough to be considered itself a Universal theme. But think of this, humanity is a race of creatures, creatures with an impetus to survive. This is fact. However, humanity is also intellegent enough to know they will eventually die. All cultures have dealt with this reconciliation somehow. Still no one has brought forth a literature that does not include--orally or written--an explanation or justification of death. Whether it is a step in a cycle, or the road to the afterlife or becoming part of the earth, EVERY culture deals with it's meaning and significance. It is not just the fact that is important, like the sun rising--which occurs in literature but isn't neccisarilly a Universal theme--, it is an issue that people of all races feel compelled to grapple with. The happy-hunting-ground, heaven, Hades, the "afterlife", reincarnation, all of these and more are an attempt to understand this un-scientific issue, and the only way to try and meet it seems to be in literature.

This is what I have been trying to argue, that certainly cultures have different views on what is the correct way to live (bravery, wisdom, financial success, social respect, many children), and there literature reflects this. I think Musuo tride could read Gilgamesh or Beowulf or the Aenied and maybe not agree with the conclusion that to be manly or to honor the gods is the peak of right-living, but they would perfectly understand the concept. I image a tribe unfamiliar with western historical values being able to laugh that someone said fortune favors the bold, and say that it is foolishness because everyone knows that god/s favor him who pays homage or him that lives peacefully. This is what I mean by Universal questions or issues or searches. All people can recognize certain issues as ones they grapple with whether or not they agree.

[kiki1982]

I appologise, but my point still stands: even if we think that universality cannot be found it does exist.

[JBI]

Oh sure, as I already hinted at I think we are framing this topic in the wrong way. It seems to me reading literature as an academic topic boils down to two things really:

1) literary works can offer individuals wisdom about life.

2) literary works function as a sub-area of history.

It really isn't that complex.

Foucault is a problematic scholar to say the least. One of the biggest criticisms is that he cherry-picks documents from historical periods to prove his theories. Another is that part of his theories are unfalsifiable. Nevertheless, some of his more basic ideas that are pretty much snatched from anthropology anyway are useful and accurate. If you read the text of a particular culture, say Ancient Greece, you'll notice certain culturally specific themes and ideas that preoccupy the people of that society. However, the bigger suprise always come when you read a text and find elements that seem just as modern as today.

The fact is there are universal experiences. We ALL are going to die. We all recognize that the world can be a cruel and rotten place (and pretty much every religion recognizes this on some level or another, although they provide different reasons for why it is), we all have a desire to find answers to these questions (even if our cultures regulate which questions are more important than others and in what ways we go about answering those questions), we all seem to have a desire to tell stories and create art, we all have some form of sexuality (although, granted they do vary from culture to culture), as I already noted certain types of people seem to exist in all societies: such as greedy people, noble warriors, angsty disillusioned adults, wise men, etc.

Still, you notice strange things - for instance, what is heroic? The Jewish literary tradition, and subsequent Rabbinic literature has no history of having an heroic tradition - what does that make of other literatures then?

What is an adult - what if, like most of the history of the world, people live only to 35 unless they are incredibly lucky - it's things like that that change things - and how does the literature speak.


The problem I have, is that these "ideas" which are taken as universal, the cycle of life for instance, aren't literary texts - what literary texts do is they take or invent experience in a specific way - to then go looking for these universals is strange to say the least. If they are rooted in these universals, which I don't personally agree with myself, but I'll just humor for now, that doesn't mean that that is necessarily a great quality of the text. It doesn't mean that is what we should look for when we read - perhaps it would be better to do what most people do, and look at the subjective things - such as how does the author construct gender, beauty, love, hate, etc. - things which are nuanced.

If things are universal, opinion cannot phase them, in that sense, the actual literary discussion on universals is, by necessity, limited to identification only, which to me seems like a great waste of time since, if they are universal, there is no need to find them in literature.

[Drkshadow03]

Still, you notice strange things - for instance, what is heroic? The Jewish literary tradition, and subsequent Rabbinic literature has no history of having an heroic tradition - what does that make of other literatures then?

What is an adult - what if, like most of the history of the world, people live only to 35 unless they are incredibly lucky - it's things like that that change things - and how does the literature speak.


The problem I have, is that these "ideas" which are taken as universal, the cycle of life for instance, aren't literary texts - what literary texts do is they take or invent experience in a specific way - to then go looking for these universals is strange to say the least. If they are rooted in these universals, which I don't personally agree with myself, but I'll just humor for now, that doesn't mean that that is necessarily a great quality of the text. It doesn't mean that is what we should look for when we read - perhaps it would be better to do what most people do, and look at the subjective things - such as how does the author construct gender, beauty, love, hate, etc. - things which are nuanced.

If things are universal, opinion cannot phase them, in that sense, the actual literary discussion on universals is, by necessity, limited to identification only, which to me seems like a great waste of time since, if they are universal, there is no need to find them in literature.

Samson I think fits pretty well with into the heroic tradition in a way. I would agree we and our most Ancient ancestors didn't have a heroic traditional in the Greek sense. But clearly there are heroes in Biblical tradtions: Mordecai and Esther (to a degree), Moses, etc. Heroism is just defined differently, and I think you can define it as a kind of heroism. These are people doing larger than life deeds and being remembered for them; one major difference seems to be emphasizing selfishness (Greek conception) versus deeds that benefit the community (Hebrew conception).

Personally, I don't think one needs to look for anything specific in the text. I find most texts generally speak for themselves. I can't speak for others, but when I read a text I rarely look for anything specific; the text eventually reveals its themes through repitition, through the nature of the plot itself, the characterization, etc. (talking mostly novels). It happens that most texts include elements that can be called "universal" in certain characterizations and themes, but they also include culturally specific elements too.

For example, 100 Years of Solitude by Marquez. Clearly one of the issues the book deals with is American corporate imperialism in South America. This is a very specific theme that is extremely culturally specific to that region. However, I would imagine other countries who have experienced imperialism and market exploitation can relate and identify with this theme, it will speak to them and be meaningful to their own experiences, despite it not being the specific way in which they were exploited or even the U.S. as the perpetrator. Those victimizers, especially the members of its citizenry who feel guilty, will be able to relate to those themes.

But we can go even deeper. Imperialism in general is universal, there have been countries taking over and exploiting other countries in the form of the tribute, direct land-grabs, etc., for generations: the Egyptians, the Hebrews (if we are to believe the problematic Bible accounts), the Chinese, Muslims, the British, the United States, Japanese, etc. One can see in these particular expressions of dealing with colonialism in a particular literary work a larger universal issue being hinted at.

I recently read American Born Chinese by Gene Yang (http://beyondassumptions.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/booklist-2009-50-american-born-chinese-by-gene-luen-yang/)(a graphic novel). The main issue underlying the triptych story was racism and stereotypes against Chinese Americans by whites in American society, which I found myself relating to strongly because some of it reminded me of my experiences growing up Jewish in America. I imagine a huge cross-section of minority populations in America would be able to relate to this story in exactly the same way I did. If not quite universal in that it applies to everyone, I would argue it is precisely our ability to relate to particular issues to our own experiences is what makes a theme and issue universal in the first place, that ultimately the particular stands in for larger abstract issues.

This is why I dislike the word universal in these discussion. People throw around that term, but I never once took most of them to mean it as Platonic forms. What I think most of them really mean is from literary works of vastly different cultures you can find a theme or wisdom or issue that is large enough in scope and involves certain shared human experiences that MOST people or even a LARGE group of people outside of the original culture that produced the work can relate to and draw wisdom from it or experience catharsis from the work in a way that is applicable and meaningful to their own life. I cannot imagine anyone from either so-called "camp" can disagree with this point, otherwise I don't really see the point in reading literature outside of a sub-section of history.

[JBI]

You mistake righteousness with heroism. Akiva is not a hero, but is a righteous, learned man - Samson is not a hero - perhaps the closest thing in the tradition, but he is not, by the Rabbinic reading as I see it, heroic. Moses is not a hero either, by my reading.


I didn't suggest that there weren't stories that are relevant, or that many people can relate to, but there has been, for instance, much scholarship done dealing with the notions of perspective in something like Alice Munro - the question is, can anybody coming from an Urban, middle-upper class perspective really read her works the same way as somebody coming from a background similar to that of her protagonists (this is a simplification, but she is mostly known for her stories dealing with women from small towns coming of age). It's a valid criticism - how can I, as an upper middle-class Jewish male from the big city react the same way as somebody who comes from the exact opposite background - of course, the stories are much much more, so they are still readable, insightful, and fantastic, but they cannot be read in the same way, and hold the same meaning.


In a sense, I think the best answer I have encountered to explaining the phenomenon comes from a mix of Arif Dirlik crossed with something like Marie Louise Pratt's work.

Ultimately what their ideas propose seem to imply that in order to really understand and think about different things, and different perspectives, one really needs to become partially part of that perspective themselves, at least on one level, and absorb some of that into their thought.

So, for instance, for me to read Chinese poetry, I ultimately must place my understanding of poetry within the frame of the specific tradition, and poem itself, in order to accurately begin to approach it - I just learn, for instance, what things mean, what certain descriptions signify, allusions, perspectives, and also linguistic nuance - I must feel the text in a different way, a way that is perhaps not instinctive to me, in order to really begin to understand it from a perspective more rooted within its tradition.

What that means then, is my aesthetic sensibilities ultimately must change for me to read anything from a scope that isn't limited to my own assumptions - I need to break down the notions of "this is this, that is that" in order to approach things that are perhaps not so obvious to me - sounds like a lot of work, it is, but it is worth it because of the enjoyment gained by finally understanding.


The same thing with literature written from a female perspective - one who is male must ultimately, either limit their understanding of the text, or approach, and internalize something of a sense of "what it means" to be female from the frame of reference of the text (since discourse would argue that even gender isn't universal). The situations within the text are perhaps not universal to me, but once I have gotten over the stage of placing myself within the perspective, I can begin to feel and understand things that would otherwise be completely alien to me - I must feel on some level the experience of being a poor woman in 19th century Canada, for instance, in order to really begin to understand a book like Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood.


This gets to interesting points when you begin to examine genre - take for instance fantasy literature, since you are such an avid reader of it: in order to really understand certain trends and aspects of the genre, one must ultimately be familiar with the conventions of the genre themselves. So, for instance, chivalric codes that govern much of the conduct of heroes within more cliché ridden fantasy seem normal to the reader who is used to them, but seem somewhat strange perhaps to the first time reader - magic, and somewhat weird magical systems are very common in fantasy fiction - strange creatures, and damsels in distress are also common - but in order to understand how they work within the text, one must understand their significance within the frame of fantasy - one must absorb the conventions of fantasy into their head before they can understand the implications of the text from the perspective of it as fantasy literature.


In that sense then, I think something that is universal is hardly the essence of good literature - I think we merely place are selves, or are placed within a specific tradition for whatever reason, and gain an understanding of text from there - I can say, for instance, Tennyson's poetry sounds beautiful, because the way I understand the relationship between the sounds of words in English decrees it so, or, I can say that Frost's Birches is a profound poem, because my cultural understanding of the relationship between the self and society is informed with the same conventions that Frost perhaps was informed by.

The more you remove, the more distant in space or time one culture gets from one's own major frame of reference, the harder the close-association between author's intended meaning, author's aesthetic implications, and reader's perspective of the work gets. But some things just don't become to distant - either because culture hasn't changed out of them, or they have been absorbed within the frame of thought for so long.


I think the whole notion of universal somewhat cheapens the experience of literature. I think the beauty in the specific, in the discovery by absorbing perspectives is one of the joys of literature, and why some works keep on speaking. We enjoy Shakespeare, for instance, in part because psychologically we are absorbed, by both great acting and well crafted lines, into psychologies which are both interesting, and inviting. Hamlet is beyond us, yet somehow, through his soliloquies, we are able to, from our perspective still, begin to unravel what exactly is supposedly going on within him - we invent stuff sure, but we also create a closer association with him - the actual exchange is both ways - we create Hamlet, and within that creation, we recreate a bit of our selves. That's the real power of literature - not a revelation of a "universal truth", but merely a recreation of the reader in the reader's reading of the text.

I think then, that the reason some texts are deemed bad, is because they are so outside of the audience that they do not really welcome anything, or so close to the audience that they seem to have nothing to offer. In that sense, you get people who like certain texts because they are the first text that they read, but as they keep reading, they start to hate the same conventions. I cannot read, for instance, a Dragonlance novel, because the plot construction, characters, and setting to me seem so cliché and flat out boring. But somebody just starting to read Fantasy for instance, or unaccustomed to such conventions, or who only knows such conventions and naively follows the plots not knowing what will happen may find the text interesting - when a whole tradition ceases to find the text worthwhile, then the thing simply fades. As long as enough people with authority find the text worthwhile, the text remains canonical.


The Universal hardly factors into things, from my perspective, when one deals with literature. I don't look for universals, I look for things that are interesting, and require me to go beyond myself when reading them. I break into different traditions, with the knowledge that what I am reading isn't going to immediately click, and isn't speaking directly to me yet - but with time, will become absorbed into my understanding of literature. It's a difficult job, there is a lot out there, and many view points, some more interesting to certain people than others, but it certainly has its reward in that the dimensions of one's personality arguably increase, and one's perspective on things definitely becomes more nuanced from the experience.

If so called "universals" were true, and the focus of literature, ultimately, one's perspective would not change with each reading, and one would merely read things already understood by them - universals are, after all, universal, so naturally, are quite obvious, or essentially "natural" right? Good literature really is brought in through reshaping, or inventing from established traditions and going beyond what has been said already, to say something that hasn't, or to speak in a form that hasn't been spoken in.

Keep in mind guys, this is just my opinion - some read for different reasons.

[jocky]

I don't think I can agree with you here. I get what you are saying outside of what I have quoted above, but still I can't agree that the "universal" cheapens literature, in fact I think the opposite.

Also, whereas Shakespeare is concerned, I must side with the much quoted Ben Jonson and disagree again. Although I agree that the goal of art isn't to necessarily to reveal anything, I only see literature strengthened by universal traits.

Take the obvious Hamlet for an example. Even in pagan societies, can not the majority of people appreciate the fear and mystery of death? Is that not something which we are all connected to? Is death not universal?

Hello Neely, how you doing mate? Remember Jocky, who you visited without an invitation and you talked about booze. I seem to recall you talking about Scottish aggression and idiotic behaviour. Seemingly us Scots have got it all wrong, apparently we dont piss on War Graves. No, it wasn't you was it Neely, what with all that knowlege of Belgian beer? Is death not universal? Well spotted brains! You would not understand Shakespeare and Johnson if they were your best mates.! Twat.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Hello Neely, how you doing mate? Remember Jocky, who you visited without an invitation and you talked about booze. I seem to recall you talking about Scottish aggression and idiotic behaviour. Seemingly us Scots have got it all wrong, apparently we dont piss on War Graves. No, it wasn't you was it Neely, what with all that knowlege of Belgian beer? Is death not universal? Well spotted brains! You would not understand Shakespeare and Johnson if they were your best mates.! Twat.

http://www.easyfreesmileys.com/smileys/free-confused-smileys-327.gif (http://www.easyfreesmileys.com/Free-Scared-Smileys/)

[JCamilo]

You mistake righteousness with heroism. Akiva is not a hero, but is a righteous, learned man - Samson is not a hero - perhaps the closest thing in the tradition, but he is not, by the Rabbinic reading as I see it, heroic. Moses is not a hero either, by my reading.

Finally, something arguable instead of the nonsense about universal or not.

You have to define hero for you because you know Milton and that he approached Samson from the point of view of classical tragedy (even if with his adaptations and Samson selfishness leading him to be a easy prety to Dalilah) and some see Heracles on Samson. Just like they see Gilgamesh on Noah. Or how Campbell give to Jesus the hero path (ok, you may not consider him among the rabinic texts). Or Moses who was seen by Carlyle as a hero. David is certainly arguable as well, just like Joseph.

[Jozanny]

I have not read through this entire thread, and I will have to go back to see what the argument is, but I think Samson is a hero in terms of being a savior, a deliverer of his people, as this is a basic theme throughout the Semitic worldview. You live by the bedouin code or die by it, although Samson himself is a kind of outlier, in terms of OT characters. He faces obstacles, and overcomes them, bests them, in some instances, and this is the discussion I wanted to be having in my Judges thread in the RT subforum. Hopefully I will find some time to rescue it later.

And Neely, though I will probably get into trouble for mentioning it, I am sorry you were maligned by another member in such an inappropriate manner. I thought one of the rules was to keep personal arguments off the boards, and it seems the post you quoted above violates that.

[Nick Capozzoli]

Literature is universal in the sense that language is a universal medium of communication between human minds. There are many human languages, of course, and for communication to occur, the the same language must be used or there must be a "translation." Literature is basically communication by means of verbal language. "Verbal" means that words are used, which may be written or spoken, though "literature" technically implies writing and reading.

[Jozanny]

Okay, I skimmed back, and have a couple of points:

1. I don't know why we need to belabor the obvious. To the extent that all humans are humans, as no sub genus has survived among the various huminoid branches, all narratives share certain universal traits. If JBI thinks this cheapens literature, I think trying to say the obvious isn't obvious is just being unnecessarily pretentious.

1a. Great literature stands the test of time because it transcends the universal recognition it offers us through an original perspective. We may not see this at first: Kaga Mishi, The Mirror Lion, is a classical Japanese play, rarely performed anymore because it is sixteen hours long. We do not have anything like it in the West, but its motif of transformation is prevalent in most mythologies world over.

2. Focus on the "thing" itself and work your way outward towards overweening generalities. Life gets easier that way.

[stlukesguild]

It is to be expected that JBI as an ever dutiful student would be more than certain to parrot the current aesthetic teachings of his college professors and their revered models. But I am less certain of the notion that art is simply a social construct only relevant and comprehensible within that social construct. I'm quite interested in some of the ideas of Denis Dutton and his studies of anthropology and Darwin with regard to the arts:

What we regard as the modern human personality evolved during the Pleistocene, between 1.6 million and 10,000 years ago. If you encountered one of your direct ancestors from the beginning of the Pleistocene moseying down the street today, you would probably call the SPCA and ask for a crew with tranquilizer darts and nets to cart the beast off to the zoo. If you saw somebody from the end of the Pleistocene, 10,000 years ago, you'd call the Immigration & Naturalization Service—by that time our ancestors wouldn't have appeared much different from any of us today. It is that crucial period, those 80,000 generations of the Pleistocene before the modern period, which is the key to understanding the evolution of human psychology. Features of life that makes us most human—language, religion, charm, seduction, social status-seeking, and the arts—came to be in this period, no doubt especially in the last 100,000 years.

The human personality—including those aspects of it that are imaginative, expressive, and creative—cries out for a Darwinian explanation. If we're going to treat aspects of the personality, including the aesthetic expression, as adaptations, we've got to do it in terms of three factors.

The first is pleasure: the arts give us direct pleasure. A British study a few years ago showed that six percent of all waking life of the average British adult is spent enjoying fictions, in movies, plays, and on television. And that didn't even include fictional books—bodice-rippers, airport novels, high literature, and so forth. That kind of devotion of time and its pleasure-payoff demands some kind of explanation.

As a second comes universality. What we've had over the last forty years is an ideology in academic life that regards the arts as socially constructed and therefore unique to local cultures. I call it an ideology because it is not argued for, it is just presupposed in most aesthetic discourse. Allied with this position is the idea that we can seldom or perhaps never really understand the arts of other cultures; other cultures likewise can't understand our arts. Everybody's living in his or her own socially constructed, hermetically sealed, special cultural world.

But of course, a moment’s though reveals that this can’t possible be true. We know people in Brazil love Japanese prints, that Italian opera is enjoyed in China. Both Beethoven and Hollywood movies have swept the world. Think of it—the Vienna Conservatory has been saved by a combination of Japanese, Korean, and Chinese pianists. The universality of the arts is a fact, again a fact that requires explanation. We simply can't keep going on forever making this false claim that the arts are unique to cultures...

Pleasure, universality, spontaneous development. We see them in the cross-cultural realities of music, the universality of storytelling, as well as things like food tastes, erotic interests, pet-keeping, sports interests, our fascination with puzzle solving, gossip—the list is indefinitely long. Charles Darwin has a lot more to say about how we evolved as inventive and expressive social animals with our remarkable personalities than has been given credit for. These aspects of evolution have deep implications for the origins and evolution of the arts...

As an undergraduate, I was taught—and more or less accepted—elements in Wittgenstein and anthropology that proclaimed the uniqueness and incommensurability of cultures and art forms.

It's not as though this was ever backed up by serious arguments. It was supported by anecdotes. My generation was taught that the Eskimos had 500 words for snow. It's an urban legend; it's simply not true. But if you believed it, then you could believe that the Eskimo lives in a special intellectual world of which we're not a part.

Consider the story, equally fabulous, about the African who, for the first time shown a photograph of a person, didn't know how to read it as a photograph, couldn't see it as a representation of a person. Fancy that: the confused African couldn't see any natural resemblance between a photograph and a live person. My experience in New Guinea would indicate that's just ridiculous. I can imagine that the African might have been a bit confused when for the first time he saw a truck come into his village, with a white man getting out of it and shoving a piece of paper in front of his face. But to turn such an incident into a failure to understand a naturalistic representation—that’s just loopy social constructionist ideology, it’s not serious research on what were then called "primitive" cultures.

It’s time to be done with these fables after 40 or 50 years, and ask ourselves why the arts are universal. The notion that art is purely socially constructed, indeed, the human personality is socially constructed, has to make way for something more complex.

In the late 1980s, I developed a passionate interest in oceanic art and the carvings of New Guinea. One day, my wife suggested, "Well, we're close enough. Why don't you simply go up to New Guinea and find out what their aesthetic standards are." By that time, I was well acquainted with what European connoisseurship would call the "greatest" works of New Guinea art. But would the Eurpean valuations accord with local New Guinean valuations? Australian friends, old New Guinea hands, helped me to find a village, Yentchenmangua on the Sepik River, where carving traditions were still alive. (This project had the unintended by-product that somewhere out there in a museum or gallery there's an authentic New Guinea carving carved by me. I’d left one of my practice carvings in the village and only found out later that it has been painted and sold off.) This experience taught me something crucially important: that New Guinea standards for greatness and for excellence are as far as I could determine the same as those of knowledgeable European curators, connoisseurs, and collectors.

I'm not saying that the New Guineans would make judgments that would coincide with every naive tourist—newcomers to the art—who gets off the boat. Tourists in my experience make very bad choices in buying New Guinea arts. But the people who really know the good work in museums, who are very deeply familiar with New Guinea art but who have never set foot in New Guinea, oddly have the same taste patterns as New Guinea carvers themselves. And this shows that with the art form, knowledge and familiarity with the whole field determines a convergence of taste. And that, again, has to be explained.

You could try to explain it by saying that God has imprinted us with something. Jung thought he had ways of approaching this. Joseph Campbell was interested in these issues. But the person who really has the answers is Charles Darwin. In his first books, which are amazingly detailed, he couldn't go into all of these specific aesthetic issues, but he set out the blueprint for us. And we can apply Darwinian ideas and come to some initial rough account. I hope that over the years my arguments about the genesis of artistic taste will be refined.

And I have to stress that I am far from claiming that I have all the answers about the evolutionary origins of aesthetic taste. Darwinian aesthetics is not some kind of ironclad doctrine that is supposed to replace a heavy postructuralism with something just as oppressive. What surprises me about the resistance to the application of Darwin to psychology, is the vociferous way in which people want to dismiss it, not even to consider it. Is this a holdover from Marxism or religious doctrines? I don't know. Stephen Jay Gould was one of those people who had the idea that evolution was allowed to explain everything about me, my fingernails, my pancreas, the way my body is designed—except that it could have nothing to say about anything above the neck. About human psychology, nothing could be explained in evolutionary terms: we just somehow developed a big brain with its spandrels and all, and that's it...

I cannot understand why there still is so much resistance among academics to such ideas. If you want to be a one-dimensional determinist, go ahead and make it all "culture." My side of the argument isn't trying to make it all "nature," make it all genetics. Human life is lived in a middle position between our genetic determinants on the one hand and culture on the other. It's out of that that human freedom emerges. And artistic works, the plays of Shakespeare, the novels of Jane Austen, the works of Wagner and Beethoven, Rembrandt and Hokusai, are among the freest, most human acts ever accomplished. These creations are the ultimate expressions of freedom...

It’s a great question, What is art?. But it's been answered in the wrong way by philosophers for the last forty years. The fundamental mistake has been to imagine that if we can explain why Duchamp's great work, Fountain, is a work of art, then we'd know what traditional works of art are. I say "no" to this procedure. Instead of asking how is it that Duchamp's readymades are works of art, I say, let's ask what is it that makes the Pastoral Symphony a work of art. Why is A Midsummer Night's Dream a work of art? Why is Pride and Prejudice a work of art? Let's look first at the undisputed paradigm cases and find out what they all have in common—and not only in the Western tradition but also in the great Eastern traditions of China and Japan. Look at Hokusai, consider at New Guinea carving, and look at African carving. Better to understand them, and then analyze modernist experimentation and provocations, such as Duchamp’s brilliant work. I do regard Duchamp as an incandescent genius. But our respect for him must include a recognition of the fact that he was in some of his works experimenting in ways intended to outrage and provoke people by implicitly asking what the limits of art are...

An obsession with marginal cases has actually degraded the discussion in aesthetic theory of what the arts are. I must say it's made for a lot of fun in philosophy of art classes. Duchamp’s gestures are sure to get students interested... But after we've had our fun, we must also get back to central questions of what is it that makes the Iliad or Guernica art? Then we can better deal with Duchamp...

Our museums are burdened with gigantic mega-canvases. Will anyone be interested in seeing them in a hundred years? Will anyone actually care about a shark in formaldehyde in a hundred years? (That’s a particularly tough one: even in formaldehyde, that shark will likely have disintegrated in a hundred year’s time. Or is that fact part of the whole work of art?) This is an interesting issue. I'm not sure I want to put it in permanent storage. The huge canvases produced in the 1970s where size alone was supposed to prove it's great art. Well, it didn't (in the past) and it still doesn't now.

Many times in its history, including ours, art as experienced periods of folly. It’s fun to watch, of course, but as a Darwinian I'm also interested in the features of works of art that are going to make them still looked at and listened to and read 500 years from now. That for me is the question. By the way, I think that Warhol stands a chance, as does Jackson Pollack. On the other hand, I'm not so sure about Schoenberg, particularly his atonal music.

Anton Webern once suggested that someday we will have advanced to the point where the postman will in his sophistication do his rounds whistling an atonal non-tune. A lovely hope for modernism, but the idea is completely implausible. What is it about a melody that a Schoenberg tone row doesn't quite qualify in the minds of most people? That's a question about basic human musical psychology. And, of course, it's the reception of twelve-tone music of usually presented as though it's a question about culture—or resistance to change. I don't think it's about culture. Alone...

It’s not just Foucault and Derrida: Wittgenstein also has a lot to answer for. There's a deep anti-naturalism in his work, but a consistent ambiguity that makes it difficult to identify. Consider Wittgenstein’s gnomic, seemingly profound claim, "If a lion could speak, we could not understand him." Oh yeah? That’s a deeply mischievous idea, and Wittgenstein would have profited from getting to know an animal ethologist or two. If a lion could speak, the ethologists would be pretty clear about that he’d be talking about: annoying other lions, and members of the opposite lion sex, tasty zebras, and so on. People who live with animals can understand them, sometimes rather remarkably...

Entire post:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dutton09/dutton09_index.html

Still a more in depth examination of aesthetics and universality by Dutton:

http://www.denisdutton.com/universals.htm

[JBI]

Wow, so, in essence, you argue that all works of "great art" are "great works of art" because they share the same qualities. seriously, I have to doubt that. What is really going on in other traditions, if you examine it, is a coded aesthetic completely different, that makes it special. Even within traditions, Whitman isn't Petrarch, he changes the whole way poetry is seen, by radically finding a jumping spot to break away from the past - he doesn't just chant gibberish mind you, he connects himself in time to what came before, and using that as a frame to go from, pushes himself off in another direction.

I don't know - I think, one wouldn't be too hard pressed to suggest your understanding of the universality of art is subject to the limitations of your focus - keep in mind, from what I understand St. Lukes, you only read in English, or perhaps in a little bit of German. But even if you begin to look at differing translations of the same work, you find that when put into English, things ultimately are reshaped.

Pound is not writing Li Bai in his River Merchant's Wife - he is going through Japanese texts which are inaccurate into an English reconstruction of a similar idea - what is in the poem is changed, so it looks as if Li Bai is speaking in a language closer to Western ideas. When you look at different translations though, you realize that something is really fishy about the whole thing - mainly, that such drastic differences in translation can come from the same subject.

To take it further, we can even extend things to ideas - Lionel Trilling - not a "past 40 years critic" keep in mind - suggested that Sincerity was an idea that pretty much entered Western literature in the late 18th century, and dominated until around the 20th century, when Authenticity came in as a central idea.

If something that we take as so fundamental such as sincerity, or even authenticity is only really brought into literary thought in the past few hundred years, how then can we explain the phenomenon, and how can we question the phenomenon's transcendence over culture?

I remember reading a few years ago, an attack by a Chinese film critic on the movie Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon for what he perceived as yielding to a Western audience. He argued, for instance, that such lines in the movies that play with notions like "Be true to yourself" were completely anachronistic within the genre of the film. The traditional conventions were all but lost, when the themes expressed shifted toward Western conceptions of theme, instead of the ones typical within the original genre, in essence leading to a rejection by Chinese audiences of the film (which originally, it must be noted, was from Taiwan).


If you look at the history of literature, you realize that certain themes and ideas come into the discourse over time, based on shifting perspectives, that alter over space. The way Medieval authors thought of love for instance, morphed into the way Renaissance authors (lets say English, since there was clearly variance) conceptualized love. This shifted in the Enlightenment, and then shifted again - everything is shifting, theme is bending - ideas are bending.

To root things in a universal to me seems fishy. It implies that everything is static - that things are true always. I somehow doubt that - the same themes in the world seem different depending on where one is (in space and time).

In order to really imagine a world where certain texts don't seem relevant, one can simply think of the time before the text was conceived. Dante 100 years earlier wouldn't have been accepted or thought of in the same way. Petrarch himself was known as a Latin prose stylist foremost for 150 years before anybody even began to consider his lyric poetry in Italian.

Aesthetics are always shifting, what is good and bad is purely fashion, but somethings, for whatever reason, always stick.

St. Lukes, if you can, for instance, in any artwork, from any time, describe what makes it "universal" then perhaps I may begin to believe you, but as it is, that seems like a mediocre reactionary essay that fails to realize what any of the scholarship it is criticizing is saying - I think the lack of quotes or names really attests to that.


Literature is universal in the sense that language is a universal medium of communication between human minds. There are many human languages, of course, and for communication to occur, the the same language must be used or there must be a "translation." Literature is basically communication by means of verbal language. "Verbal" means that words are used, which may be written or spoken, though "literature" technically implies writing and reading.

Is all language the same, can all language express the same ideas in the same ways? Seems like a pretty fishy statement to me.

[Jozanny]

JBI, part of the problem with your argument is that it implies we can be, and are, entirely alienated from each other. To some extent that may be true. I am a short fat Caucasian cripple who would not have much fun engaging with your average Pakistani male who actually believes in the moral value of honor killing, and I am sure not every Pakistani male does believe it, but you provide too many escape valves for opportunities to dehumanize the Other.

Broad arguments about universality are not among my favorite debates, for I prefer to distill what makes Wagner intangibly Wagner, to look at the specific thing itself, but as John Gardner said, there are only two kinds of stories:

Man goes on A Journey
Man returns

Sure, some meanings between languages cannot be conveyed, but language is largely unnecessary.

[AlaskaDan]

Literature about love and honor are recognised by most of us on similiar levels. While honor might depend on our other views in life, love touches us all in some dramatic way sooner or later. The loss of love and stories about the loss, touch us all and will continue to touch people until there are no people. We occupy this tiny spot between the eternities and most of us hope to leave a flake of ourselves behind for someone else to relate to. Love and honor are universal in that we each have an opinion on what they are. No person on this forum is likely to say they have no opinion on what love and honor are.


" until that day "

[stlukesguild]

JBI, part of the problem with your argument is that it implies we can be, and are, entirely alienated from each other... you provide too many escape valves for opportunities to dehumanize the Other.

Which may be the reason he can so freely demonize the "Ugly Americans" as opposed to the noble Canadians... because we clearly are one of those "others" who share nothing in common with the rest of humanity.

St. Lukes, if you can, for instance, in any artwork, from any time, describe what makes it "universal" then perhaps I may begin to believe you, but as it is, that seems like a mediocre reactionary essay that fails to realize what any of the scholarship it is criticizing is saying - I think the lack of quotes or names really attests to that.

JBI... you place far too much value upon academic criticism and scholarship... which is essentially meaningless to the vast majority of artists, writers, and composers. What is the quote, "God doesn't engage in theology".

But by the way... Dutton has more than mediocre academic credentials... including teaching positions at various universities and essays printed in various somewhat respected academic publications... including the Oxford University Press, Johns Hopkins University Press, The British Journal of Aesthetics, etc... One might even suggest that he might just understand aesthetics better than an undergraduate student from Canada.:brow:

Not that I would make him a hero, or the last word on art. I must admit, however, that I am impressed with his entrepreneurial approaches to the discussion and dissemination of aesthetics... including the founding of the Arts and Letters Daily website:

http://www.aldaily.com/

Perhaps my favorite bit of his contribution to aesthetic debate must be his founding of the Bad Academic Writing Contest which brilliantly drew attention to and critiqued the inanely pompous prose of academia which often hides an absolute dearth of anything of merit being conveyed. The first prize was awarded to UC California, Butler for this lovely sentence:

The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.

Quite universal, that.:rolleyes:

The reality is that art and aesthetics cannot be reduced to either the purely biological (which Dutton makes abundantly clear) nor the the cultural construct. Among the examples proposed by those who argue that there are no universals in art and that it is all but a social construct there is that of Duchamp who declared that the African native confronted with a painting by Rembrandt would not know what to make of it. He might, Duchamp concluded, simply use it for an ironing board. Such an idea is inane and ignores the fact that art does speak across cultures and across time. Certainly, literature is limited by language, and you may suggest that by the translation of Homer or Dante into English one essentially changes the works. Yet this ignores the fact that the works still speak to the contemporary readers fluent in Greek or Italian. And then we have visual art and music.

I agree and have repeatedly suggested that all art forms are essentially a language and that they require a certain mastery of the language and the vocabulary to be fully understood. This does not undermine the fact that they may still speak across cultures and across time. It does suggest, however, that the more esoteric a work of art is... the more dependent it is upon the context... the less universal it is and the less chance it has for survival. It is more than likely that Raphael could have recognized Monet... and even Picasso as being "Art". How good or bad such "Art" might appear would depend certainly upon how firmly he was entrenched into accepting solely the values of his own artistic milieu. Duchamp's Fountain or the "music" of John Cage, on the other hand, are almost completely dependent upon the context of Modernism/Postmodernism and would be unintelligible or unrecognizable as "Art" by someone of Monet's generation, let alone Raphael's.

The point Dutton makes which is intriguing is that there appears to be an agreement between artists of diverse cultures as to what amounts to the best artistic products of another culture... no matter how removed they may be. The average Western art lover asked to cite the best Japanese woodblock artists would select Hokusai, Hiroshige, Utamaro, Sharaku... and a few others... the very same artists most revered by the Japanese. This is true even without an in-depth knowledge of the history of the development of Ukiyo-e prints and their predecessors in Japanese screen painting.

Such is but one example of artistic carry over from one culture to another quite removed. Again... this does not argue that context or culture is irrelevant. One does not come to a completely foreign art form, be it bluegrass music, Spanish Sephardic chant, or Indian sculpture with an immediate ability for aesthetic judgment or comparison. But if one comes to a foreign music or a foreign literature or a foreign art with a solid foundation in the music/literature/art it is surprising how one is commonly drawn to the same works considered of the greatest merit by those of that culture.

The notion of cultural relativism reduces all art to the same level. Value judgments are nothing more than social constructs or indoctrination. I only love Mozart and Shakespeare because I have been indoctrinated by the values of Western culture into recognizing such. There are no universals. Such is pure BS and says nothing to how Shakespeare can still speak to a contemporary Brazilian and Borges and Neruda (to say nothing of the Bible, Gilgamesh, Dante, Mozart, and Shakuhachi flute music can resonate to me living in North America. Taken to its logical (Borgesian) conclusion, the denial of any universals and the embrace of cultural relativism leads us to the belief that we have far more differences than we have common traits... desires... wants... needs... that we are essentially completely alienated from each other... and as such art itself should be mute as any real communication is impossible.

[JCamilo]

If Wittengenstein was an artist, he would probally show better his idea than tell...

Anyways, the argument is ridiculous, either JBI adopts the irrefutable position that nothing is universal (which is in the end sophistry) or those arguing with him follow the position that generalities are universal (Which is just a short of circular logic). And every side can build logical arguments that will be correct and irrefutable. And the argument would still be ridiculous since it only shows the starting point of every side.

For example, JBI argues that in rabinic tradition there is no heroes (so he argues the necessary existence of a universal "model") and then argue that his readings find no heroes. So, logical. His readings deny a model in a rabinic tradition, but does not deny elsewhere. And St.Lukes let his borgesian side speaks (which is so wittengenstain) and in the end, is a very platonic view of the world. And obviously they disagree....

Anyways, since JBI is popular and have a fan club, he can no longer be part of the discussions of snobs and elitists here.

[stlukesguild]

Yes... he is becoming a populist and soon will be championing Dan Brown novels no doubt.:lol: Perhaps we should all join his fan club.:brow:

[Modest Proposal]

Excellent posting St Luke. Nice to see someone else take up the torch for a while, I have been very busy with fighting the same battles in Grad classes this last week.

[JBI]

Yes... he is becoming a populist and soon will be championing Dan Brown novels no doubt.:lol: Perhaps we should all join his fan club.:brow:

Could be worse - perhaps Brown's appeal is that he has discovered the ultimate "universal" formula.

Seriously, I think the appeal of Brown fits quite nicely into my previously stated theory of literature as expanding the self.

Keep in mind who the bulk of his readers seem to be - people who haven't gone very far, either in person or through books, and think the places and ideas talked about within his text exemplify a sort of traveling.

The places mentioned, and the things mentioned are not to drastic - it isn't the Durer code after all, and the society's mentioned aren't dealing much with very distant concepts, but they are "distant" enough to encourage at least a little bit of the sense of exploration and adventure, to the point where someone who is put back by too much distance between place and concept is easily able to go within Brown at a comfortable level.

Of course, the excitement dies when you know too much about what Brown is talking about - when you've been to the Louvre, or have read anything about history - when you have read enough books to know the possibilities of prose style, or the possible depth of character attainable - when what Brown creates seems too close or simple, to the point where it seems to lack any offering of something worth reading.

In a sense, it's all about comfort zone. I would imagine, for instance, the general dislike of Brown by "serious" readers of literature (I place myself in this category) has something to do with the fact that Brown seems too close, and not very imaginative, with both style and content. We don't really get to push ourselves forward when read him, so, arguably, we aren't entertained - everything is too predictable, or seems kind of silly. We become used to, eventually after reading texts with many viewpoints, to a certain distance and variance of range in topic, style, and setting, that something like Brown ends up being just trivial nonsense.

Of course, that is somewhat elitist, in that it considers Brown's readers ignorant. But I would suggest that it isn't that they are ignorant, but that their perception of the range and possibilities of prose fiction is limited to the comfort zone that welcomes Brown as a fresh voice - the only way to go beyond that, ultimately, is to break into another comfort zone.