ljos
08-08-2011, 05:29 PM
Hi all, I have been lurking the forums for a while, and just signed up yesterday. I hope I can post from time to time. Anyway, I'm interested if anyone have any interesting books on literary criticism they could recommend? Would be great if anyone knew about some recent ones, as well. Also theoretical books about art, especially the question of quality etc would be welcome, though I guess books on criticism also would touch those areas.
I find most of the criticism in Norwegian papers etc to be very dull, uninteresting and "cowardly". Most critics doesn't seem to risk anything in their articles, and more often then not they are filled with empty words. Recently I came over a small section of art critics by Baudelaire translated to Norwegian. They where great, especially the bits from Salon de 1846 and Salon de 1859. In the article "What purpose does criticism serve?" Baudelaire says that the criticism must be biased and passionate, written from "one angle of vision, but at the same time from the angel of vision which opens for the most horizons" (my translation).
The same goes for writers. Come on, their writing must want something, it must mean something for themselves if it is ever to become interesting for others, it must risk something. Both the author, the critic and the reader must be open and must risk things, in their writing, in their criticism, in their reading, be open for new horizons to open.
I have somewhat split feelings towards this. Sometimes I fear my obsession with, my demand for, all this might make me blind for other things, and that it may just cause more pain to my own writing, reading and thinking. But when I think it over it always boils down to this: when I have read a book, I don't want to close it and just think "ok". I don't want everything to be/look the just quite the same (see the famous essay on imagination from Salon de 1859). And it is being written literature like that today that can do that, but (as always) in minority. I hope this literature also will be written, written about and read, also in the future.
I find most of the criticism in Norwegian papers etc to be very dull, uninteresting and "cowardly". Most critics doesn't seem to risk anything in their articles, and more often then not they are filled with empty words. Recently I came over a small section of art critics by Baudelaire translated to Norwegian. They where great, especially the bits from Salon de 1846 and Salon de 1859. In the article "What purpose does criticism serve?" Baudelaire says that the criticism must be biased and passionate, written from "one angle of vision, but at the same time from the angel of vision which opens for the most horizons" (my translation).
The same goes for writers. Come on, their writing must want something, it must mean something for themselves if it is ever to become interesting for others, it must risk something. Both the author, the critic and the reader must be open and must risk things, in their writing, in their criticism, in their reading, be open for new horizons to open.
I have somewhat split feelings towards this. Sometimes I fear my obsession with, my demand for, all this might make me blind for other things, and that it may just cause more pain to my own writing, reading and thinking. But when I think it over it always boils down to this: when I have read a book, I don't want to close it and just think "ok". I don't want everything to be/look the just quite the same (see the famous essay on imagination from Salon de 1859). And it is being written literature like that today that can do that, but (as always) in minority. I hope this literature also will be written, written about and read, also in the future.