Please help me understand literature

The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.

The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass. The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless.

-- OSCAR WILDE


We should just make Wilde's preface to Dorian Gray a sticky, and address all people who come here wanting to understand the meaning of literature to it.

Given that you're reading Dostoevsky, here is what I wrote about another novel of his, Crime and Punishment:

Quote:

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One of the main points of the book is to show the shortcomings of the new philosophies pervading Russia at the time; he does so in the most explicit way possible, by writing a story where one of those new philosophies leads a young student to commit murder and disregard the sanctity of life by naively fooling himself that it is for the larger social good. Dostoevsky rejects the crass materialism of nihilism and the social theories of Utilitarianism expressed by the likes of the powerful, immoral, and stupid Pyotr Luzhin. Before we assume that only socialism is critiqued, it is worth mentioning that capitalism and the rise of the bourgeoisie is condemned as well. Luzhin fantasizes about using his money to take advantage of poor women, in this case, Dunya and making them perpetually grateful for hand-outs. He is the living embodiment of the crass and vulgar bourgeoisie rising to riches through capitalism only to exploit the poor.

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You'll notice I do talk about what the "meaning" or "purpose" or "deeper issues" of the book happen to be here. Or at least some of them (it's a long post and I'm only quoting part of it). However, you'll also notice I talk about them in relation to the characters and the plot and the characterization (even discussing some of the character's secret thoughts). The two are inseparable in a way. Unlike philosophy, literature helps us see how these issues and ideas play out through the medium of made-up characters and a fictionalized narrative.

So a novel should be entertaining and enlightening simultaneously. You should contemplate it as an object of art in its own right, but I think the most successful art forever changes your perspective on the issues it deals with so that when you think about those issues whether they be racism or the evils of slavery or love or pride or existentialist philosophy (even if you agree with the novelist or not) you can no longer think about them without thinking about the novel or poem as well.

Critic D.G. Myers puts it this way:

"A great novel is a disturbing comprehensive vision of the human experience. It persuades you, for a while, to watch the human parade from a weirdly angled window—to consider human life under the aspect, not of eternity, but of an odd and assertive particularity. This is what it means for a novel to be truly great: it changes your life. But not in any trivial self-improvement fashion. For a long time thereafter—if not forever—it affects the tone of every human encounter, the symbolism of every human gesture, the legitimacy of every human feeling. Even if you reject the great novelist’s vision, you are unable to shake the influence that it has upon the way that you view human actions."

Dostoievisky is tricky, because he is a teenager angst writer with 40 years old.

i'd think reading great books has a more cumulative effect, although, suppose, a particular book might "change ur life". never has mine, but, one rat only.

Here's Harold Bloom on Brothers K per the OP:

"The genius D faltered when it came to representing religion..."

"D's obscurantist religiosity is plain tiresome..."

"In spiritual matters, he merely was a bigoted know-nothing, whose authentic anti-Semitism is the only evidence of his election as a Russian prophet."

On the other hand:

"Sigmund Freud, rather polemically, placed Brothers K fist among all novels ever written, approaching Shakespeare in aesthetic eminence."

Don't condemn all of literature because you dislike one author! Try Dickens or Tolstoy and see how they play with ideas. You might find them more appealing. But don't look just for philosophical meaning in literature. It's main purpose is to provide aesthetic enjoyment, that is pure pleasure! It should be closer to Mozart than to Kant. Blooms 'elegy' is quite good on 'literature as a purveyor of aesthetic value', but as the 12th grader in the "Western canon" thread points out, it is a bit difficult to chew:

http://mrbauld.com/elegy1.html

The bit I like best:

"Pragmatically, aesthetic value can be recognized or experienced, but it cannot be conveyed to those who are incapable of grasping its sensations and perceptions. To quarrel on its behalf is always a blunder.

What interests me more is the flight from the aesthetic among so many in my profession, some of whom at least began with the ability to experience aesthetic value... Longinus would have said that pleasure is what the resenters have forgotten. Nietzsche would have called it pain; but they would have been thinking of the same experience upon the heights."

Apart from Mozart, Dickens provides me with the greatest pleasures in my life. So I guess I'm fortunate in recognising the sensations that Dickens induces in me. Sometimes these sensations are, indeed, painful (the trial of Barnaby Rudge was a recent pain...) But as Bloom says, it's the 'same experience on the heights'. I find Dostoevsky to be all pain... worth reading... but a hard grind across a blasted heath!

It is best to read works that entertain and enlighten given various factors in place, such as minimal distraction, any classes, films, music, and other works related to what is being read, people to talk to about the work, etc.

For example, I enjoyed reading Dostoyevsky' Karamazov and even Crime and Punishment because I was taking a philosophy class that dealt with themes similar to those found in these books, read them slowly (a chapter or so at a time) late at night, had some delicious homemade empanada and soda (or hot choco) while reading, and saw some of the themes in relation to some European films that I was also watching during weekends.