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I haven't come here for several days,but i'm extremely surprised and happy to find that there are so many guys involved in this tread. I take everyone's opinion valuable and unique.Quote:
Originally Posted by chasestalling
Can anyone tell me the meaning of chasetalling's words?
I subtly feel it offensive. Is it so or only a misunderstanding?
Omega, you have some interesting points, some of which I may or may not disagree. But the quoted passage struck me. Can you explain what you mean? First of all, how can one transcend a limit? By definition that's an impossibility. If they transcend it, then it wasn't a limit.Quote:
Originally Posted by omegaxx
I'm sorry, godhelpme, I can't actually make out what is being said there. I wouldn't take it as offensive. I don't know how to take it, but surely not offensive. Perhaps Chase could rephrase it for us.
Now, Virgil, it seems unnecessary to decry an oxymoron as though it were meant in earnest. I'm sure you can give Omega a small license for figures of speech. :lol:
Well, I wasn't really picking on him. :p I kind of know what he meant by the phrase. However I don't know what he specifically means as it relates to the subject at hand. How does a writer transcend? Does he mean be the best of his times? That wouldn't have very much significance. Transcend "the limits of language"? Do you know what that means? Does he mean writing in blood? Or what? So then I don't have a clue as to what he means. But it does seem interesting.
In general, like Jean Baptiste said, you could have allowed such a thing to pass. Even so, your own point is incorrect. The Oxford English Dictionary defines transcend as:Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
1. To pass over or go beyond (a physical obstacle or limit); to climb or get over the top of (a wall, mountain, etc.).
2. To pass or extend beyond or above (a non-physical limit); to go beyond the limits of (something immaterial); to exceed.
So not only does a phrase 'transcending a limit' make sense, but (unless your using very concise language) it is completely necessary.
He should ask WolfLarsen. ;)
I know what you meant; I was just horsin' around. :D Yes, I too would like Omega to expound on this particular means of judgment as well. I was assuming that she meant transcendant language and thought. Such an idea seems very relevant to this thread.
:lol: Of course, all the great ones do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Hmm. Wild Apple does have a good point.
Yeah, were's WolfLarsen when we need an author's opinion?
So how does one go beyond language? Beyond form? If you understand that, please describe explain.
Eeek, this reminds me of my Econ prof, "Before you answer a question or write down anything, define your terms:( "
Ok, lemme see if I *do* have an idea of what I'm talking about.
By transcendent, I don't mean subject matter. There's only a handful of subject matter one can write on: love, death, loss, et cetera. However, there are myriad ways to approach it, much like one can, in theory, scale up a mountain from an infinite number from trails. Now some of these trails have been trodden so much that we are sick of it. The mountain is the same mountain. It hasn't changed. But we've gone up the same number of trails far too often that we see the exact same things: at this turn is a boulder, at that turn a fir tree, three turns later and we are on there.
A transcendent work, I think, is one that takes us up a hitherto non-existent trail. It has transcended the limits of existent modes of expression, which are limits we observe in our daily writing and even our daily life. It will be, clearly, more difficult and more demanding of the reader, but it's also more exciting because we don't know what to expect. We see different trees and boulders on the way up. We might discover new species animals that we never thought were present in this mountain. And when we reach the summit, we might discover that the place all previous trails take us is not really a summit (I don't know if this is technically possible as my hiking experiences have told me that summits are usually quite well-defined, but whatever it's an imperfect analogy.)--the actual summit is much higher. Even if we do end up on the same plane, if all the previous paths do indeed lead us to a summit, we still look down at the rest of the mountain in a very different light because we have taken a completely different trail and seen completely different things coming up it.
So to summarize, what I meant by transcending the limits of language and thoughts is
- using an original mode of expression which
- still reflects the subject matter (i.e. does go up the mountain) but does so in a wholy different way, such that
- new aspects of it are revealed
The first two points are for form, the second for content.
Reading works like this gives me great aesthetic pleasure, which is why I call it art.
One problem I can think of right off the bat is the haziness of the idea of "an original mode of expression". But that's altogether a different topic.
I'm wondering the same thing. In writing, it's language that does everthing. If it isn't language, then it isn't writing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Ok, so you [Omega] basically mean original.
Point well-made. Would it be clearer if I said "limits in language and thoughts"? Clearly no writing can transcend the limits of language itself.
In a very roundabout way, yes:(Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
That is a modern (or more accuractly, recent to the last couple of hundred years) view. In classical, medevil and even early reaissance the greater value was placed on being able to emulate great works. So Virgil's Aeneid was an emulation of Homer.Quote:
Originally Posted by omegaxx
I have not yet read Virgil, so I definitely can't judge how well he has done his job, although I would imagine that anyone setting out to purely emulate Homer must either forfeit the objective or be driven insane by Homer's accomplishments.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
However, I do find it interesting that you bring up the medieval time. If I am not mistaken, Homer was not widely read during that time. Chaucer refers to him constantly in Troylus and Criseyde, but all biographical and textual evidence points to the fact that he has never read The Iliad. The medieval interpretation of the Trojan War is also vastly different (and inferior, IMHO) from that of Homer or three Greek dramatist. They have appeared to have failed miserably in emulating great works.
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SLG- All art is a form of "self expression", indeed. To be otherwise is impossible. All self-expression, however, is not art (a baby crying, a teenager's diaries). Or perhaps, since the question of what art is has been broached, I should say that all self-expression is not good art. If the work lacks an aesthetic "beauty"... and this may include everything from the traditional "beauty" of a Raphael madonna, a Petrarchan sonnet, or a Mozart sonata as well as the sublime beauty of fear, horror, and tragedy found in Oedipus Rex, Beethoven, Goya, or Motherwell's Elegies to the Spanish Republic.
I would contend that the teenager's diary is art, as much as Oedipus Rex is. All art is self-expression, but what differentiates it from the baby's cry is consciousness of the expression, the thought that goes behind the expression. If nothing is expressed, then there is no art.
SLG- As I initially stated, you might indeed term the teenager's writings or the baby's cry as "Art"... but I greatly doubt it would qualify as "good" art. I would beg to differ with your assertion that that the expression... what is being conveyed is the basis for judging good or poor art. Firstly, I would suggest that all art expresses something... art ABOUT nothing (even if its only about art) is an impossibility. Secondly, I would suggest that the notion that certain ideas/feelings/concepts will inherently lead to a greater work of art is something of an outdated notion. In visual art... especially painting... it referred to a heirarchy which assumed that any mythological or religious narrative painting (an "histoire") was inherently greater than a portrait, which was inherently greater than a landscape, etc... What Mark Rothko could convey with mere bands of color or what Cezanne achieved with simple still lifes put this notion to rest. It is the art that makes the work good or bad, not the subject or expression.
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SLG- I would certainly agree with you here. All artists cannot help but have ethical, political, religious, moral sympathies and these most certainly present themselves in the work. On the other hand, I don't see these sympathies as a valid standard by which to judge the success of the art. To do such adds up to a rejection of all art that does not meet our current sympathies (ie. Shakespeare and Wagner are anti-Semitic so their art is bad) and leads to an expectation that an artist give form to only that which is communaly agreed upon and not that which is is felt/believed/thought by the unique individual.
I believe that people can validly judge art, of any kind, by the content, if they wish to. I understand why others might disagree with that. Without the content, there is no art. Is the form, the expression itself, better or worse for the content? I say that the form is inconsequential without the content.
SLG- Certainly, the audience may reject a work of art for any reason imagineable: the lead actress reminds you of your hated mother-in-law, you can't stand that color of green, the tale questions your firmly held religious beliefs, etc... It would seem possible... and preferable... however, for one to be able to differentiate personal taste from aesthetic valuation. There are certainly artistic works in any number of genre in which the subject... what is conveyed... is unattractive to me... and yet I can appreciate the artistry through which it was conveyed. I certainly don't follow the notion that form is everything... yet I would suggest that while a subject may not be inconsequential without being given the proper artistic form, a work of art which attempts to convey something about this subject would certainly be inconsequential without being given a successful form.
It appears that you define art by some aestetic standard. I don't know your standard, so I can't judge that, but people have been trying for millenia to define art and beauty, and related matters. There are quite a few books about it, but I don't think that a real definition has been discovered.
SLG- Undoubtedly, every artist needs to have some sort of idea as to what he or she imagines good art and beauty consists of whether it's based upon the ideas of Burke, Shelley, Keats, Wilde, Pater, Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Ruskin, one's Uncle Chuck... or a combination of all of these and more.
"differentiate personal taste from aesthetic valuation" I think that's the heart of what you have been saying. It appears that you think that there are objective standards of aesthetic valuation. I think that many people would like for such objective standards to exist, but they don't. In writing the closest thing to objective standards are syntax, grammar, spelling and definitions. It is a pleasure to read something in which the words have been strung together according to the rules (cultural standards) of syntax and logic (grammar), and for appropriate words be used and spelled accoding to the generally accepted spelling. When someone writes without breaking any of the rules of good writing and expresses something that addresses a universal interestm the writing probably is pretty good. Alas, none of the rules are absolute.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
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I've been meaning to contribute to this discussion. So here goes. Several points.
Another point I wish to make is that one must not confuse the notion that specific art forms are a craft that requires the manipulation of a particular medium. Some have argued that you can’t string together words randomly that sound beautiful but have no meaning. I agree but perhaps for different reasons. But the basis of your argument is that art in general requires meaning. That it needs to have some philosophic/moral/intellectual point. But literature (poetry, novels, short stories) is a form that uses words as the medium for creativity, the building blocks if you will. Their very nature requires meaning to be present. As a parallel, the building block of pottery is clay. You can’t make a work of pottery out of paper, and still be called a work of pottery. Words/sentences/paragrapghs are the clay of literary art forms. In order to create a literary art form it must be created within the context of meaning. It’s not that art requires significance, it’s because the medium itself is built up of meaning. Fine art is the art of arranging shapes and images; music is the art of arranging sound. That is why it is clear that they don’t require the same need for intellectual content as literature, which is the art of arranging language (at it’s most general definition).
I can't agree with you more there, Virgil. The fact that literature employs words, rather than colour or music notes, makes it impossible to extricate literature from culture. Words have nothing to do with reality.
SLG- I get where you are coming from, although I would suggest that certain words surely evolved from something mimetic... imitating the "sound" of the concept conveyed: "whisper", "kiss", etc... I would also note that in a pictographic language, such as Chinese (although this has certainly evolved over the years) there is something of simplified visual representation of the concept involved.
A-P-P-L-E does not have any intrinsic connection to the thing I'm munching right now. It's only by the endorsement of the dictionary and a couple of centuries of tradition do we agree that an "apple" refers to an apple.
SLG- Yet the same might hold true for most works of visual art. Most animals and very young children do not respond to a picture at all as an adult might. For example, we might have no problem seeing a human face in such an image:
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...llBeckmann.jpg
and yet certainly this image is completely symbolic and demands that we be able to read these various lines an hatches as somehow representing a face.
Language is also a site of cultural discourse. Each word is laden with additional layers of meanings invested by the culture. An "apple" is just an apple, but we may be counted on to sniff for traces of Genesis as soon as we encouter the word "apple" in a poem. Context matters. I would never read the "apple" my 5-year-old niece scribbled down beside her stencil sketch of an apple the same way as I read the "apple" that Lolita carries around in front of Humbert Humbert in Nabokov's book.
SLG- And again the same applies to a work of visual art (or undoubtedly, music). For example, when looking at this painting by the same artist (Max Beckmann)... an image of a reclining, muscular male figure:
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...clownsmall.jpg
I cannot help but think of Michelangelo's similar figures:
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...edicismall.jpg
or while looking at this lovely Bonnard:
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...ightmedium.jpg
I cannot help but think of so many lovely images of Venus or Bathsheba from throughout art history including any number of ancient Greek images of Venus bathing or rising from the sea. As such, I agree that the "meaning" in art is not something solely found within the form. Context and culture certainly play a role. At the same time, a work may certainly exhibit a wealth of cultural references (as many pendantic works by scholarly artists do) and yet still flop as art.
"When [Christ] says, 'Forgive your enemies,' it is not for the sake of the enemy, but for one's own sake that he says so, and because love is more beautiful than hate. In his own entreaty to the young man, 'Sell all that thou hast and give to the poor,' it is not of the state of the poor that he is thinking but of the soul of the young man, the soul that wealth was marring."
SLG- Intriguing words. And perhaps we might infer that Wilde did not merely imagine beauty as having only a self-indulgent, hedonistic worth... perhaps, as William Morris and others suggested, beauty itself had a moral value. Certainly I cannot help but imagine that rather than criticizing Matisse or Bonnard for continuing to create works of sheer beauty during the dark days of WWII, one should respect them for bravely insisting that the beautiful would endure... that these times would pass. Or as Faulkner put it in the closing lines of his Nobel Prize acceptance speech:
"It is (the writer's) privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."
To me, Wilde has inverted the relationship between morality and beauty. A thing is not beautiful because it's moral. A thing is not beautiful because it's amoral. Rather, a thing is moral because it's beautiful; beauty comes before morality in the creation of things.
SLG- Indeed.
This idea is beautiful but problematic to the highest point. What defines beauty then? Wilde would suggest sorrow, based on the first quote there. Thus we should go to Iraq and tell the people whose arms have been bombed off and whose houses are razed to the ground that their lives are beautiful and good. Poof. Are the lampshades of the ***** of Belsen beautiful then? Sure they are original. I heard they look quite good, and there is plenty of sorrow in them. They pass the beauty test--so they are moral? Gimme a break Oscar
SLG- Certainly, this idea IS problematic. But then let us take the opposite view. If we place morality before beauty is there truly any absolute moral standard any more than a standard of beauty upon which to base our judgments? Who was morally correct... the Americans cowering in fear of McCarthyism and the spread of communism... or the Soviets seeking to build one great communal collective? Are such considerations important when deciding whether Rothko and Pollack were greater than any work of Soviet social realism? And how do we deal with the fact that the Nazis were sophisticated lovers of art and music? Hitler admired the brilliant singer Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, the composers Wagner and Richard Strauss, and the conductors Furtwangler and Karajan. Should we thus reject them all as morally corrupt or tainted? What of the fact the J.L. David and Ingres were both supported by the Napoleonic regime? What of the fact that the brutal De Medicis, Orsini, Barberini, and Borgias were all highly cultivated lovers and supporters of art? What of the fabulous castles and ornate carvings and sensuous embroidered clothings and grand operas that were all produced for a class of aristocracy that lived off the labor of underpaid and underfed peasants? Do we take Mao's notion that Beethoven and Bach must be rejected as products of an elitist system and only support that art which meets the current democratic/egalitarian values of the masses. In a word, what exactly is the alternative to judging art as art?
I didn't mean to say that there is an alternative. I agree with you, 100%, as to the ridiculousness of frowning upon Beethoven's music because it endorses "bourgeosis" values. However, I am more for Peter's argument that objective aesthetic standards are hard to come by.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
I think I've used feminine beauty as an example in my previous post. I'll bring that up again since it seems to serve the purpose here. Feminine beauty is, I think, more concrete than the beauty of, say, literary works, and yet we'd be hard pressed to find any standard that applies to every person in every culture at every time period. Slimness of figure? The Tang Dynasty of China is famous for admiring large women. Large breasts? Ancient Chinese tend to like small, delicate breasts. 99% of Chinese would tell you that Lucy Liu is ugly. "Times" obviously does not think so, as it has listed her as one of the world's 100 most attractive people.
If we can't even find objective standards for a woman's looks, how can we hope to find any for literature or art?
art for art's sake is simply a notion that, unlike children who are to be guided by their hands every step of the way, adults may and should walk free without a cicerone, chaperone or whatever the case may be. i wish this were true, but it would seem to me that a great deal of adults have some growing up to do, that what they take for art is in fact so devoid of art that it's necessary to shock and offend them to their senses lest they think every stray random thought of theirs warrants our critical acclaim.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jean-Baptiste
I think I've used feminine beauty as an example in my previous post. I'll bring that up again since it seems to serve the purpose here. Feminine beauty is, I think, more concrete than the beauty of, say, literary works, and yet we'd be hard pressed to find any standard that applies to every person in every culture at every time period. Slimness of figure? The Tang Dynasty of China is famous for admiring large women. Large breasts? Ancient Chinese tend to like small, delicate breasts. 99% of Chinese would tell you that Lucy Liu is ugly. "Times" obviously does not think so, as it has listed her as one of the world's 100 most attractive people.
SLG- I will agree with you that an objective standard of beauty or aesthetics (or morality, religion, etc...) is an impossibility in a world in which we do noy (thank God) all think and act alike. Burke gave an honest attempt and Sir Kenneth Clarke attempted to apply such to a single narrow artistic subject: the nude in art, and even he was forced to admit that there were examples of nudes that were clearly great art (Rembrandt's Bathsheba, Courbet, etc... in which the actual figure in no way approached any ideal standard. What you say of the ideal stndards of female beauty undobtedly applies to Western history as well. In the late middle ages a high forehead (women cut back hair), small breasts and a rounded belly (a sign of fertility) was preferred and can be seen in paintings by Van Eyck. By the 17th century there was a preferrence for bodies of greater heft (proof of health, wealth and fertility once again) and Rubens, Rembrandt and other exemplified this look. Many have noted that Marilyn Monroe would be considered overweight by many of todays standards for actresses and models (although the woman was unquestionably stunning in Billy Wilder's great Some Like it Hot). Now the obsession seems to be for very thin bodies accompanied by floatation device breasts and botoxed lips. Certainly, standards ebb an flow. In art, admittedly, the preference for the classicism of Raphael, J.L. David, and Ingres was often at the exprense of the more turbulent, romantic, and contorted art such as that of the middle ages (hence the derrogatory term, "Gothic" as in "derrived from the Goths... Barbaric"). Our own time has often taken the exact opposite prejudice, preferring the more self-indulgent (Ginsberg, Plath, Sexton in poetry to the more refined classicism of Hecht and Wilbur.) I've always imagined l'art pour l'art as suggesting that we accpt... appreciate... value a work of art for what is is... that we base our critical judgements upon how good or bad it succeeds in what the artist attempts... rather than basing such judgements upon external values or expectations.
'I want to hear your personal idea and opinion of the doctrine 'art for art's sake'
Personally I'd take such a statement in literature to be a sign of decadence and sterility. There are some Victorian writers who took that as a credo and while some of their work is 'beautiful' it leads nowhere, which of course is their intention. In prose such a theory can lead to no worthwhile work for prose is like a window that you look through to get the meaning. However in poetry such a theory can be relatively acceptable for poetry is like a stained glass window which you look at, not through. So prose is about the meaning shaped by the words but poetry is often about the words themselves
'I subtly feel it offensive. Is it so or only a misunderstanding?' I'm sure no one here was intending to offend you. You have asked an interesting question Godhelpme2. So keep posting here and keep enquiring. There are some heavyweight thinkers here - see above! (me I'm a spontaneous dabbler) and there are lots of young learners of English. As the site is so wide ranging I'm sure you will learn a lot by staying with us.
While I crave a discussion I must first ask whether or not whether fictional genres such as fantasy and sci-fi could be considered works in accordance with this philosophy?
What exactly marks a literary work as moral?
Why not? Even ancient classics, such as Plato's discussion of Atlantis and Utopia, could be categorized as "fantasy."
And to your second question: it is irrelevant to ask whether literature is "moral." Only the author or the audience (with supposed free will) can be deemed "moral" or not. The book (or play etc.) is morally neutral.
I understand that it is the author that is moral. However, an author can put one's ideals into a book. It's not simply morality I'm questioning though but also didacticism. Some of the best examples that are didactic are probably The Divine Comedy by Dante or Pilgrim's Progress by Bunyan.
Yes. And lots of sci fi or utopian novels are didactic. Think of Orwell, Huxley, Asimov, Atwood, Vonnegut and many more. I think the higher these works are in literary achievement, the more they tend to be didactic.
I guess what I'm ultimately getting at is whether or not a theme keeps a literary work from following the philosophy of "art for art's sake". Such as theme, society, as opposed to goverment, is the true cause of injustice.
I'm still trying to grasp what you're driving at. Do you think a literary work should be "art for art's sake" and rather not didactic? Come to think of it, I hardly know any work of literary value that is not in some way didactic, that is teaching you about society, human nature, how to behave morally etc. The only literary works I know that were apparently written for the beauty of it are certain poems.
There are some works of fiction that have so little substance that some people would claim that they are simply fr the sake of writing, but the overwhelming bulk of science fiction and fantasy, until the 1990's anyway, has a theme that is substantial, and I think that the authors would be insulted t be told that their writing had no substance.Quote:
Originally Posted by Red Pilgrim
I don't think that humans are capable of expressing ideas without including some moral values.
We've had this discussion before. If you are interested you can find a lengthy discussion on this subject here: http://www.online-literature.com/for...t=art%27s+sake
Art has a separate existence of its own and smearing it with something where art will be subservient is sacrilegious. It is profane too if a piece of art is not given the respect it deserves.
Art is for man no doubt, yet it should not be molded or twisted the way we like it.
Art is a subject that should be developed to an unlimited end. If we try to compromise it, and we compromise particularly when we try to make it work for our particular purpose we are violating the sanctimoniousness of art. At times writers make it serve it his purpose of giving through it a particular moral instruction.
Art should be used for its own sake. In effect it o doubt serves life's objective, yet it must be given a separate recognition.
All I have to say is while art has a separate existence of its own independent of humane attributes or externals, yet I feel like art must serve human values.Quote:
Originally Posted by godhelpme2