The Singer or the Song?

[miyako73]

It seems there's a literary trouble brewing in this thread. I don't get it. I like to think my reading comprehension is good. The starter said "our historical evaluation" not "the historical evaluation," which is more rigid and authoritative. Since the "historical evaluation" mentioned is democratized, it just follows that everything goes. A gay sympathizer can evaluate Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d" as queer and a naturalist can see influences of Quacker farms and gardens. As for me, it is an elegy to the assassinated president the author politically loved--unless a proof comes up that says they physically shared love, although Lincoln also slept with men.

[dysfunctional-h]

I can understand how this thread devolved (or evolved? not sure) into silliness and parody. The original question was a little... philosophical? metaphysical? It's all very subjective. I would still argue that a writer's body of work is often a reflection of their experiences and passions, as opposed to simply something made to sound pretty. I'm sure some would disagree. It also is a question of the body of work I am familiar with--Faulkner, Steinbeck, Joyce, Mann, Fitzgerald--at the expense of what I am unfamiliar with--Tolstoy, James, Wilde, etc.

[hawthorns]

I can understand how this thread devolved (or evolved? not sure) into silliness and parody. The original question was a little... philosophical? metaphysical? It's all very subjective. I would still argue that a writer's body of work is often a reflection of their experiences and passions, as opposed to simply something made to sound pretty. I'm sure some would disagree. It also is a question of the body of work I am familiar with--Faulkner, Steinbeck, Joyce, Mann, Fitzgerald--at the expense of what I am unfamiliar with--Tolstoy, James, Wilde, etc.

Agreed. Their personal experiences, passions, and insight coupled with a superhuman ability to articulate it is what makes the greats so satisfying.

But the original question,

Do the personal virtues or vices of writers and thinkers affect our historical evaluation of their intellectual or literary achievements?

addresses vice and morality. I feel that the answer to the question should be *mostly* no. Can it affect our historical evaluation? You bet. Look at Caligula, Nero, Tiberius, Commodus, and Caracalla. Several had become symbols of such murderous debauchery that an effort was made to efface their memory entirely from the written record. But do their actions and morality mean there's literally nothing of value in their memoirs? Of course not--look how widely read Roman literature is today (well...students of the classics, anyway). Furthermore, I think history has shown that a creator's vices have little impact/influence on their artistic creations.

[vagantes]

Distressing in the extreme.

The original statement seems to have been understood that we judged works of literature not on their merits as literature, but rather as reflections of how their authors lived their lives.

Clearly and absolutely nonsensical.

What I attempted to establish is that, like it or not, when we read works of literary merit they act on us in various ways, some of which appeal to our moral selves. We draw conclusions from our reading which influence the way in which we live our lives. If we did not we would be mere dolts or clods without feelings or appreciation.

Literature is of benefit to us as human beings.

If that is accepted and I see no reason why it should not be from the evidence available, then the abiding puzzle is whether or not there is a connection between what the writer is and what he or she writes.

If a writer is a human being who has behaved badly in their lives, then how do we account for the fact that his or her works works provide the reader with a sense of moral well being?

Charles Dickens was not a evil person as such, but he treated his wife extremely badly and more or less demonstrated that he was a selfish, amoral human being without feelings for other people.

Which is the complete opposite of what we get from his work that teaches us among other things to value the rich diversity of other human beings.

I am not surprised at some of the nonsense on here, but am slightly disturbed by the apparent one-dimensional quality of what has passed for thinking.

[hawthorns]

Distressing in the extreme.

The original statement seems to have been understood that we judged works of literature not on their merits as literature, but rather as reflections of how their authors lived their lives.

Clearly and absolutely nonsensical.

What I attempted to establish is that, like it or not, when we read works of literary merit they act on us in various ways, some of which appeal to our moral selves. We draw conclusions from our reading which influence the way in which we live our lives. If we did not we would be mere dolts or clods without feelings or appreciation.

Literature is of benefit to us as human beings.

If that is accepted and I see no reason why it should not be from the evidence available, then the abiding puzzle is whether or not there is a connection between what the writer is and what he or she writes.

If a writer is a human being who has behaved badly in their lives, then how do we account for the fact that his or her works works provide the reader with a sense of moral well being?

Charles Dickens was not a evil person as such, but he treated his wife extremely badly and more or less demonstrated that he was a selfish, amoral human being without feelings for other people.

Which is the complete opposite of what we get from his work that teaches us among other things to value the rich diversity of other human beings.

I am not surprised at some of the nonsense on here, but am slightly disturbed by the apparent one-dimensional quality of what has passed for thinking.

Can't believe I indulged this troll...

[vagantes]

Ahh, and there you have it: a different point of view and the dummy gets spat out.

What was disturbing was the instant tramlining, as though the original question was superficial.

[Alexander III]

Distressing in the extreme.

The original statement seems to have been understood that we judged works of literature not on their merits as literature, but rather as reflections of how their authors lived their lives.

Clearly and absolutely nonsensical.

What I attempted to establish is that, like it or not, when we read works of literary merit they act on us in various ways, some of which appeal to our moral selves. We draw conclusions from our reading which influence the way in which we live our lives. If we did not we would be mere dolts or clods without feelings or appreciation.

Literature is of benefit to us as human beings.

If that is accepted and I see no reason why it should not be from the evidence available, then the abiding puzzle is whether or not there is a connection between what the writer is and what he or she writes.

If a writer is a human being who has behaved badly in their lives, then how do we account for the fact that his or her works works provide the reader with a sense of moral well being?

Charles Dickens was not a evil person as such, but he treated his wife extremely badly and more or less demonstrated that he was a selfish, amoral human being without feelings for other people.

Which is the complete opposite of what we get from his work that teaches us among other things to value the rich diversity of other human beings.

I am not surprised at some of the nonsense on here, but am slightly disturbed by the apparent one-dimensional quality of what has passed for thinking.

But as i said before and i suppose you did not read, the human individual in not an absolute of certain traits, he is a complex and contradictory creature. Once again there is no such thing as an evil man, only a man who has done evil things.

To return to Carravagio which i originaly mentioned, he was a murderer yet in his art he was able of such feelings of compassion and sadness and beauty that even most priests never feel in their lives. Following your theory this is impossible, carravagio must either be good or evil, but in truth he was evil and good, such as all of us we have all done evil and good, and my personal belif is that those who have great potential for evil have eqaully great potential for good, while those who have a moderate potential for good equally only have a moderate potentil for evil. This latter is but my own speculations, but it would explain why many great artists who were murderes and rapists and other horrible things were in their art able to express feelings of such pureness and goodnes and beauty that a saint would feel envious. It would also explain why so many men of the past who lived lives of pure goodnes were able to understand so well the deoravity of mans evil.

[miyako73]

For a troll, he surely can write a bombastic manifesto in defense of what he believes in. What a waste if you're just trolling. Write an academic paper or your autobiography.

[vagantes]

Talk about serendipity: I almost fell off my chair this evening when I came across this remark in an essay about Barthes, and the way he tried to read texts:

"We may try to be semioticians, but autobiography is always breaking in".

[stlukesguild]

What I attempted to establish is that, like it or not, when we read works of literary merit they act on us in various ways, some of which appeal to our moral selves.

The key word here is "SOME". SOME works of literature and art act upon us in a moral way... SOME not. SOME of the ways that literature and art impact us are through their appeal to our moral selves... SOME appeals to other aspects of ourselves.

We draw conclusions from our reading which influence the way in which we live our lives. If we did not we would be mere dolts or clods without feelings or appreciation.

But what we take from literature or art is not so easy as you would suggest. What you might take and what I might take are likely quite different. Each individual brings something unique to a work of art and takes his or her own "meaning" from it. This is what Oscar Wilde speaks to when he writes: "It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors."

Literature is of benefit to us as human beings.

Perhaps so... but again this is not as easily proven as you seem to suggest. For every example of the individual who was enlightened by his or her experience with art, there was the tyrant, dictator, and murderer who was just as profoundly in love with art.

If that is accepted and I see no reason why it should not be from the evidence available, then the abiding puzzle is whether or not there is a connection between what the writer is and what he or she writes.

Art is not exclusively autobiographical. Perhaps no artist can fully escape the influence of autobiography upon his or her work... but it is not the sole source of inspiration. One might also note that the very concept of "self expression" runs into difficulty when we recognize that Walt Whitman was right when he proclaimed: "I contain multitudes". The human being is far to complex to be reduced to a mere single self let alone to an art work.

If a writer is a human being who has behaved badly in their lives, then how do we account for the fact that his or her works works provide the reader with a sense of moral well being?

Are these bad actions the sole measure of his or her being? As Alex suggested, the painter Caravaggio often acted in violent and cruel ways. One might argue that such "violence" is mirrored in the violence... and the extreme drama of his paintings:



Yet at the same time... his paintings convey an unrivaled sense of realism... and humanism... such a depth of human feeling... such empathy for the poor and downtrodden...



Charles Dickens was not a evil person as such, but he treated his wife extremely badly and more or less demonstrated that he was a selfish, amoral human being without feelings for other people.

Which is the complete opposite of what we get from his work that teaches us among other things to value the rich diversity of other human beings.

Your example of Dickens, not unlike Caravaggio, would seem to call the idea of measuring the ART based upon the ARTIST into question.

I am not surprised at some of the nonsense on here, but am slightly disturbed by the apparent one-dimensional quality of what has passed for thinking.

Again with the presumptions of superiority. I'm always struck by the fact that those who truly are the greatest thinkers need not make some false show or egotistic declaration of their own abilities. From my own experience, I have found that the more I learn, the more I realize that I have yet to even touch upon.

[hawthorns]

Ahh, and there you have it: a different point of view and the dummy gets spat out.

What was disturbing was the instant tramlining, as though the original question was superficial.

Your question wasn't superficial, just your answers.

[miyako73]

Talk about serendipity: I almost fell off my chair this evening when I came across this remark in an essay about Barthes, and the way he tried to read texts:

"We may try to be semioticians, but autobiography is always breaking in".

Generalization can be an enemy of literature. If the quoted one is the gist of your proposal, I find it not always applicable or happening.

Do you suggest that we dismiss a rapist's masterpiece that is about love? Inversely, are we going to dismiss a lover's masterpiece about rape? In my view, a writer is a writer first before he or she is anything else.

[vagantes]

Any analysis of reading will establish different elements in the experience which contribute toward the pleasure of the act. (In fact the analysis itself can also be pleasurable). Some of these elements will be to do with emotional, moral or intellectual aspects of the work. When we do this analysis we look at matters to do with public taste (general approbation) intermingled with our own personal histories as well as matters of usage of words etc,.

The autobiographical attitude responds to things we know about the author and no matter how rigorous we are in our analysis they will have an influence.

[hawthorns]

Any analysis of reading will establish different elements in the experience which contribute toward the pleasure of the act. (In fact the analysis itself can also be pleasurable). Some of these elements will be to do with emotional, moral or intellectual aspects of the work. When we do this analysis we look at matters to do with public taste (general approbation) intermingled with our own personal histories as well as matters of usage of words etc,.

The autobiographical attitude responds to things we know about the author and no matter how rigorous we are in our analysis they will have an influence.

No arguments with your first paragraph--that seems logical enough.

It's the second that strikes me as a non sequitur: I'm with you up to the preposition "to." You seem to accept what follows as a statement of incontrovertible fact, but so far I haven't seen any convincing evidence that either supports it or confutes previous arguments/posts. It seems like a logical conclusion if we assume a perfectly linear relationship between an artist's morals/vices and his/her creation. However, I just don't think that's the case. We'd also have to require that readers hold identical moral values so they'd be sure to react in precisely the same way. My view is that people are too complex for these to become reality, especially with regard to the masters. Genius has shown it's fully capable of understanding moral truths that inspire and appeal to us even when it bears no relation to itself.

[vagantes]

Reading is a human activity. As such the reader is influenced by different things that have happened to him or her over the course of his or her life. A writer is likewise a human being.

It would be amazing if like did not respond to like.