I don't believe anyone's mentioned Emerson. I find him quintessential, even if he is also easily identified with the Romantic movement.
I don't believe anyone's mentioned Emerson. I find him quintessential, even if he is also easily identified with the Romantic movement.
I guess then we're saying the same thing. Words are the medium to express. I agree a writer from a distant culture may not get the cultural cues of a work because of a language barrier.Originally Posted by JBI
I didn't say everything was universal.Ask yourself this - if everything in Shakespeare was so universal, what would be the point of Shakespeare?
If you're trying to say that the difference betwen a great writer and a lesser writer is the ability to use language, then I agree. Lesser writers can think up the most original themes ever imagined, and through the lesser execution makes it a lesser work. But a lesser writer can touch on universal themes too. In fact they do.It is the sense that his ideas create newness, or express things better than anyone else in his time period, or perhaps in English in general that has established his reputation. Not his universality, but his style, as these themes you mention, are, as you say, "universal", I.E. they already exist out there, and everywhere.
Are you saying that some cultures may not appreciate a work of art from another culture in the same way? Perhaps I might agree with that. I think it wold take explaining and filling in the cultural distinctions, but it may be done to some level of appreciation. How many people in western countries love and appreciate African music and sculpture? It takes understanding.I don't doubt there are universal things, in the sense that everyone lives and dies. I just doubt that literature is "universal". It's subject matter may be, but the actual text is merely expression.
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I really enjoy Emerson, along with Thoreau.
All ART is constructed of a language... whether it be written, visual, musical, kinetic (dance) etc... All language is learned and dependent upon culture. Music is often spoken of a "universal language" (lacking the barriers of language) but is this true? How many can appreciate the music of Chinese opera, Arabic chant, etc... to the point that they can discern that which is better and best? By and large we draw our own conclusions and make our aesthetic judgments from the position of our own culture. As a visual artist I am greatly enamored of Islamic miniatures, Byzantine mosaics, Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblocks, etc... but I must admit that my own opinions are largely formed by my in-depth and profound experience of Western art. In spite of the fact that I admit that ART is deeply dependent upon culture... I will still admit that certain works of ART achieve a greater degree of "universalism" than others. This may be owed to a variety of reasons... but primarily it would seem that it involves the fact that certain artist... and certain artworks achieve a recognition and an appreciation by a broader audience from across various cultures. Shakespeare is appreciated by not merely the English-speaking world, but also in France, Russia, Germany, (most of Europe), Japan, China, India, etc... Beethoven and Mozart are performed throughout Europe, the Americas, Asian, etc... yet the Shanameh... the great Persian epic poem which may aesthetically rival Homer, Dante, and other "universal" figures is largely unknown... while the same is not true of the Arabian Nights. In spite of this, I would assume that when a work of art is spoken of as "universal" it denotes that the work deals largely with "universal" concerns... with issues that are common to all mankind: birth, death, love, lust, jealousy, anger, hatred... in a manner that is not excessively tied to a single culture or a certain time or place.
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Even translation relies on the translator, not just on the Work. If I paint a picture from a live model, who is beautiful, I would probably seek to capture some of the beauty. The same is with translation, except that perhaps some hands are unable to get exactly that which is beautiful about it, or portray it accurately. Sometimes a translator, though very seldom, can make something more beautiful. I would throw the KJV over the Hebrew Bible, and I hear Dostoevsky improves in translation, but that isn't the point. The translator is just as much a part of the process as the original author.
It isn't Shakespeare you hear when you see Shakespeare in French, but merely a French interpretation of Shakespeare. Likewise, anything not in the original is but an interpretation by one, or a few people of the original.
Hence the famous French saying that sounds something to the extent of:
"We are blessed with a new Shakespeare in every generation."
JBI wants literature to be words and symbols without meaning because it allows him to dismiss content out of hand. He's probably reading a lot of Saussure, Chomsky, Derrida and guys like that right now for a modern criticism class, and in contemporary criticism there's a large movement to make meaning plastic or reinterpretable. If he wants to get good grades then his opinions naturally have to be aligned with those of the people he's reading. He has to minimize the universal, downplay all previous theories, and make a big deal about signifiers and signified. Ceci n'est pas un critique.
By focusing our primary value upon the particular rather than the general attributes we are actually privileging an interpretation or point of view. In this case, the position is very clearly an elitist view of art as it seeks to minimize the importance of less finely executed works of art which happen to share the same themes as great works or art. It may not be intentional, but the emphasis of language to the exclusion of content has that effect. It discredits less polished, more popular forms of art. It delegitimizes the masses experience, monopolizes the power (who gets to interpret, or create), brands less crafted works as different, other, alien, pretends various people are not enjoying the same thing. This bastardization of the popular experience is disenfranchisement, a negation of the pleasures regular people experience from reading, framing aesthetics as either right or wrong. The populace says, “Look here, we like the same things. What we read is more or less the same.” But the elitist says, “No, it is our differences which matter. There is no common bond. We do not enjoy the same things. Our enjoyment is different. Our books are different. We are different.”
If we admit that content is primary and language secondary, or if they were equal, or if perhaps there were such a thing as a universal then that would mean that the popular would share a common ground with the elite and would have to be judged on a gradient rather than a good/bad mutually exlusive dichotomy. Back in March we had this discussion on the Byron, Shelley, or Keats? Thread, and there also I made the case for theme, subject, and content. StLukesGuild and Petrarch's Love illustrated their position with the example of Arthur Brooke's Romeus and Juliet. They claimed that what made Shakespeare's version better was his skillful handling of language. What they failed to address, and what I was too tired to point out, was that although Brooke's Romeus and Juliet was inferior to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the content probably raised it above the main of Brooke's own oeuvre.
JBI's stand has a second effect in that it allows him to raise works of art with unworthy themes, minimal content, obscure application, and oblique language, which wallow in narcisistic eccentricity to the level of greatness by virtue of their individual diction. Case in point, his mention of Finnegans Wake. There is no subject more frivolous than that of sophistry, the splitting of hairs, and disection of language. Authors who make words their subject are prone to the worst abuses of language and self-conscious navel gazing. The authors he would raise from oblivion to the heights of Mount Parnassus are the ignoble pygmies who would gild a lily, polish a turd, and pen beautiful words in a cause for which it would be waste of breath to speak. “These same people also think themselves clever if one has to be clever to understand them, as Diomedes wittily remarked, and prefer to write something that will result in amazement rather than comprehension(Erasmus, De Copia).”
Finally, JBI and StLukesGuild are fond of saying that literature is not translatable. They quote Frost and say that “Poetry is what get's lost in translation.” This is one more view that can be extrapolated from their position. If the phonemes are more important to you than the enthymemes, then of course you are going to say that nothing is translatable.
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I am, one, chiming in, and two, staying out of this to the extent that I don't see the big deal, in terms of universalism and specialization (or exclusiveness, or elitism) existing hand in hand. Any aesthetic elevation may contain universal traits even while being cued into particular cultural codes. Language may not be universal, but all languages function pretty much the same way with S-O-V structures, and can find approximation between themselves. Diderot's honnete may not be translatable into English, but a good translator can back-door out of it to remain true to the original intent, and no means no in English or Russian.
Light In August is more universal than The Tin Drum both in ease of read and critical interpretation, but both novels make brilliant use of *the Other*, of metaphorical redemption, and examine fascism in the 20th century, even if appreciation of Grass takes a little more effort and grasp of literary theory.
I suppose it's inevitable that something as wide-ranging as American literature will lead people to go off on a tangent so that the original thread becomes lost in a discussion on something else. All this talk about universality, language etc. etc. is way off beam to the original subject. How can universality apply when the original post was entitled "AMERICAN" literature.
So please let's get back to discussing US writers and their output. Tangential subjects can be discussed in other threads.
You are right Brian. It's amazing how discussions evolve and take on a life of their own.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
Because of the Western world's ethnocentric approach to literature, no doubt?
Mortalterror, I'm not sure I get your connection between your first and second paragraphs. If you are associating relativism and elitism, I would have said the contrary - a universalistic thought would be more likely to shape hierarchies (as it has done for cultures, ie all cultures reach towards a common aim, therefore some are more backwards than others because they are further off from that aim), whereas a relativistic viewpoint would be more inclined to admit the differences between cultures and therefore more open to them. What you are describing ("It delegitimizes the masses experience, monopolizes the power (who gets to interpret, or create), brands less crafted works as different, other, alien, pretends various people are not enjoying the same thing.") is what a universalistic standpoint does. One of the things Derrida (and some of his predecessors) did was open the academic world onto works that were seen as alien and other (and popular). The emphasis on language, if taken too strictly, can also lead to putting Shakespeare and Eminem on the same level.
If there was no connection and you just meant that focusing on language and style to the detriment of content is elitist, I definitely agree with you.
To come back to the subject of American literature, what do you think about Henry James? Do you consider him to be an American author, even if he became British?
I want to respond, but perhaps can a moderator move the offtopic posts to another thread, so we don't sidetrack this thread even more?
The Henry James question has already been discussed on page 4 of this thread.Because of the Western world's ethnocentric approach to literature, no doubt?
Mortalterror, I'm not sure I get your connection between your first and second paragraphs. If you are associating relativism and elitism, I would have said the contrary - a universalistic thought would be more likely to shape hierarchies (as it has done for cultures, ie all cultures reach towards a common aim, therefore some are more backwards than others because they are further off from that aim), whereas a relativistic viewpoint would be more inclined to admit the differences between cultures and therefore more open to them. What you are describing ("It delegitimizes the masses experience, monopolizes the power (who gets to interpret, or create), brands less crafted works as different, other, alien, pretends various people are not enjoying the same thing.") is what a universalistic standpoint does. One of the things Derrida (and some of his predecessors) did was open the academic world onto works that were seen as alien and other (and popular). The emphasis on language, if taken too strictly, can also lead to putting Shakespeare and Eminem on the same level.
If there was no connection and you just meant that focusing on language and style to the detriment of content is elitist, I definitely agree with you.
To come back to the subject of American literature, what do you think about Henry James? Do you consider him to be an American author, even if he became British?
Ah, thank you - I missed quite a lot of this interesting thread, being sick.
I'd love to know what you think make American authors American, and I read a few tentative answers to this question on the page you referred me too, but they remain just that, tentative. I can think of a few themes, but they come from a Francocentrist perspective, so please correct me if I'm wrong, especially as my knowledge of American literature is limited:
_ puritanism (and the almost schizophrenic outlook it gives sometimes, when a puritan streak is in conflict with a desire for freedom)
_the wilderness
_The conquest of nature/corresponding hubris/final mastery or failure
_ the failure of the American dream, and I suppose of ideals in general
_ ?
And beyond typically American themes, is there an archetypically American voice and is it definable? I'm sorry if that's already been answered as well, I'm still a little woozy.
The discussion about universality, by the way, seems to be a natural outcome of this attempt at definition, rather than a mere digression - maybe because it is impossible to really define an artist by his/her nationality?
These themes are interesting, germane to the subject and should generate some informative replies. Unfortunately, I have to leave now but I will certainly come back to this thread later.
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