Universality and Literature

[JBI]

Just to add, compare these two:

In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows:
"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,
"The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
"The wonders of my hand." The City's gone,
Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.
We wonder, and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragments huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.
—Horace Smith.

And the more famous:

OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley


Both deal with the same topic, same theme, and essentially same things. One is clearly better than the other. I would argue one is a decent poem, whereas the other is completely rubbish. The reason? Clearly style.

[Virgil]

What about Flaubert's precise vocabulary, in which he chose each word specifically for its sound, and the possible meanings it could carry. What about the context in general?

Knowing the trends in historical writing, the context is always obscured, no matter what. Context can only be guessed at. We know how the Renaissance writers probably thought, but the spirit of the age, in the sense that they understood it, is definitely lost.

If context is lost, then it is not a failure of language, but an unknown understanding. Context can be fill in and I fully believe one can get 99.9% of Madam Bovary as Falubert intended. Have you read a scholarly edition of Dante's Divine Comedy? Do you see how line by line annotation fills in the work?

Not even that though - the way we read literature is completely different now than in the past. Our tastes are atuned to different things, our expectations are idfferent, are reactions more subtle, and I would argue less emotional.

But that's what scholars are not supposed to do. If they are doing their job well, they are getting atuned to the writer and his culture and times. You or I may not get all of Shakespeare as he wanted, but we have not filled in all the context.

Sonnet 30
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.

I think contemporary readers would, putting asside the authors reputation, generally agree that the poem is quite hyperbolic, and a bit a flop. The ending doesn't satisfy the argument, and to us, I think the speakers thought of his dear friend quenching his sorrows is rather silly. I think also, that the periphrasis in the first 3 quatrains would, to us, seem a little over the top. The language seems hyperbolic and manipulative, echoing itself in the couplet, where the resolution isn't really one. The poem, as a poem outside of the poets reputation therefore, can be taken to be a bit of a flop.

I like that poem. But none the less our rating a work varies form time to time, I agree. But that's not a failure of language. That's because our values may have shifted. One can still read that poem the way Shakespeare intended and understand it the way Shakespeare intended.

In truth, different scholarly opinions show the destruction of a so called "universal". Lycidas for instance, Milton's famous Elegy, was considered a failure by Doctor Johnson, and perhaps now gets its reputation thanks to the works of William Hazlitt, expressing the opposite.

Like I said, that's a shift in values, not a shift in understanding the language.

What we think we know about a context of a text is a mere guess. We cannot possibly recreate the reaction that the text a) originally had on audiences and b) was intended to have on audiences. We can try to interpret texts within their historical context, but we cannot read them in their original context. We can only say this fits with a, and this fits with b, and this was influenced by c.

Perhaps some context can be lost. I agree. I still don't understand how that leads to a failure of language.

[JCamilo]

If context is lost, then it is not a failure of language, but an unknown understanding. Context can be fill in and I fully believe one can get 99.9% of Madam Bovary as Falubert intended. Have you read a scholarly edition of Dante's Divine Comedy? Do you see how line by line annotation fills in the work?

Understanding is the last important thing ever. Catholic Church inputed on Virgil interpretations that had nothing to do with the a roman writer and that didnt affected Virgil quality at all.
It is worst, do you claim to have understand all Kafka, Mallarme, Joyce, William Blake even Dante's works? I know I have not, and since i read the Comedy for the first time (when I had no idea even about Virgil and the copy I read just had historical notes) I was appalled. Art is about emotion and impact, not explantion or understanding. Even Dante would deny it with his four different meanings, only one of them had any relation with the context.
One can argue a basic level of understanding on vocabulary is necessary, but that is all.

But that's what scholars are not supposed to do. If they are doing their job well, they are getting atuned to the writer and his culture and times. You or I may not get all of Shakespeare as he wanted, but we have not filled in all the context.

Neither we ever will with all historic revisionism Shakespeare is taited. Any Shakespeare a scholar will see is his Shakespeare. It is not relevant, Shakespeare is not alive because the Romantics discovered the spirit of his time, but because they transformed him in such way that he fit on XIX century.

Perhaps some context can be lost. I agree. I still don't understand how that leads to a failure of language.

Context is lost, always. But that is irrelevant. His point seems to me how the change of context changed the vallue given to a work, not about failures.

[JBI]

Not just the value, but the work itself. The way we interpret texts in general has changed. The way certain phrases sound in our heads has changed. The way the sound itself of the language has changed effects our reading.

There is always something changed by time. Homer is not the original Homer today, especially in translation. Our ears hear different things, our bodies react in different ways. If we see a tragedy for instance, I would argue a contemporary western audience has less of an emotional reaction than audiences in the past. If we read a poem, the act of reading itself is different, as we have access today to millions of poems.

Language itself seems to have different effects on the reader than it did in the past. The weight of words is different, and no amount of scholarly reading is likely to reinforce the initial feeling. We may guess at the pronunciation of Chaucer, but the point of it is irrelevant to the reading, as we cannot possibly recreate him. We can read the words in the margins, explaining the text, but do you mean to tell me it doesn't affect the over feel of the text?



It's not just politics that has changed, and "corrupted our reading". And this is not just the rambling of those evil "contemporary critics".

I see no problem with stating that something isn't universal. That is perhaps better - it allows the works more room to grow. Textual ambiguity, and variance of interpretation is necessary for the well being of the text.

Each reader brings something different to the text, and each reading brings something different. The text doesn't have a "truth", or point to a "truth", and there is no "truth" of the poem, but merely an ability for the reader to come up with whatever truths he sees fit.

[Virgil]

Each reader brings something different to the text, and each reading brings something different. The text doesn't have a "truth", or point to a "truth", and there is no "truth" of the poem, but merely an ability for the reader to come up with whatever truths he sees fit.

I can accept that. But I still maintain that a writer had something in mind to express and that is fixed with the text. The text didn't change. It is up to the reader, if he so cares, to find the context that reaches the author's meaning.

[JBI]

Yes, but the text transcends its maker. What the author had in mind is generally irrelevant. Romantic notions of getting to know the artist through the work are silly at best. The goal of the work is for the reader to experience the text, not the text's author. As soon as the pen is put down, the author ends, and the reader begins. Otherwise we would only seek to find out what the "author thought" about his text, and try to piece context and author's biography in the text, and not piece together our understanding of the work from the text itself. And there are critics who still dig for the author in the work, even amongst the evil "contemporary critics", perhaps especially amongst them.

Abrams Diagram from the Mirror and the Lamp is still probably the best definition of critical schooling and approaches.

[Virgil]

Yes, but the text transcends its maker. What the author had in mind is generally irrelevant. Romantic notions of getting to know the artist through the work are silly at best. The goal of the work is for the reader to experience the text, not the text's author. As soon as the pen is put down, the author ends, and the reader begins. Otherwise we would only seek to find out what the "author thought" about his text, and try to piece context and author's biography in the text, and not piece together our understanding of the work from the text itself. And there are critics who still dig for the author in the work, even amongst the evil "contemporary critics", perhaps especially amongst them.

Abrams Diagram from the Mirror and the Lamp is still probably the best definition of critical schooling and approaches.

I have to go look up the Abrams diagram. I don't recall it. And I do agree that digging for the author in the work is a silly notion, though understanding an author's life can help one arrive at the full context of his work. I completely agree with this: "The goal of the work is for the reader to experience the text, not the text's author." And while I understand that the reader brings his perceptions to a work, he's not allowed to think up anything he wants. If a reader decided that Moby Dick was about Ahab's sublimated love of animals that would just be an erroenous reading. The text didn't fluctuate. The reader was imprecise.

[JBI]

I have to go look up the Abrams diagram. I don't recall it. And I do agree that digging for the author in the work is a silly notion, though understanding an author's life can help one arrive at the full context of his work. I completely agree with this: "The goal of the work is for the reader to experience the text, not the text's author." And while I understand that the reader brings his perceptions to a work, he's not allowed to think up anything he wants. If a reader decided that Moby Dick was about Ahab's sublimated love of animals that would just be an erroenous reading. The text didn't fluctuate. The reader was imprecise.

Here you go. Usually now though, most people envision it being text and not work in the middle, and the arrow towards reader pointing in both directions.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...d_the_lamp.svg

Then those theories can be broken down into Expressive ones, dealing with the artist, Mimetic ones, dealing with the universe, Pragmatic ones, dealing with the audience, and Objective ones, dealing just with the text, though I think the last one is unobtainable.

I think it is somewhat ironic that people become obsessed with finding "truths" and "universalities" in texts, when really, even from Plato, fiction, and poetry was viewed as a lie, and the poet (in this case Homer) a "liar", one who simply obscures reality. The language of metaphor, and rhetoric in general, has been traditionally viewed as deceitful, but it is the foundation of literature as a whole.

[Virgil]

My computer won't let me open that link. I wonder why?

[JBI]

My computer won't let me open that link. I wonder why?

Maybe because it points to the image. Try this link, and click the image.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:A...d_the_lamp.svg

[JCamilo]

I have to go look up the Abrams diagram. I don't recall it. And I do agree that digging for the author in the work is a silly notion, though understanding an author's life can help one arrive at the full context of his work. I completely agree with this: "The goal of the work is for the reader to experience the text, not the text's author." And while I understand that the reader brings his perceptions to a work, he's not allowed to think up anything he wants. If a reader decided that Moby Dick was about Ahab's sublimated love of animals that would just be an erroenous reading. The text didn't fluctuate. The reader was imprecise.

Here is the thing, readers should be allowed to do all mistakes in the world. That is what put readers apart from critics. Simple because some of those "mistakes" are going to allow 1 in a thousand of those readers to be a writer with something original to say.
Think about Virgil - his vision of Homer and mostly, of Homer's heroes are obviously mistaken. Odisseus is not exactly an example to be followed because the kind of morality he represented for the greeks was not well accepted during Octavio's age. This "misinterpretation" of Virgil allowed him to build up a stronger Aeneas, more suited for his work and objective. There is more examples such as the various changes on 1001 Nights translations, Milton's Lucifer, Borges's Pierre Menard (This a proposital mistake) and there goes.
Obviously it will generate a lot of garbage and watsoever (People often when someone says there is a mistake as censorship) but it is also what allows literature (and art) to be constly new.
I would also point how is hard to tell : the text is writen down. Homer and Shakespeare's texts are writen up...

[Bitterfly]

I think it is somewhat ironic that people become obsessed with finding "truths" and "universalities" in texts, when really, even from Plato, fiction, and poetry was viewed as a lie, and the poet (in this case Homer) a "liar", one who simply obscures reality. The language of metaphor, and rhetoric in general, has been traditionally viewed as deceitful, but it is the foundation of literature as a whole.

Careful careful about using Plato - he writes that the plastic arts and poetry are deceitful because they consist in the imitation of an imitation (they are mimetic of the physical world which is a mere appearance). You contradict yourself, since I don't understand how you can defend art both as mimesis and as a primarily linguistic construct existing independantly from all reality. It's either one or the other.

I think Plato's approach to art was also somewhat complex than what you present it to be - he also wrote that the contemplation of beauty in the physical world was one of the ways of reaching the Forms (which you can identify with eternal Truths). He also used what he called "noble lies", myths, in order to make his thought understandable to everyone - behind the lie, lies the truth, ultimately.

To go beyond traditional representations of metaphor, I'd advise reading Paul Ricoeur.

I suppose that lots of us are "obsessed" with finding truth in texts because it bestows gravity on the whole task of studying literature. If you admit that there is no truth but only a myriad of meanings in every text, what is your purpose in analysing them? It gets a little depressing, not to say vain. That's why I like to think the critical enterprise is in its modest way "metaphysical" - going beyond to understand the world, even if it only boils down to understanding oneself.

[Virgil]

I think it is somewhat ironic that people become obsessed with finding "truths" and "universalities" in texts, when really, even from Plato, fiction, and poetry was viewed as a lie, and the poet (in this case Homer) a "liar", one who simply obscures reality. The language of metaphor, and rhetoric in general, has been traditionally viewed as deceitful, but it is the foundation of literature as a whole.

This is true. I was only pointing out that universalisms exist. I did not mean to imply that they are a necessary function of art. Whether the writer consciously is striving for something universal is a decision on theme selecton. I'm not sure that Henry James strives for universalism, but I do think he is an artist. I did not comment on "truth." I probably have not given that enough thought. It does ring with the famous Keats ending of "Ode To a Grecian Ode": "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Maybe because it points to the image. Try this link, and click the image.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:A...d_the_lamp.svg

Thanks. It worked here. Abrams is a fine critic. I see he is still alive, and born in 1912, he is almost 100. In Wiki he catagories literary theories as such:
Classification of Literary Theories in "The Mirror and the Lamp"

The classification used by AbramsLiterary theories, Abrams argues, can be divided into four main groups:

Mimetic Theories (interested in the relationship between the Work and the Universe)
Pragmatic Theories (interested in the relationship between the Work and the Audience)
Expressive Theories (interested in the relationship between the Work and the Artist)
Objective Theories (interested in close reading of the Work)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._H._Abrams

That kind of Aristotilian formulation works wonders to my mind.

Careful careful about using Plato - he writes that the plastic arts and poetry are deceitful because they consist in the imitation of an imitation (they are mimetic of the physical world which is a mere appearance). You contradict yourself, since I don't understand how you can defend art both as mimesis and as a primarily linguistic construct existing independantly from all reality. It's either one or the other.

I think Plato's approach to art was also somewhat complex than what you present it to be - he also wrote that the contemplation of beauty in the physical world was one of the ways of reaching the Forms (which you can identify with eternal Truths). He also used what he called "noble lies", myths, in order to make his thought understandable to everyone - behind the lie, lies the truth, ultimately.

To go beyond traditional representations of metaphor, I'd advise reading Paul Ricoeur.

I suppose that lots of us are "obsessed" with finding truth in texts because it bestows gravity on the whole task of studying literature. If you admit that there is no truth but only a myriad of meanings in every text, what is your purpose in analysing them? It gets a little depressing, not to say vain. That's why I like to think the critical enterprise is in its modest way "metaphysical" - going beyond to understand the world, even if it only boils down to understanding oneself.

Good points!! Let me also say, though I think I implied this in one of the posts above, that some writers consciously strive for imprecision (through ambiguity), and therefore make the work already on its surface incapable of being pinned down in meaning. There is a wonderful book on rheteoric that really defines precise and imprecise writing that has shaped my thinking on this subject. It is called Clear and Simple as the Truth by Francis-Noël Thomas and Mark Turner. Here: http://www.classicprose.com/ and here: http://www.denisdutton.com/clear_and_simple_review.htm. It divides writers between those that strive for clarity and those that strive for ambiguity, and this manual outlines how to strive for clarity. Most of it is writing manual, but it did have an interesting theoretical understanding of language at the beginning. For me I think it is important that one consciously writes with a purpose, and that purpose includes a decision to be clear or not.

[Drkshadow03]

JCamillo, you're obviously misunderstanding me. I am not arguing that style doesn't matter at all; I am just saying it's slightly less important than substance. The best literature is produced when style and substance work together as in the Shelley poem JBI quotes above; if the style is bad or even silly, as I personally found some of the imagery and word choices in the first poem by Horace Smith, then it's going to distract from the substance. However, I do think authors tend not to write for the Russian Formalist reason because it was a good excuse to write an allegory or it was a good reason to write a sonnet or they wanted to show off their style, but the primary reason writers write is they have something to say about the world they live in and the issues that matter to them and us.

Now before we start whipping out references, I'm sure we can all find quotes from a writer or poet who claims they write to bring beauty into the world or aesthetic pleasure, but I think by and large the real impulse behind writing is to share important thoughts about the world and existence.

JBI keeps alluding to Plato as if Aristotle never happened to challenge Plato's views on art.

His slippery slope argument that universal themes would be a waste of time to write because we would already know and understand them is not only fallacious, but complete nonsense. It would be all too easy to counter that assertion with another slippery slope, in fact its complete opposite end of the spectrum, that if literary works are so different between cultures we would never be able to understand them, even translated, because they are so alien to our own understandings; I wouldn't of course seriously make that argument and claim it as my own because it too is fallacious for exactly the same reason.

Likewise, his argument that universal themes would act as a buzzkill for artistic interpretation and appreciation, and that they only stay fresh and vibrant because interpretations and tastes change, is also dubious. One could easily argue the opposite is true, that it's precisely what's universal about a particular work of art, the universality of the issues it raises, and the universality of the problems, conflicts, and situations that the characters face is what allows us to continually relate to the work. Not because we keep re-reading it in a new light.

Almost all the points people raised about changing values from period to period are aesthetic considerations rather than drastically different reinterpretations of meaning. Of course when you go so far as to change the ending of Shakespeare so that at the end of Romeo and Juliet everyone lives, then yes, I suppose you're doing more than engaging in aesthetic changes and you're changing the substance too. However, one could also argue that such drastic changes really isn't Shakespeare anymore.

In all fairness, I am interested in literature as part of the history of ideas (philosophy, history, and other disciplines). JBI seems to have more of a poetry background, while I have more of a novel/short story/fiction background. I think when you consider some of these elements it also gives some context to where each of us is coming from.

Bringing us full circle back to translations.

Berasheet bara Elohim eit HaShamayeem v'eit Haaretz. Haaretz Hatah tohoo vahvohoo vechoshech Al-penay Tehos. ve'ruach Elohim Merachefet al-penay HaMayeem. - transliteration of Hebrew by me (pardon any errors), The Soncino Edition of the Pentateuch and Haftorahs ed. Dr. J. H. Hertz

In the beginning G-d created the heaven and Earth. And the earth was without form , and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of G-d moved upon the face of the waters. - KJV

In the beginning, when G-d created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters. - The New American Bible

When G-d began to create heaven and earth--the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from G-d sweeping over the water--" - JPS Tanakh

Three different translations. What we see here is none of them are exactly the same, yet one can easily tell they were all translated from the same source (well, I suppose some might be translated from the Greek rather than the Hebrew). Major differences are almost all Grammatical; however, grammatical differences do in fact change the meaning.

By ending the first line with a period in the KJV, the events in the narrative change from the other version. G-d created the heavens and earth. Period. He performed this task, then stopped. Then the already formed earth created in the first sentence was form and voidless. So He gave the already created earth some shape.

In contrast, the JPS Tanakh's grammar significantly changes the events and to a degree the meaning. By adding the word "began" and starting with "When" it means G-d is in process of doing. Instead of a period we find dashes. This creates the effect that before the creation began, the universe and world were unformed and void, covered in darkness and the deep. And the process of creation is going to change this.

In one version G-d creates the heavens and earth. Then what he created at that point is formless and a void. In the other version, G-d creates the heavens and earth from the formlessness and void itself.

I think JBI is correct to point out the problems with translations. All three of these English translations are very different. Sometimes they can even have slightly different meanings based on little things like where they put the period or how they translate the Hebrew word "ruach" (which can be translated either as Spirit or Wind I believe).

With that said, as usual I think he goes too far with the problems he raises. I agree that a translation is sort of an imitation, a copy that does its best to capture the original, but will ultimately fail to do so completely. The main reason being certain concepts, word-play within the language, cultural references, and other stylistic issues cannot always be expressed or have no linguistic equivalent in another language or culture. On the other hand, I think he overexaggerates the problem when he starts claiming that the Chinese Shakespeare is not the English Shakespeare, the Italian Hemingway is drastically different from the American Hemingway, etc. In this regard, you might say I also agree with Virgil. Quite a bit might be lost in translation, but a lot of its retained too, especially the core of a book; so we really aren't reading fundamentally different books or authors. Once again looking back up at the Bible translations, for all the differences I think there are far more similarities.

[JBI]

I don't know, I think most writers write for money, well perhaps just a large number of them. To even some of the "great" authors, Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf, George Eliot, Money was the objective of the art - expression is part of it, but financial success is one goal.

On the subject of the Bible though, the Tovuvavohu (transliteration mine) mentioned doesn't translate. The actual meaning is ambiguous. Is it Chaos? Void? what is it? There has been significant debate amongst scholars on the very subject.