what art isn't (potential Dylan content)
Maya Allison
about Dylan's distaste for the critics... I love this:
"Aesthetics is for the artist as ornithology is for the birds"
--Barnett Newman, painter
Lloyd Fonvielle
Reminds me of Oscar Wilde: "There are two ways to hate art. On is to
just hate it. The other is to appreciate it intellectually."
(Like many Oscar quotes, this one may be apocryphal, but who cares?)
Kenneth Wilson
> Maya Allison wrote:
>
> > Just for a Saturday afternoon chuckle, and since I've heard so much
> > about Dylan's distaste for the critics... I love this:
> >
> > "Aesthetics is for the artist as ornithology is for the birds"
> > --Barnett Newman, painter
I read that quote this afternoon myself. I'm tempted to go up to Philly for
that show.
> Reminds me of Oscar Wilde: "There are two ways to hate art. On is to
> just hate it. The other is to appreciate it intellectually."
And last night this from Kathleen Norris, which reminded me of a recent
thread: "Bad art tells lies, which is one of the many reasons that, as Oscar
Wilde put it, it is a great deal worse than no art at all." She goes on to
mention "the lies that our culture gives us, the lies that bad art feeds on:
that sincerity matters more than discipline, and sentiment more than
emotion, that the desire to 'express oneself' is sufficient as an artistic
expression communicating something important to others."
Ken
Tricia J
flower to talk about botany.
Lloyd Fonvielle
That's good.
Maureen & Stephen Scobie
<kfw...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> And last night this from Kathleen Norris ...
>"the lies that our culture gives us, the lies that bad art feeds on:
> that sincerity matters more than discipline, and sentiment more than
> emotion, that the desire to 'express oneself' is sufficient as an artistic
> expression communicating something important to others."
Basically I agree with this opinion, though I suspect that the
distinction between sentiment and emotion is a tricky one. But what
interests me is the word "discipline," which implies a knowledge of the
craft, and of the principles on which that craft is based -- i.e.,
aesthetics. So Norris is in fact arguing *against* Barnett Newman's
"Aesthetics is for the artist as ornithology is for the birds."
Which is fine by me, because I think that phrase is cute but stupid.
Stephen
Lloyd Fonvielle
> In article <00cb01c1e41c$e2faf7c0$99d4bfa8@u8f5h7>, Kenneth Wilson
> <kfw...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> >
> > And last night this from Kathleen Norris ...
> >"the lies that our culture gives us, the lies that bad art feeds on:
> > that sincerity matters more than discipline, and sentiment more than
> > emotion, that the desire to 'express oneself' is sufficient as an artistic
> > expression communicating something important to others."
>
> Basically I agree with this opinion, though I suspect that the
> distinction between sentiment and emotion is a tricky one. But what
> interests me is the word "discipline," which implies a knowledge of the
> craft, and of the principles on which that craft is based -- i.e.,
> aesthetics.
Well said -- but modern aesthetics rarely concentrate on craft, more on
"conceptual" issues, which have largely supplanted craft as a concern of
artists. (I. e., it's what the artist "means" that counts rather than what he
shows, and this intention can usually be supplied only by academic criticism
and those familiar with its terms.) The idea of "discipline" once supplied by
the universally comprehended imperatives of formal craft can easily, and often
does, get lost in the process.
At any rate, I'd be willing to bet that this is what Kathleen Norris is
talking about.
Greg Wallace
often a critical phase after the initial burst of creativity (here's the
potential Dylan content: he writes much more than he finally sings). It
seems pretty certain to me that the critical phase will proceed with some
aesthetic lumping, splitting, and weighting in the back of the artist's
mind. Ornithology, in other words.
"Maya Allison" <ml...@columbia.edu> wrote in message
news:932ccf44.02041...@posting.google.com...
KReilly
I'm not sure how one puts "emotion" into a work of art. Where is it? The
emotions of the artist are indecipherable. Some art can have an incredible
emotional impact. This does not suggest that the artist felt those emotions as
she created it. Does Norris mean that passion is important?
Greg Wallace
emotion in art, or even art. Putting aside 20th century visual and
conceptual art due to my lack of comprehension, I'll make a few facile
suggestions:
Poetry seems to involve a metaphorical education so that a reader might
'share' a poet's emotional response to some subject matter. That's for
those persons who still read it.
The best popular music is also an education of sorts, and emotion seems to
be communicated by small violations of expected patterns. I'm thinking of
Armstrong or Parker or Holiday or Coltrane or Hendrix but there are many
others (actually I've just listed some big violators). In all the cases
just listed most would agree that their best stuff was loaded with joy and
anguish due to well placed violations. Dylan fits in here, too, although
his violations involve the English language and ways of singing it. There
are possibly artists who someone finds important due to their lack of
connection with joy and anguish, but that's nothing I understand, either.
"KReilly" <kre...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020414120113...@mb-bj.aol.com...
KReilly
>I take one of your points to be that we're working with imprecise language,
>emotion in art, or even art. Putting aside 20th century visual and
>conceptual art due to my lack of comprehension, I'll make a few facile
>suggestions:
>
>Poetry seems to involve a metaphorical education so that a reader might
>'share' a poet's emotional response to some subject matter. That's for
>those persons who still read it.
>
>The best popular music is also an education of sorts, and emotion seems to
>be communicated by small violations of expected patterns. I'm thinking of
>Armstrong or Parker or Holiday or Coltrane or Hendrix but there are many
>others (actually I've just listed some big violators). In all the cases
>just listed most would agree that their best stuff was loaded with joy and
>anguish due to well placed violations. Dylan fits in here, too, although
>his violations involve the English language and ways of singing it. There
>are possibly artists who someone finds important due to their lack of
>connection with joy and anguish, but that's nothing I understand, either.
I think much popular discourse on art rests upon the intentional fallacy. I do
not even think of the author when I'm experiencing art. The author is an
afterthought, something to be discussed over coffee or drinks when one is not
engaged with the art itself. Have you ever heard TS Eliot read his poetry?
Utter banality. Many authors are poor interpreters of their own work.
I do not think that certain arrangements of notes or patterns of colors
intrinsically elicit particular emotions although, culturally speaking, there
is much truth in this. Many bright and perceptive people do not appreciate
Dylan, Coltrane or Hendrix. Particularly Coltrane's later material, it's just
not accessible to a novice. I do recognize that many people (more often than
not those who've taken the time and effort required to cultivate an
appreciation for certain kinds of music or painting) do experience the same
emotions at precise moments in a performance or while viewing a painting. I
also think that it's a mistake to conclude from this that the music or paint is
mediating emotion from the artist (often the long dead artist) to the viewer.
The aesthetic theory of "expressionism" not only implies a real relationship
between the artist's emotional life and the viewer's but it is only a small
step away from saying that the sensual sounds of the saxophone will lead to
premarital sex (this was a conservative argument used to condemn jazz) or that
rock and roll leads to violence in children.
Greg Wallace
I've since reverted. Since you mentioned Eliot, some of his stuff doesn't
seem particulary 'unified' without him 'behind it'. And I suspect I'm not
alone in 'hearing' him while reading, even though I agree he's no performer.
I'll concede a lot of theory, all the imprecision and poor mediation and so
forth, so long as I retain the common response of the 'trained' (snobby
term). The mystery of common response is what is interesting, even if the
author/player thought of a lover far away while I mourn my mother. Just to
further muddy the waters, the artist as medium often knows what he has
'received' and regards it the same way as his eventual audience.
"KReilly" <kre...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020414134128...@mb-de.aol.com...
KReilly
>Some professors attempted to train me to ignore (or not infer) an author but
>I've since reverted.
The fictive construct we call the author may be useful but it may not. The
author is part of the overall context. If we know absolutely nothing about an
author, does the work become any more indecipherable? What I find naive is the
absolute privileging of the author's intent. Fetishizing the author has other
dubious effects. Say you read a poem not knowing the author, then subsequently
discovered it was by Eliot. Could the poem initially be poor then suddenly
become better by virtue of its author? An author's name can interfere with our
evaluation of the work. Even the lyrics to Barry Manilow's "Mandy" can look
interesting when they're attributed to Dylan.
>I'll concede a lot of theory, all the imprecision and poor mediation and so
>forth, so long as I retain the common response of the 'trained' (snobby
>term).
I find it ironic that the suggestion that we learn how to appreciate art in
interpretive communities is academic snobbery. It is far more elitist to
suggest that anyone who does not agree with the Western canons is a philistine.
If you played Coltrane's "Interstellar Space" or Glass' "Einstein on the Beach"
and they cringed (I cringe at the latter) do you conclude that they're just not
sophisticated enough to recognize the artistry?
Greg Wallace
the issue then I'm on your side. Where I get snagged is 'absolute
privilege.' There's little privilege possible and 'absolute' can be readily
dismissed as not humanly possible. And a solipsist can insist that there's
nothing that can be proved (until he gets mugged) and that there are no
other people because his knowledge is mediated. We're always talking
degrees and not absolutes. 'Fetishizing' is a new aesthetic term to me,
although it seems pejorative. Can you define it a little more?
"KReilly" <kre...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020414143531...@mb-de.aol.com...
KReilly
>Where I get snagged is 'absolute
>privilege.'
To clarify, the absolute privileging of the author was a reference to its
pervasiveness throughout contemporary popular culture as well as much of
academia not to the degree of privilege in particular interpretations. Sorry
for the lack of clarity there.
>'Fetishizing' is a new aesthetic term to me,
>although it seems pejorative. Can you define it a little more?
It's a Marxist term. When I said that authorial intent fetishizes the author I
was suggesting that there is actually very little concern with concrete authors
and their intentions and that instead it functions to mask interests. It serves
as a device to exclude interpretations that do not fit with the received
wisdom. There are examples of authors who've disagreed with popular
interpretations of their work who were dismissed. When Randy Newman was
attacked for writing "Short People" he explained his intent, his critics then
shifted to the his "unconscious intent." You should read John Hospers' essay on
the fallacy of expressionism.
Kenneth Wilson
> The best popular music is also an education of sorts, and emotion seems
to
> be communicated by small violations of expected patterns. I'm thinking of
> Armstrong or Parker or Holiday or Coltrane or Hendrix but there are many
> others (actually I've just listed some big violators). In all the cases
> just listed most would agree that their best stuff was loaded with joy and
> anguish due to well placed violations.
Yes, and they knew the patterns and how to play them in the first place,
which is why they could consciously deviate from them. So that goes back to
Norris emphasis on *disciplined* expression, with its correlatory claim that
there is such a thing as bad art.
Ken
Kenneth Wilson
> but modern aesthetics rarely concentrate on craft, more on
> "conceptual" issues, which have largely supplanted craft as a concern of
> artists. (I. e., it's what the artist "means" that counts rather than
what he
> shows, and this intention can usually be supplied only by academic
criticism
> and those familiar with its terms.) The idea of "discipline" once
supplied by
> the universally comprehended imperatives of formal craft can easily, and
often
> does, get lost in the process.
> At any rate, I'd be willing to bet that this is what Kathleen Norris
is
> talking about.
I think so. She cites "a Christian gentleman who makes his living as a dance
critic" -- clearly someone schooled to tell good from bad craft -- as
claiming to have seen good liturgical dance only once or twice in 20 years.
It's just a one pager in a 1998 issue of The Christian Century (a relatively
liberal rag, folks, that's not fundamentalist triumphalism), and her main
point is that Christians no longer no how to discern what art is appropriate
for worship. ("My Way" on the carillon is out, as the song's arrogance
contradicts the basic Christian tenet that Christ came because Our Way has
screwed things up so bad). She blames lack of discernment on "the difficulty
most of us have in telling good from bad art."
The Oprah Winfrey-ish values of our so-called therapeutic society are one
big and obvious reason we have this problem. The PoMo aversion to the
concept of meaning, and the Leftist refusal to acknowledge that decadent art
degrades the morals of its audience, also play into it. What we're left with
is a laissez-faire (anything-goes) aesthetics, and a fragmented,
increasingly balkanized, relatively ignorant audience -- 'you like Dylan, I
think Drivel is just as worthy of my time, and since there's no such thing
as good or bad art, you can't tell me nothin' so why should I bother
listening to you? I'm happy in my own sub-culture, my own [little] world.'
Obviously, there are other things that contribute to this fragmentation, and
some of them are good, but it's still a sad situation.
Ken
robertandrews
>I do not even think of the author when I'm experiencing art.
Is that also true when you read a letter written to you?
Lloyd Fonvielle
> At creative inception, this is true almost by definition. But there is
> often a critical phase after the initial burst of creativity (here's the
> potential Dylan content: he writes much more than he finally sings). It
> seems pretty certain to me that the critical phase will proceed with some
> aesthetic lumping, splitting, and weighting in the back of the artist's
> mind. Ornithology, in other words.
Good point. Floorbirds probably just popped into his mind -- he had to step
back a moment to concieve of them flying from dawn 'til dawn. Ornithology
indeed.
Lloyd Fonvielle
It's hard to imagine an artist creating emotion in a work of art without having
experienced that emotion, but in the creation itself, she must be quite
unemotional. Frank Capra once said, "I used to think that drama is when the
actress cries. It's not. Drama is when the audience cries." Much less is drama
when the artist cries -- though if you think of art as self-expression, that
would be enough.
At the same time, it's absurd to imagine Shakespeare, father of two
daughters, writing the death of Cordelia without some actual emotional
relationship to the material, though this can't be proved or defined in terms
acceptable to academic study.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> The aesthetic theory of "expressionism" not only implies a real relationship
> between the artist's emotional life and the viewer's but it is only a small
> step away from saying that the sensual sounds of the saxophone will lead to
> premarital sex (this was a conservative argument used to condemn jazz) or that
> rock and roll leads to violence in children.
I can state categorically that rock and roll often leads directly to pre-marital
sex, and sometimes even to marital sex.
robertandrews
>It's hard to imagine an artist creating emotion in a work of art without
having experienced that emotion, but in the creation itself, she must be
quite unemotional.
Obviously that's incorrect. Perhaps you meant that the creation of art
isn't exclusively emotional.
Lloyd Fonvielle
Or when you read a newgroup post from someone you don't know? Or when a
loved one tells you something? The "author" of those communications is
just as much a fictional creation as William Shakespeare. We ascribe
"reality" to the author of Shakespeare's plays for the same reason we
ascribe "reality" to the persona of a loved one -- it's in the nature of
communication to do so, and no human communication would be possible if
we failed to do so.
Maya Allison
>robertandrews wrote:
Hmm. I actually think that most communications build-in indications
of how you are meant to perceive the author, and with that the
matching cues of how the author perceives the reader. It is less a
fiction than an essential part of the communication. Umberto Eco
posits a "model author/model reader" way of understanding
communications and narrative, which I've always found very compelling.
It rings true. And the empirical reader may rebel against the cues
for reading the work, but usually it is in our best interest to engage
in the fictionalization of the author for the purpose of understanding
the story, newsgroup post, love letter, etc. This is a VERY different
thing from assuming you understand the actual person authoring -- that
would be rudely presumptuous, as in mind-reading.
If I write "what's wrong with you?" without any further cues, there
are a million ways you could take it (accusation? sarcasm? genuine
concern?). It would be rude to assume you know what I mean, unless
there is a clear context already in place, and it would be rude of me
to write it without further cues. The reasonable thing to do is ask
for clarification, cues for how to read the words. So it's not so
much that I construct a fiction of you, but that we engage in
constructing it together, giving cues to one another as to what is
being asked of us as readers...
I'm being asked by my eyes to go to sleep now...
Lloyd Fonvielle
I think that the creation of emotion in art relies on craft and on a cold
calculation of how the elements being manipulated and arranged will be
experienced by the audience addressed. I suppose that an artist might be
both creator and audience at the time of making the art -- might feel the
emotion she is trying to convey at the time she's working to convey it --
but without the calculation, the coldness of sheer craftsmanship, the
emotion cannot be directly communicated. An artist unselfconsciously
"pouring her heart out" might arouse feelings of pity, and perhaps
identification, but not the miraculous interior recreation of emotion that
true art can provide.
Howard Mirowitz
Maureen & Stephen Scobie <msc...@coastnet.com> wrote in message
news:130420022247165712%msc...@coastnet.com...
Disciplined use of aesthetic craft, even when imbued with genuine emotion,
does not guarantee that the result is good art.
Aesthetic craft is frequently used in a very disciplined way to tell lies.
That is called propaganda. Or else advertising.
And as we all know, "propaganda all is phony"
H.
Howard Mirowitz
Lloyd Fonvielle <navi...@compuserve.com> wrote in message
news:3CBA4B1C...@compuserve.com...
No! Even marital sex?
This could be the greatest discovery since Viagra,
H.
Howard Mirowitz
Kenneth Wilson <kfw...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:00f201c1e4c9$5374af80$96d4bfa8@u8f5h7...
Ah, but when the violations are introduced and replicated with sufficient
discipline by enough practicioners, they become the canonical earmarks of a
new genre.
Isn't that how jazz got started?
H.
robertandrews
>I think that the creation of emotion in art relies on craft and on a cold
calculation of how the elements being manipulated and arranged will be
experienced by the audience addressed.
Was that sentence coldly calculated? Or did it come off the top of your
head, like a Satchmo solo?
>I suppose that an artist might be both creator and audience at the time of
making the art -- might feel the emotion she is trying to convey at the time
she's working to convey it -- . . .
This is an essential component in creating the art I like. I don't like
trolling musicians!
> . . . but without the calculation, the coldness of sheer craftsmanship,
the emotion cannot be directly communicated.
There's a lot of pride, & perhaps even warmth, in the craft. Our methods &
purposes are no different than Dylan's, he's just (for the most part) got
more talent & technique.
Kenneth Wilson
> I find it ironic that the suggestion that we learn how to appreciate art
in
> interpretive communities is academic snobbery.
It's not that there is no such thing as an "interpretive community," it's
that audiences aren't sovereign. They don't create either the world that
moves the artist to create, or the medium he works in. To use a
half-fascetious example, I heard Geoff Muldaur in a coffeehouse Friday
night, and in one song late in the evening he raised his voice fervently to
a near shout, and woke up the proprieter's toddler son, who started loudly
crying. The poor kid was outside of our interpretive community, yes, but he
was also flat out mistaken when he thought he sensed cause for alarm in
Geoff's voice.
> It is far more elitist to
> suggest that anyone who does not agree with the Western canons is a
philistine.
I've never seen that simplistic claim made.
> If you played Coltrane's "Interstellar Space" or Glass' "Einstein on the
Beach"
> and they cringed (I cringe at the latter) do you conclude that they're
just not
> sophisticated enough to recognize the artistry?
That's only one possibility, but it is a possibility.
Ken
Kenneth Wilson
> When I said that authorial intent fetishizes the author I
> was suggesting that there is actually very little concern with concrete
authors
> and their intentions and that instead it functions to mask interests. It
serves
> as a device to exclude interpretations that do not fit with the received
> wisdom. There are examples of authors who've disagreed with popular
> interpretations of their work who were dismissed. When Randy Newman was
> attacked for writing "Short People" he explained his intent, his critics
then
> shifted to the his "unconscious intent."
If Randy Newman wanted a career he could hardly come out and say, "I'm a
curmudgeon and a bit of a misanthrope and I took it out on short people."
But critics could place that song in the context of his work.
Remove authorial intent and the work is open to anyone's "interests." The
people most interested in power and control are the ones forever "unmasking"
these concerns in other people's work.
Ken
Maya Allison
I don't find craftsmanship to be cold at all. It's very different from
pouring your heart out, but its the grounding, meditative aspect of truth --
the unselfish part, where the artist must consider how this will arrive to
the audience's eye, and makes adjustments accordingly, until it works
aesthetically... Baking bread is a good example of a careful craft
requiring calculations, but it's just the thing for "pouring your heart out"
into...
Lloyd Fonvielle
A Hindu image of the soul: "Two birds on the same branch -- one eats of the
sweet fruit, the other watches but doesn't eat. They are the best of friends."
Baking bread is definitely an emotionally satisfying experience, but you'd
better measure the flour, water and yeast with clear-eyed calculation.
Maya Allison
right, but clear-eyed is different from cold. That's all I meant.
Clear-eyed in the service of warmth.
KReilly
><kfw...@earthlink.net> wrote
>> Yes, and they knew the patterns and how to play them in the first place,
>> which is why they could consciously deviate from them.
>Ah, but when the violations are introduced and replicated with sufficient
>discipline by enough practicioners, they become the canonical earmarks of a
>new genre.
>Isn't that how jazz got started?
Voila! and new conventions are born! Innovative art forms, those that violate
the conventions of their predecessors, have historically been deemed "bad art"
and immoral!
KReilly
>"KReilly" <kre...@aol.com> wrote:
>>I do not even think of the author when I'm experiencing art.
>Is that also true when you read a letter written to you?
It depends on the kind of letter it is? A letter from someone who knows me is a
different genre. Only a narcissist would view art as a letter directed to him.
Do you read a poem or a Dylan song as a personal letter to you?
KReilly
I don't read Shakespeare as a communication between William and myself.
KReilly
>Lloyd Fonvielle <navi...@compuserve.com> wrote
>> I can state categorically that rock and roll often leads directly to
>pre-marital
>> sex, and sometimes even to marital sex.
>
>No! Even marital sex?
>This could be the greatest discovery since Viagra,
>
>H.
>
If it's true, as some conservatives suggest, that dancing is a form of sex then
I agree music leads to sex.
KReilly
>If I write "what's wrong with you?" without any further cues, there
>are a million ways you could take it (accusation? sarcasm? genuine
>concern?).
Yes the authorial intent camp would say that in your example two people who
disagreed over what your sentence mjeans could simply ask you and because you
are the authoritative interpreter of your phrase, you could decide who was
right and who was wrong. If someone looked at one of De Kooning's women, his
voice has no authority unless you're only interested in what he was thinking.
Someone might say De Kooning's work demonstrates the Freudian fear of being
swallowed or devoured by woman. Some might say they embody a patriarchal hatred
of women. Some might see them as maternal or beautiful women. No one is right
or wrong, interpretations are only convincing or not convincing. Speech acts
between individuals who broadly shared overlapping interpretive communities are
guided by implicitly agreed upon rules. If a stranger dangerously cuts me off,
I should react angry or annoyed not smile and wave. Speech acts between people
typically have a particular telos in mind. They are pragmatically guided. Art
is not (for the most part) guided by pragmatic concerns. Who made the fur
dishes and bowls?
KReilly
>Aesthetic craft is frequently used in a very disciplined way to tell lies.
And some lies are true!
KReilly
>KReilly wrote:
>> I find it ironic that the suggestion that we learn how to appreciate art
>in
>> interpretive communities is academic snobbery.
>
>It's not that there is no such thing as an "interpretive community," it's
>that audiences aren't sovereign.
I know of no one who would suggest such a thing.
Lloyd Fonvielle
In the 20th Century, they usually were. The idea of the rebellious artist
rejecting and violating the traditions that created him to forge new, better,
innovative art is largely an invention of 19th century Romantics -- but you will
find few instances of it in history.
Most great art has been based in tradition, and innovation has come about by
the "creative misreading" (as Harold Bloom puts it) of that tradition. The
Italian Renaissance is a perfect example -- as is Dylan. Dylan rejected certain
conventions of the commercial, popular music of his day, but only to embrace
wider, older, deeper traditions in American music. He looks backwards to Charley
Patton the way the Renaissance looked backwards to ancient Greece.
There is no such thing as "progress" in art, and most great art derives from
a conservative, not an avant-garde, impulse -- from a radical love of tradition,
not a radical rejection of it.
Lloyd Fonvielle
Absolutely!
Lloyd Fonvielle
I don't see how you could read it as anything else.
KReilly
>Remove authorial intent and the work is open to anyone's "interests."
This is precisely the point. All interpretations are "interested," value-laden
and political. The constant reference to the author as the controller of
meaning masks the interestedness of interpretation and portrays it as neutral
and objective. If, for example, you look at the history of interpretation of a
text you can easily see how "political" interpretations were. They become
obvious when everyone doesn't share the interpretive bias. Feminists have shown
this to be the case. What appears as a natural unbiased interpretation to you,
a plain reading of the text with the author's intentions in mind, is at the
same time a highly politicized reading to someone else. Everyone should put
their cards on the table up front, THAT will help to level the playing field.
Maya Allison
> ml...@columbia.edu (Maya Allison) writes:
>
>> If I write "what's wrong with you?" without any further cues, there
>> are a million ways you could take it (accusation? sarcasm? genuine
>> concern?).
>
> Yes the authorial intent camp would say that in your example two people who
> disagreed over what your sentence mjeans could simply ask you and because you
> are the authoritative interpreter of your phrase, you could decide who was
> right and who was wrong.
If it is a personal exchange, though, it IS reasonable to ask the author
what they mean when insufficient cues exist. If it is a "work" in its own
right, i.e., published for an audience of more than one, then there are
generally cues to the reader for how to imagine the author's intonation, and
cues to the reader for what sort of reader to be. If it's good work. Those
cues may cease to work if the cues are built into the context of a certain
period, and requires some historical reconstruction in order to read the
cues accurately. If you've just thrown a banana-cream-pie at someone, and
he is reported to have responded "what's wrong with you?" then we need to
know that a banana-cream-pie had just been thrown to recognize this as both
comedy and accusation.
Again, this is different from asking the empirical author what they meant,
or assuming they are writing to you personally.
> If someone looked at one of De Kooning's women, his
> voice has no authority unless you're only interested in what he was thinking.
> Someone might say De Kooning's work demonstrates the Freudian fear of being
> swallowed or devoured by woman. Some might say they embody a patriarchal
> hatred
> of women. Some might see them as maternal or beautiful women. No one is right
> or wrong, interpretations are only convincing or not convincing.
I do agree that no one is right or wrong, they are responding, with a true
and genuine -- therefore valid-- response to different cues, depending on
their own context. Informed by a feminist reading of the history of art,
I'm going to see certain things in certain paintings, that are certainly not
likely, from an historical perspective, to be conscious cues from the actual
painter to his audience -- most sexism is unconcious anyways. They are cues
nonetheless.
As the viewer, I have a certain amount of choice in which cues to go by in
modeling myself as an ideal viewer, narrowing or broadening my range of
attention to cues depending on how much I want to weight historical
perspective or Freudian theory. And I can choose to act as if the only cues
that matter are ones we can prove to be the author's intent.
> Speech acts
> between individuals who broadly shared overlapping interpretive communities
> are
> guided by implicitly agreed upon rules. If a stranger dangerously cuts me off,
> I should react angry or annoyed not smile and wave. Speech acts between people
> typically have a particular telos in mind. They are pragmatically guided. Art
> is not (for the most part) guided by pragmatic concerns. Who made the fur
> dishes and bowls?
Meret Oppenheim. Great art is very pragmatic. It all depends on how we
agree to define pragmatic. The fur-lined tea-cup is a perfect use of the
model reader's set of cues. She asks that we recognize the shape of a
tea-cup and its purpose. In imagining its purpose, she asks that we add fur
to it, and asks us to include in our imagination what we already know about
the nature of fur. This is the height of pragmatism in the use of cues to
create a lovely comic dissonance within the viewer...
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Informed by a feminist reading of the history of art,
> I'm going to see certain things in certain paintings, that are certainly not
> likely, from an historical perspective, to be conscious cues from the actual
> painter to his audience -- most sexism is unconcious anyways. They are cues
> nonetheless.
>
> As the viewer, I have a certain amount of choice in which cues to go by in
> modeling myself as an ideal viewer, narrowing or broadening my range of
> attention to cues depending on how much I want to weight historical
> perspective or Freudian theory. And I can choose to act as if the only cues
> that matter are ones we can prove to be the author's intent.
I don't think you can ever prove authorial intent, except in very broad terms. But
positing authorial intent is very useful in appreciating art, as it is in face to
face communication. It assumes a human experience other than one's own, and forces
one to engage in imaginitive sympathy to try and reconstruct it. It also
recognizes an urge to communicate (with someone) in the author, which is
objectively present, else the work would not exist, and therefore must be related
to the structure and design of the work.
The danger of reducing a work of art to a text whose only valid existence is
in the mind of its reader is that it makes the mind of the reader lazy -- it does
not call her outside herself. Alan Bloom, in "The Closing Of the American Mind",
argued that we should not read the classics only because they are still relevant to
our times but also because they aren't -- because they might open up to us another,
different relationship to experience than our existing interpretive communities
provide. This sounds odd to modern ears, since we assume progress in human
affairs, and cannot imagine that ancient works might contain valuable insights
unrecognized, perhaps even prohibited, and in any case hard to recognize in our
times.
But of course they do.
Maya Allison
> Maya Allison wrote:
>
>> Informed by a feminist reading of the history of art,
>> I'm going to see certain things in certain paintings, that are certainly not
>> likely, from an historical perspective, to be conscious cues from the actual
>> painter to his audience -- most sexism is unconcious anyways. They are cues
>> nonetheless.
>>
>> As the viewer, I have a certain amount of choice in which cues to go by in
>> modeling myself as an ideal viewer, narrowing or broadening my range of
>> attention to cues depending on how much I want to weight historical
>> perspective or Freudian theory. And I can choose to act as if the only cues
>> that matter are ones we can prove to be the author's intent.
>
> I don't think you can ever prove authorial intent, except in very broad terms.
> But
> positing authorial intent is very useful in appreciating art, as it is in face
> to
> face communication. It assumes a human experience other than one's own, and
> forces
> one to engage in imaginitive sympathy to try and reconstruct it.
I agree. And the more cues (from the author, from the context, from
reinterpretive efforts) with which to engage the work, the better. The
question is simply one of choosing and weighting cues for the terms of
engaging the work, and to what extent you wish to comply with the author's
cues for the model reader (a sympathetic relationship to the text) or
subvert the interaction between model author and reader, by undermining
certain cues and weighting different cues, perhaps from a different context,
as in the case of the feminist re-reading of the so-called Great Masters.
Dylan is an interesting one, actually, on this topic. He's taken so many
images and rearranged their surrounding cues to the audience so
dramatically, that the same image takes on a whole new narrative.
This is why I find his use of old blues references with sexist connotations
so interesting -- I truly feel like he has re-modeled the ideal reader for
these phrases, and rearranged the cues significantly enough to make it clear
to me that he's not relating to women in these L&T songs like the songs'
ancestors did (no end to the trouble women bring...). There is instead an
awareness of his own mortality and masculinity-as-a-constructed that it
changes the unconscious male privilege perspective into a very conscious
presentation of male privilege and its variations and failures. I'm
thinking here especially of the role-playing in Lonesome Day Blues and
Floater, but also a recent post discussing the rewriting of Romeo's
relationship to Juliet -- that's a critique of the male gaze that Dylan made
so smoothly that we just laugh. But it's brilliant.
> It also
> recognizes an urge to communicate (with someone) in the author, which is
> objectively present, else the work would not exist, and therefore must be
> related
> to the structure and design of the work.
> The danger of reducing a work of art to a text whose only valid existence is
> in the mind of its reader is that it makes the mind of the reader lazy -- it
> does
> not call her outside herself. Alan Bloom, in "The Closing Of the American
> Mind",
> argued that we should not read the classics only because they are still
> relevant to
> our times but also because they aren't -- because they might open up to us
> another,
> different relationship to experience than our existing interpretive
> communities
> provide. This sounds odd to modern ears, since we assume progress in human
> affairs, and cannot imagine that ancient works might contain valuable insights
> unrecognized, perhaps even prohibited, and in any case hard to recognize in
> our
> times.
> But of course they do.
Agreed.
Kenneth Wilson
> >Remove authorial intent and the work is open to anyone's "interests."
>
> This is precisely the point.
I know it is. You take a well-meaning but unconvincing *political* position.
> All interpretations are "interested," value-laden
> and political.
Some interpretations are first and foremost open-minded and honest and as
disinterested as humanly possible.
Ken
Lloyd Fonvielle
> The question is simply one of choosing and weighting cues for the terms of
> engaging the work, and to what extent you wish to comply with the author's
> cues for the model reader (a sympathetic relationship to the text) or
> subvert the interaction between model author and reader, by undermining
> certain cues and weighting different cues, perhaps from a different context,
> as in the case of the feminist re-reading of the so-called Great Masters.
There is also the possibility of uncovering cues which have ceased to exist in our
culture, and which can open a whole new window on the possibilities of experience.
This is especially intriguing in the case of gender-related cues. The power and
intellect and full humanity ascribed to some female characters in Homer, Sophocles,
Shakespeare and Tolstoy is very hard to reconcile with modern terms of analysis --
there is simply nothing quite like them in the mainstream culture of our time, when
female "equality" is nominally valued. Similarly, the quality of kindness and
concern for children was once entwined with the idea of virility, of full manhood,
in a way our mainstream culture would not recognize. (It survived, curiously, into
the early days of the Hollywood Western, where you could always spot the hero
because he was the one who stopped to be nice to a kid as he rode into town. By
the time of "Shane" this had become a self-conscious, almost nostalgic device.)
Kenneth Wilson
> If it's true, as some conservatives suggest, that dancing is a form of sex
then
> I agree music leads to sex.
Are there really liberals out there who deny the sexual suggestiveness of
much popular dancing? Say it isn't so,
Ken
Kenneth Wilson
By some people. Some people don't have ears to hear and are uncharitable
too. That proves nothing.
Ken
Kenneth Wilson
> Only a narcissist would view art as a letter directed to him.
> Do you read a poem or a Dylan song as a personal letter to you?
Don't you read The Times They Are A Changin' as a message song, written to
an audience?
"Come gather 'round people ..."
Ken
Greg Wallace
conflict between your 'conservatism' and my 'innovations'. And I mentioned
jazz and improvisational types which sort of skewed my point toward the 20th
century. But it still holds for other centuries. The violations might
harmonic or rhythmic or metric or they might be large things like entirely
different subject matter. While the Romantics emphasized what we've made a
religion of these days, there's plenty historical basis for their viewpoint.
"Lloyd Fonvielle" <navi...@compuserve.com> wrote in message
news:3CBB24C3...@compuserve.com...
Pete Oppel
kfw...@earthlink.net writes:
I will admit that, when it's right, sex can lead to music.
=========================================================
"When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his
sleep, not screaming like all the passengers in his car."--Will Rogers
Greg Wallace
argument. For there to be any standards, even inside an interpretive
community, there must be ideals and ideals can only be understood as
absolutes. Skeptics can poke fun (and do) at any imaginable ideal. Very
broad seems to be very boring when it's debate time.
The authorial intent is also made murkier by the delight many artists take
in ambiguity and paradox (Dylan is one such).
"Lloyd Fonvielle" <navi...@compuserve.com> wrote in message
news:3CBB37B6...@compuserve.com...
KReilly
>> I don't read Shakespeare as a communication between William and myself.
>
>I don't see how you could read it as anything else.
I read the plays as cultural artifacts that are part of the Western canon. I
know next to nothing about the particulars of the man but I knew as a kid that
his plays were "serious" literature and that if you had good taste you liked
them. Sometimes I'll read a story, play or novel by a relatively unknown writer
that has been judged to be a lesser light by the canons of Western literature
and I'll wonder what forces coalesced to turn Shakespeare into a master and
pass over other stuff. The accidents of history are often inexplicable. Apart
from the continuities of language, I view Shakespeare like I do an ancient cave
painting, with awe but very little thought of their actual creator.
Michael G Smith
> I agree music leads to sex.
I've heard that some conservatives won't have sex standing up because
they're afraid someone might see them through a window and think
they're dancing.
KReilly
>If it is a personal exchange, though, it IS reasonable to ask the author
>what they mean when insufficient cues exist.
It's more than reasonable, it's a requirement for survival. If we're at a four
way stop, it's imperative that you understand that my flashing high beams mean
you can go ahead of me.
>If it is a "work" in its own
>right, i.e., published for an audience of more than one,
I understand most art to be not a means to communicate something but as the end
in itself. The Mona Lisa is not a coded message that needs to be deciphered.
>there are
>generally cues to the reader for how to imagine the author's intonation, and
>cues to the reader for what sort of reader to be. If it's good work. Those
>cues may cease to work if the cues are built into the context of a certain
>period, and requires some historical reconstruction in order to read the
>cues accurately.
This is true if you're interested in how people understood the work when it
first appeared. The history of interpretation is fascinating and one of my
primary interests but it's not required for art to be meaningful. Art is
equally available to be appropriated by anyone. I'd be more interested in poor
inner city interpretations of Shakespeare than what most academics have to say.
>I'm going to see certain things in certain paintings, that are certainly not
>likely, from an historical perspective, to be conscious cues from the actual
>painter to his audience -- most sexism is unconcious anyways. They are cues
>nonetheless.
Sure, I just don't put much weight in whether something is "conscious" or not.
A cue is a cue.
>And I can choose to act as if the only cues
>that matter are ones we can prove to be the author's intent.
And this is where you may fall prey to the intentional fallacy. If an
interpretation rests upon the shaky foundation of the author's proven intent
then you have to stay busy reading all the latest research on the author to
buttress your interpretation. Uh oh! scholars now argue that Dostoevsky (one of
my favorite writers) was a pedophile, must I revise my thesis on Crime and
Punishment? Does this invariably cast new light on all his work? Are secret
hidden motives to be found everywhere? I think this is lunacy.
>Meret Oppenheim. Great art is very pragmatic. It all depends on how we
>agree to define pragmatic.
Much art involves notions of the pragmatic, that doesn't necessarily make it
pragmatic. I rephrased this by saying that art is not the means to an end (like
a practical speech act such as, "What time is it?") but the end in itself,
though it certainly does not occur in a vacuum and is part of a larger cultural
poetics, making allusions and references.
Barnett Newman's "Stations of the Cross" speaks powerfully in light of the
second world war but that is just its initial cultural context. If his "Onement
I" survived an apocalypse and was unearthed in 1000 years it might still be
meaningful, it might not. Do you think "Onement I" would be rendered
meaningless in such a scenario? An interpreter often benefits from as broad a
cultural context as possible but missing allusions only makes art mean
differently it does not render it meaningless. Authorial intent has been
revealed to be, more often than not, extremely elitist making art inaccessible
to all but those with a properly trained, ear, eye or palate. How many Van
Gogh's were used for target practice?
KReilly
>You take a well-meaning but unconvincing *political* position.
Thank you. Condescension coming from you is a complement. EVERY position is
unavoidably political.
>Some interpretations are first and foremost open-minded and honest and as
>disinterested as humanly possible.
Why would someone offer an interpretation if they were disinterested? I've
always found that a laughable sleight of hand. Two-thirds world critics,
feminist critics, have time and again revealed the white, male, heterosexual
bias not only in the Western canons but in their interpretive history. Your
well-intentioned open-minded honesty looks like naivete in the best light.
KReilly
>KReilly wrote:
>> Voila! and new conventions are born! Innovative art forms, those that
>violate
>> the conventions of their predecessors, have historically been deemed "bad
>art"
>> and immoral!
>
>By some people. Some people don't have ears to hear and are uncharitable
>too. That proves nothing.
It proves that the changing of the guards is never without struggle. People
rarely change their minds, they just fade away and are replaced by people who
think differently. I would be suspicious of any argument that condemned today's
music with the same reasoning that was used to deem jazz immoral.
KReilly
I don't.
Lloyd Fonvielle
I don't believe for an instant that this is how you actually experience reading
Shakespeare. It's just not possible.
Maya Allison
> mayaa...@earthlink.net writes:
>
>> If it is a personal exchange, though, it IS reasonable to ask the author
>> what they mean when insufficient cues exist.
>
> It's more than reasonable, it's a requirement for survival. If we're at a four
> way stop, it's imperative that you understand that my flashing high beams mean
> you can go ahead of me.
>
>> If it is a "work" in its own
>> right, i.e., published for an audience of more than one,
>
> I understand most art to be not a means to communicate something but as the
> end
> in itself. The Mona Lisa is not a coded message that needs to be deciphered.
This difference in understanding might be the source of great problems.
What could it mean for art to be an end in itself? Doesn't its very
existence imply an eventual or imagined viewer?
This doesn't mean something as extreme as a message to be decoded, but it
DOES contain cues for the viewer's interaction with it, beginning with which
way is the "right side up, front forward" way to hang the painting -- you
are free to view it upside down and facing the wall, but that would be
rejecting the request implicit-unless-otherwise-stated in a recognizable
image.
>> there are
>> generally cues to the reader for how to imagine the author's intonation, and
>> cues to the reader for what sort of reader to be. If it's good work. Those
>> cues may cease to work if the cues are built into the context of a certain
>> period, and requires some historical reconstruction in order to read the
>> cues accurately.
>
> This is true if you're interested in how people understood the work when it
> first appeared. The history of interpretation is fascinating and one of my
> primary interests but it's not required for art to be meaningful. Art is
> equally available to be appropriated by anyone. I'd be more interested in poor
> inner city interpretations of Shakespeare than what most academics have to
> say.
I agree. Again, it is a choice of which cues you choose to weight.
>> I'm going to see certain things in certain paintings, that are certainly not
>> likely, from an historical perspective, to be conscious cues from the actual
>> painter to his audience -- most sexism is unconcious anyways. They are cues
>> nonetheless.
>
> Sure, I just don't put much weight in whether something is "conscious" or not.
> A cue is a cue.
And that is your choice. And mine -- because it is (to me) impossible to
determine whether Mona Lisa's sadness behind the smile was consciously
included by Leonardo. Who knows, and frankly, I don't care. And even if he
said "she is the happiest person I've ever met" and this was documented in
every possible medium, I'd still say I see some sadness there. But I'm
aware that this is informed by my understanding of how to read emotions on a
face, and that may have changed since his time.
>> And I can choose to act as if the only cues
>> that matter are ones we can prove to be the author's intent.
>
> And this is where you may fall prey to the intentional fallacy.
I'm not "falling prey" to anything (excuse me!), but valuing the author's
stated intention is a system of cues that someone can choose to weight over
mine, especially in the case of artists who provide a great deal of
mediating information for viewing their work.
> If an
> interpretation rests upon the shaky foundation of the author's proven intent
> then you have to stay busy reading all the latest research on the author to
> buttress your interpretation. Uh oh! scholars now argue that Dostoevsky (one
> of
> my favorite writers) was a pedophile, must I revise my thesis on Crime and
> Punishment? Does this invariably cast new light on all his work?
It is your choice to do so or decide this information isn't relevant to your
system of reading.
> Are secret
> hidden motives to be found everywhere?
Certainly. Subconscious ones, if you subscribe to any Freud at all.
> I think this is lunacy.
Entirely possible.
>> Meret Oppenheim. Great art is very pragmatic. It all depends on how we
>> agree to define pragmatic.
>
> Much art involves notions of the pragmatic, that doesn't necessarily make it
> pragmatic. I rephrased this by saying that art is not the means to an end
> (like
> a practical speech act such as, "What time is it?") but the end in itself,
> though it certainly does not occur in a vacuum and is part of a larger
> cultural
> poetics, making allusions and references.
How is it not means to an end? I don't see how you could say this, given my
understanding of your position on the viewer's active role in engaging and
interpreting the meaning of a work of art. If the work is the end, then the
moment the picture is framed, it is dead. If communication is the end, then
art is the means, and communication is the living breathing ongoing thing
that happens over the centuries as people interact with the narrative of the
work and its history, and with each other, as in rmd's community around
Dylan's work, which certainly didn't end the minute the record was pressed,
and won't end when he stops touring.
Perhaps our confusion is in this idea of "the end" when communication is
such an open-ended thing. But you also don't believe it serves the purpose
of communication -- from artist to viewer only? Or among members of a
community and across time between artists and their communities? (Dylan and
Charlie Patton?)?
> Barnett Newman's "Stations of the Cross" speaks powerfully in light of the
> second world war but that is just its initial cultural context. If his
> "Onement
> I" survived an apocalypse and was unearthed in 1000 years it might still be
> meaningful, it might not. Do you think "Onement I" would be rendered
> meaningless in such a scenario? An interpreter often benefits from as broad a
> cultural context as possible but missing allusions only makes art mean
> differently it does not render it meaningless.
I agree. You may be weighting my discussions of cues too heavy on the
cultural side, when I'm speaking more, ahem, pragmatically... though not
exclusively so, of course.
> Authorial intent has been
> revealed to be, more often than not, extremely elitist making art inaccessible
> to all but those with a properly trained, ear, eye or palate.
Passionately agree with you there, while acknowledging that the more you
know around a topic, the broader the palette you have to work from when
deciding how you want to render your understanding of something.
> How many Van
> Gogh's were used for target practice?
Well, if critics were the sharpshooters, then... lots.
KReilly
>KReilly wrote:
>> Only a narcissist would view art as a letter directed to him.
>> Do you read a poem or a Dylan song as a personal letter to you?
>
>Don't you read The Times They Are A Changin' as a message song, written to
>an audience?
No more a "message song" than Isis to me. I don't listen to either song and ask
what Dylan is saying to me. I'm clearly asking different interpretative
questions and am motivated by different interests than many RMDers, some may
even think I mis-interpret his work. How about this? If you ever see him, give
him your personal responses to all the messages he's sent to you. Do this by
sprinting towards him first.
KReilly
Conservatives have long decried the corruptive influence of dancing. Ken, go
rent Footloose.
darren
>
>I don't see how you could read it as anything else.
The historicist: "I read Shakespeare as a communication between William and his
audiences of the time."
The Romantic: "I read Shakespeare like Lloyd Fonvielle does, he's leaning over
my shoulder and whispering in my ear..."
The New Critic: "I don't care about that, I read Shakespeare as the great
creator of eternal works of well-wrought poetry."
The Modernist poet: "I read Shakespeare as my ultimate influence, my Oedipal
predecessor I must slay with my talent."
The deconstructionist: "I read 'Shakespeare' as a multiplicity of contingent
voices, echoing a collection of ideological biases."
The actor: "I'm just bloody grateful he wrote some me some good lines, with
phrasing that allows me to breathe and still be comprehensible, and with any
luck the old bastard should finally get me some good notices."
The fourteen-year-old school student: "I read Shakespeare because my teacher
says I have to."
Darren
" Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow "
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Much art involves notions of the pragmatic, that doesn't necessarily make it
> pragmatic. I rephrased this by saying that art is not the means to an end (like
> a practical speech act such as, "What time is it?") but the end in itself,
> though it certainly does not occur in a vacuum and is part of a larger cultural
> poetics, making allusions and references.
No speech of any kind is ever just pragmatic -- a means to an end. Every act of
conversation, even asking directions from a stranger, has a moral and spiritual
component, in the sense that it is converstaion itself, the ability to converse,
that makes us human, and ultimately humane. Art is a type of conversation which
reminds us of the sacred nature of conversation itself.
The need to construct a persona for the author of a work of art, an persona
which is compatible with all aspects of the work of art, with what we know of the
author's personal history, with what we know of his historical epoch, with all his
other works, with works of his contemporaries he likely knew, is a kind of
practice for constructing the persona of anybody we talk to, and adjusting our
construction continuously so that it's compatible with the person's speech and
actions over time. Conversing with the author of a work of art is a form of
meditation on what it is to be human.
Maya Allison
Lloyd, I suspect you are being a bit mischevious here. Dylan wrote "Just
Like a Woman" for you personally? So, show us your hand: how do you
imagine a Dylan song as a personal letter to you? Taking extreme (some
might say delusional) liberties with your right to construct the fiction of
the author in order to meaningfully hear the music?
Maya Allison
Greg Wallace
there is yet another challenge to conventional wisdom, and this is the most
interesting yet. I often wonder what it will all mean in fifty years,
though. The New Critics thought they were important at one time (talk about
DWEM's!). If the relativism gets too relative, I think future generations
will throw it away as sterile.
"KReilly" <kre...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020415200750...@mb-cm.aol.com...
Lloyd Fonvielle
I have read Shakespeare in all those ways, to one degree or another. But in
moments of deepest engagement, and deepest joy -- stumbling, say, upon the simple
phrase "a lass unparalleled" -- I cannot help thinking, "Damn, Will, that was
good!" I know he said the same thing to himself when he wrote it -- and hoped
somebody would notice. I am that somebody.
tom .
lord?
are you there?
please end this thread now.
please?
pretty please?
thank you, lord.
Kenneth Wilson
> The history of interpretation is fascinating and one of my
> primary interests but it's not required for art to be meaningful. Art is
> equally available to be appropriated by anyone. I'd be more interested in
poor
> inner city interpretations of Shakespeare than what most academics have to
say.
> >I'm going to see certain things in certain paintings, that are certainly
not
> >likely, from an historical perspective, to be conscious cues from the
actual
> >painter to his audience -- most sexism is unconcious anyways. They are
cues
> >nonetheless.
>
> Sure, I just don't put much weight in whether something is "conscious" or
not.
> A cue is a cue.
Yes, but isn't the academic likely to catch many more cues, and in that way
find more meaning?
> Much art involves notions of the pragmatic, that doesn't necessarily make
it
> pragmatic. I rephrased this by saying that art is not the means to an end
(like
> a practical speech act such as, "What time is it?") but the end in itself,
> though it certainly does not occur in a vacuum and is part of a larger
cultural
> poetics, making allusions and references.
> Barnett Newman's "Stations of the Cross" speaks powerfully in light of the
> second world war but that is just its initial cultural context. If his
"Onement
> I" survived an apocalypse and was unearthed in 1000 years it might still
be
> meaningful, it might not. Do you think "Onement I" would be rendered
> meaningless in such a scenario?
Speaking for myself, I think it would still be meaningful, but part of its
original meaning would be lost, and that would be a shame.
Ken
KReilly
>For there to be any standards, even inside an interpretive
>community, there must be ideals and ideals can only be understood as
>absolutes.
Why? We have many standards that we recognize as social conventions. And
standards change over time and vary from community to community. When I hit
Pennsylvania on 95 South and the speed limit drops from 65 to 55 I simply slow
down.
KReilly
A very real fear indeed! And I'm not suggesting conservatives are peeping
voyeurs but someone has to enforce those anti-sodomy laws.
KReilly
It's true. Sweet William O never enters my mind. I'm interacting with a text
within a number of communities, not with a person in any direct way.
Shakespeare produced the texts and he was part of a larger culture and
tradition that produced him. I don't often think of the person who picked the
beans when I drink a cup of coffee.
When I first read Shakespeare I was under the mistaken impression that he never
existed. That old theory still pops up every few years.
Greg Wallace
Clearly there are different kinds of standards. You've brought up a
pragmatic legal compromise but I'm not sure about its applicability to
aesthetic or moral ideals.
Plus I'm on record as saying there are no true relativists. If pushed hard
enough every relativist takes refuge in some moral ideal. I can't deny
historical change and I can't promise it's always an improvement but I
specifically deny that there are actual living relativists.
"KReilly" <kre...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020415212522...@mb-ma.aol.com...
Maya Allison
It seems like you are suggesting an all-or-nothing distinction between a
"text" and a letter to a specific person. Surely there are letters
addressed to different sizes of groups, such as an audience who might be
found attending a play in Shakespeare's time? Or a song written for the
friends of Dylan? At what point do you decide that it is NOT a letter to
you personally, to some extent? Is this post being read without regard to
the "Maya Allison" you've constructed in your interaction with the text in
front of you? (assuming you haven't killfiled me for that joke about
emoticons). Or do you draw the line at the point when it is impossible to
"talk back" to the author?
KReilly
>
>KReilly wrote:
>
>> Much art involves notions of the pragmatic, that doesn't necessarily make
>it
>> pragmatic. I rephrased this by saying that art is not the means to an end
>(like
>> a practical speech act such as, "What time is it?") but the end in itself,
>> though it certainly does not occur in a vacuum and is part of a larger
>cultural
>> poetics, making allusions and references.
>
>No speech of any kind is ever just pragmatic -- a means to an end. Every act
>of
>conversation, even asking directions from a stranger, has a moral and
>spiritual
>component, in the sense that it is converstaion itself, the ability to
>converse,
>that makes us human, and ultimately humane.
I really do respect your thinking Lloyd but I've never had a spiritual
experience when I've read a STOP sign and stepped on my brake pedal.
>The need to construct a persona for the author of a work of art, an persona
>which is compatible with all aspects of the work of art, with what we know of
>the
>author's personal history, with what we know of his historical epoch, with
>all his
>other works, with works of his contemporaries he likely knew, is a kind of
>practice for constructing the persona of anybody we talk to, and adjusting
>our
>construction continuously so that it's compatible with the person's speech
>and
>actions over time.
I simply operate with a different set of questions when I approach art and I
think my experience is not diminished by neglectiong the author. The obsession
with the author is a distraction from the work of art, it focuses attention
away from the art to the author. I'm not interested in the author behind the
work of art, I'll leave that to biographers and archaeologists.
>Conversing with the author of a work of art is a form of
>meditation on what it is to be human.
This is an imaginative exercise that most people do not have the luxury to
engage in. Art for me is often immediate. I like some things instantly, others
I've grown to love over time. There are paintings I love that I often forget
the artist's name. I often forget Ellsworth Kelly's name and I know NOTHING
about him. Kelly might even conclude that my preoccupation with the art rather
than the artist means that he's been successful. I like the way the colors
work in several of his paintings.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Dylan wrote "Just Like a Woman" for you personally? So, show us your hand:
> how do you
> imagine a Dylan song as a personal letter to you? Taking extreme (some
> might say delusional) liberties with your right to construct the fiction of
> the author in order to meaningfully hear the music?
Not for me only, but for me personally. Because, in the first place, he wrote
down in writing what was in his mind. He engaged in a theoretical act of
communication. He took certain actions that resulted in the song being recorded
and distributed widely -- in the full knowledge that it would be encountered, not
just by some abstract "society" or interpretive community, but by a kid in a dorm
room, late at night, by himself. He knew what listening to certain records on
the radio by himself late at night meant to him as a kid -- how they made him
feel less alone, how they taught him things about life that he needed to know,
how he felt they were speaking just to him, when nobody else knew the language of
his heart.
Therefore he knew that this song would be experienced that way by somebody,
and, as I said in another post, I was that somebody -- precisely that somebody.
He probably had a lot of other people besides me on his mind when he created the
song, but he definitely had me in mind -- anonymous as he was when he listened to
Little Richard, unknown to Mr. Richard, but needing Mr. Richard's song.
I remain personally grateful to Mr. Dylan, as I'm sure he remains personally
grateful to Mr. Richard. "It takes two to speak truth -- one to speak and one to
hear." Dylan knows this better than anyone. If you hear him, then he's speaking
to you. It's personal.
KReilly
>Lloyd, I suspect you are being a bit mischevious here. Dylan wrote "Just
>Like a Woman" for you personally? So, show us your hand: how do you
>imagine a Dylan song as a personal letter to you? Taking extreme (some
>might say delusional) liberties with your right to construct the fiction of
>the author in order to meaningfully hear the music?
Lloyd, Why not explain how you interpret art where you know little or nothing
about the author? Or how you'd evaluate a piece of classical music I sent you
with no author attached to it? Exegetical gymnastics are much easier with a
living 20-21st century artist like Dylan. Besides, I'll let the cat out of the
bag, I've seen you in an evening gown and pearls and JLAW may have been written
for you.
Maya Allison
> navi...@compuserve.com writes:
>>
>> KReilly wrote:
>>
>>> Much art involves notions of the pragmatic, that doesn't necessarily make
>> it
>>> pragmatic. I rephrased this by saying that art is not the means to an end
>> (like
>>> a practical speech act such as, "What time is it?") but the end in itself,
>>> though it certainly does not occur in a vacuum and is part of a larger
>> cultural
>>> poetics, making allusions and references.
>>
>> No speech of any kind is ever just pragmatic -- a means to an end. Every act
>> of
>> conversation, even asking directions from a stranger, has a moral and
>> spiritual
>> component, in the sense that it is converstaion itself, the ability to
>> converse,
>> that makes us human, and ultimately humane.
>
> I really do respect your thinking Lloyd but I've never had a spiritual
> experience when I've read a STOP sign and stepped on my brake pedal.
But it is an act of self-preservation (legally and physically), thus the
will to preserve life... perhaps you've just not consciously experienced the
life force at work when you heed the stop-sign... I know, I'm being a bit
coy, but it is an interpretive possibility, and conversely, choosing to
ignore the language meant to halt your car, well, I'd say that has a moral
and spiritual component, potentially. Responding to a stop sign IS
interacting with your community.
Kenneth Wilson
> >> Voila! and new conventions are born! Innovative art forms, those that
> >violate
> >> the conventions of their predecessors, have historically been deemed
"bad
> >art"
> >> and immoral!
> >
> >By some people. Some people don't have ears to hear and are uncharitable
> >too. That proves nothing.
>
> It proves that the changing of the guards is never without struggle.
Well, OK, but it doesn't show that the old guard is always wrong. Coltrane
and Coleman were geniuses -- I guess that means Ornette still is! -- but how
much free jazz after them stands up to Armstrong, Basie, Ellington and
Parker? I'm not condemning free jazz, for pete's sake, and I like a lot of
it, but it wouldn't make my desert island top 10. No doubt some of the
critics who hated the stuff were philistines, but some were probably just
smart critics.
> People
> rarely change their minds, they just fade away and are replaced by people
who
> think differently. I would be suspicious of any argument that condemned
today's
> music with the same reasoning that was used to deem jazz immoral.
A lot of the jazz we love and revere today probably was immoral, because of
its intention. It's no accident the stuff was bred in bordellos.
Ken
Lloyd Fonvielle
> navi...@compuserve.com writes:
>
> >I don't believe for an instant that this is how you actually experience
> >reading
> >Shakespeare. It's just not possible.
>
> It's true. Sweet William O never enters my mind. I'm interacting with a text
> within a number of communities, not with a person in any direct way.
> Shakespeare produced the texts and he was part of a larger culture and
> tradition that produced him. I don't often think of the person who picked the
> beans when I drink a cup of coffee.
That's a really silly analogy. You and I could pick coffee beans. You and I
could not write the plays of Shakespeare. Neither could anyone else in the larger
culture and tradition that produced him. Big difference.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> I really do respect your thinking Lloyd but I've never had a spiritual
> experience when I've read a STOP sign and stepped on my brake pedal.
Yes, you have -- you just haven't recognized it as such.
> >Conversing with the author of a work of art is a form of
> >meditation on what it is to be human.
>
> This is an imaginative exercise that most people do not have the luxury to
> engage in. Art for me is often immediate. I like some things instantly, others
> I've grown to love over time. There are paintings I love that I often forget
> the artist's name. I often forget Ellsworth Kelly's name and I know NOTHING
> about him. Kelly might even conclude that my preoccupation with the art rather
> than the artist means that he's been successful. I like the way the colors
> work in several of his paintings.
I cannot respond to this, lest the Rothko thread be reopened.
Maya Allison
> KReilly wrote:
>
>> People
>> rarely change their minds, they just fade away and are replaced by people
> who
>> think differently. I would be suspicious of any argument that condemned
> today's
>> music with the same reasoning that was used to deem jazz immoral.
>
> A lot of the jazz we love and revere today probably was immoral, because of
> its intention. It's no accident the stuff was bred in bordellos.
>
> Ken
Bordellos are immoral?
Maya Allison
Yep, we've gotten very indulgent of this thread, which was initially meant
as all in good fun... I'm ruining my hard work at building a reputation for
not posting off-topic!
Lloyd Fonvielle
I've never claimed that it was literally written for me, and I never would. It
would be a betrayal of a wonderful moment, a wonderful intimacy, that must remain
private between me and . . . let's just say, a certain nameless troubadour . . .
who strayed with me once into the paradise that dare not speak its name . . .
Kenneth Wilson
> >Don't you read The Times They Are A Changin' as a message song, written
to
> >an audience?
>
> No more a "message song" than Isis to me. I don't listen to either song
and ask
> what Dylan is saying to me.
I didn't ask you if you heard it addressed to you today, or to you whenever
you first heard it, in whatever context you heard it. There is clearly
another choice besides listening to a song as if it's addressed to you or
hearing it without regard for the author's plausible intention.
Ken
Kenneth Wilson
> Excellent, wonderful, great, bravo!
And just forwarded!
Ken
Kenneth Wilson
> >> If it's true, as some conservatives suggest, that dancing is a form of
sex
> >then
> >> I agree music leads to sex.
> >
> >much popular dancing? Say it isn't so,
>
> Conservatives have long decried the corruptive influence of dancing. Ken,
go
> rent Footloose.
That's not like Flashdance, is it? Ouch.
Sure they've decried it. But they do like swing-dancing. Talk about
re-contextualization .......
Ken
Kenneth Wilson
> >You take a well-meaning but unconvincing *political* position.
>
> Thank you. Condescension coming from you is a complement. EVERY position
is
> unavoidably political.
You're quite right about the condescension in "unconvincing," and I
apologize for it. I think every position probably has political
ramifications, but I don't think they always begin in self-interested
political rhetoric or perception. That strikes me as an unnecessarily
cynical view.
> >Some interpretations are first and foremost open-minded and honest and as
> >disinterested as humanly possible.
>
> Why would someone offer an interpretation if they were disinterested?
Because they're interested in the artist, just as we're all interested in
other people. Isn't that just about the most glorious quality we have as
human beings, that we can give our attention to -- can love -- other human
beings? I don't understand why you separate that from art criticism.
I've
> always found that a laughable sleight of hand. Two-thirds world critics,
> feminist critics, have time and again revealed the white, male,
heterosexual
> bias not only in the Western canons but in their interpretive history.
There was much white, male, heterosexual bias to be found. But nowadays you
can get an English degree from Georgetown University without reading
Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer. You used the word "lunacy" elsewhere --
isn't this lunacy? And it's what the power-is-everything crowd has
produced -- not an honest re-evaluation of what's worthy and why, but a
blatantly political substitution of its interests for someone else's
supposed interests, and reams of self-involved writing that purports to find
whatever "progressive," "transgressive" subject matter it wants to find.
Ken
robertandrews
>Lloyd, Why not explain how you interpret art where you know little or
nothing about the author?
The artist expresses himself through the art. If he's a good artist, that
implies he knows something about you as well -- maybe not where you live,
but how you breathe.
"Art" is expression & communication. The rest is masturbation.
Greg Wallace
publish about! All the new subjects for doctoral dissertations. All the
new ways to rank those who publish. I read the guy from Cornell, Culler or
Culter, and thought I smelled a new use for trees. I was going to get
upset, then I thought it over and decided to let posterity take care of this
one. If they hang on to 1% of this stuff, consider the movement a big
success.
In all seriousness we'll never look at male/female quite the same way again,
and that must be considered a permanent contribution.
"Kenneth Wilson" <kfw...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:01a001c1e5b3$69200f60$4ad5bfa8@u8f5h7...
Kenneth Wilson
> Bordellos are immoral?
I think so, yeah. You'd probably reject my major premises, but if you were
married to a man who patronized one, as many married men apparently did,
wouldn't you find the place immoral? It's not like they discriminated.
Ken
Kenneth Wilson
> In all seriousness we'll never look at male/female quite the same way
again,
> and that must be considered a permanent contribution.
FWIW, I'm all for challenging the canon and the canonical interpretations. I
just don't think the challenges always hold up. I read Kate Chopin twice as
an undergrad, and no Twain. I wuz robbed,
Ken
Maya Allison
No, I'd find my husband immoral, in that scenario, if he'd made a vow of
fidelity. But in all fairness, I should probably leave this topic alone,
since I can't think of a quick way to link it to Dylan at the moment...
Peter Stone Brown
> standards change over time and vary from community to community. When I
hit
> Pennsylvania on 95 South and the speed limit drops from 65 to 55 I simply
slow
> down.
That has nothing to do with standards. You slow down because you know that
Pennsylvania cops are even nastier than the very nasty Jersey cops.
--
"The game is the same, it's just up on another level." --Bob Dylan
Peter Stone Brown
e-mail: ps...@earthlink.net
http://store.yahoo.com/tangible-music/petstonbrowi.html
Lloyd Fonvielle
> "KReilly" <kre...@aol.com> wrote in message
> >
> > Why? We have many standards that we recognize as social conventions. And
> > standards change over time and vary from community to community. When I
> hit
> > Pennsylvania on 95 South and the speed limit drops from 65 to 55 I simply
> slow
> > down.
>
> That has nothing to do with standards. You slow down because you know that
> Pennsylvania cops are even nastier than the very nasty Jersey cops.
Just don't ever tangle with the Kunstpolizei . . .