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May I request a communal sigh of relief and perhaps applause at Smith’s essay and the refreshing human voice she re-instills into criticism after the last few taxing critics who seem to mechanize the art of poetry rather than communicate with it on a human level? (Ok, I know that last sentence was practically drowned in over-generalization and bias, but just let me have my moment).
Ahhh,
Ok, ready.
Herrnstein Smith’s theory of Personal Economy opens a huge gamut of possibility in considering a work. In successfully arguing this position, Smith not only re-introduces the reader but makes the experience of this reader nearly central to understanding a “good” or “bad” work. I tend to believe that doubt, dichotomy, and perhaps even vast inclusion are signs of wisdom (since absolute assertions rarely remain absolute). By allowing each person’s personal economy to be not only present, but also malleable and evolutionary, we have what I view as the makings of truth.
Smith asserts, “a subject’s experience of an entity is always a function of his or her personal economy” (1914). The personal economy is made of the product of one’s experience with their world and society and each new encounter brings with it a changed personal economy. Therefore, any poem may be good but we must ask some questions, “for whom?” and “at what point in their life?“. Using this standard, any and all works can be good. This is an extremely inclusive approach and though tempting at first glance, the consideration that any poem may be “good” seems to trouble me more and more. I’m wondering if there is a difference between considering a poem “good” and simply liking it. Our personal economy may bring us to quick (and probably valid) emotional conclusions, i.e “I like it“. But does this necessarily make it “good“? “Good” is a value judgment and surely Smith would align with the side of validating that which is deemed as having value… and of course this judgment is our personal economy, but then, do we value something because it is “good” or do we value something because we like it, and our liking it simply gets misnomered as “good“? This then implies two types of value, a distinction Smith doesn’t quite clarify. For example, if I were the granddaughter of Picasso, I might value a painting because it was my grandfather’s, because something about the painting was familial and close to my heart. On the other hand, if I were a curator at a museum, I would value the painting for its artistic contribution, but also for the name and subsequent fame. The values are incredibly different here and it seems that the motivation behind the value is not quite considered fairly, when it could have vastly different implications in determining good vs. bad or valuable vs. useless.
(One of Picasso’s many renditions of “Las Meninas,” the famous painting
by Diego Velázquez used two posts ago)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Barthes, Brecht, Wimsatt and Beardsley, Wise Mind
Though I hate to revert back to The Intentional Fallacy, there is one more small piece of their writing that has been gnawing at me for a number of weeks now. Wimsatt and Beardsley state in a tiny little aside in the midst of their criticism, “The day may arrive when the psychology of composition is unified with the science of objective evaluation but so far they are separate” (1380). In reading many of these authors it has been a constant problem for me to digest the different theories on the role of the author and how that might harmonize with my view of the author. This quote has made me wonder whether or not the time Wimsatt and Beardsley speak of is now.
Likewise, reading Roland Barthes and Bertolt Brecht has made me realize that it does boil down to a producer/consumer mentality. Though these different authors address varying aspects of the role/place/purpose
of the author, they all essentially wish to examine her place. And more often than not (at least in this mini-series of readings) the tendency has been to diminish that role.
While the psychology of composition is a more specific aspect of the author consideration, I believe that nonetheless, it stands in to represent most considerations of the author. The critical landscape that I’ve learned and lived in allows for a rather extensive conversation about the author. It is normal and somewhat expected to utilize the resources we have regarding knowledge of her in helping to further our understanding and appreciation for the work. That being said, the work must prove its own merit as well and though the lines may blur, I like to think that I examine my literature with somewhat of a balanced criticism while being aware of my own particular situation that may influence me to one understanding over the other. Even this serves to reach more balance.
And I can’t help but think of the Wise Mind. In psychology, the wise mind is that place where your cognitive and emotional responses synergize to work in harmony and create wisdom. So we might say that the study of structure and emphasis on the words/text only might be too cognitive. Whereas considering the human factor as supreme and basing value judgments on a heart response is too emotional. In this new place where both are allowed to exist and flourish jointly, one is neither dominated by the monster of rationality or the storm of emotion. Both work together perfectly to establish a psychological feng shui which results in the ever-coveted wisdom.
So though I am not naive enough to believe that my critical generation has somehow achieved perfection in our methods. I’m willing for now, until the next theory proves me wrong, say that we are living in the time that Wimsatt and Beardsley predicted and it has brought us wisdom to balance our study.
Words are human-bound. Very plainly put, words simply cannot survive without their human vocalizers. Any Linguist will tell you that our oral ability to respond to symbols and speak words cannot (rather obviously) exist without people and furthermore, it cannot exist without people in relationship. The written word is not enough to constitute a language and no language can be scribed without a vocal equivalent.
Therefore, the insistence by Barthes and his contemporaries that writing must somehow be transcendent and freed from the author is merely illogical. It may seem like a trite criticism, but I cannot comprehend how a work is supposed to be so… untouchable, so… infallible in and of itself. To suggest that writing begins once the author “dies” just cannot be if the writing could never have been without that author. “To reach that point where only language acts, ‘performs’, and not ‘me’” (1467) simply cannot hold because the language only speaks what the author commands it to, and therefore the author speaks.
Barthes equates his theory of separation with that of Bertolt Brecht (German poet and dramatist). Brecht was known and famed for his new practice of theatre that called stark attention to the “fake-ness” of theatre in order to somehow make the content more powerful. As a result, theatre-goers were left mere observers of a spectacle and never allowed to emotionally participate in what they watched. Brechtian theatre is distant and disconnected because (in my personal theory) there is no room for honest emotional conversation between producer and consumer.
My fear with what Brecht and Barthes do by removing a human, relational element from the process is create only half the experience. Brechtian theatre was popular in its day because it was new and the masses are fickle. I feel confident in saying that most (not all) people now don’t really enjoy his style of theatre and it only remains a relatively widespread practice as a consequence of a “cultivate your aesthetic taste” mentality. Likewise, Barthian theory was not the end all of literary criticism. Somehow his theory didn’t provide all the answers and so others came along challenging, critiquing, and shifting his theories. Though perhaps reasonable within their respective theories, these ideas complicate when you factor in the necessary human component.
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Michel Foucault states: “Finally, the author’s name characterizes a particular manner of existence of discourse. Discourse that possesses an author’s name is not to be immediately consumed and forgotten; neither is it accorded the momentary attention given to ordinary, fleeting words. Rather, its status and its manner of reception are regulated by the culture in which it circulates” (1627).
We discussed this idea in class today and came to the conclusion that names create certain kinds of usages. Therefore, a name works differently depending on its position in culture. And if we assume this to be true then Literature isn’t something that’s there, literature is something that culture makes by the way they choose to talk about it. I find this argument fair enough and can confess that I’ve read certain works or purchased certain book simply because they had a particular name attached to them; a name that signaled authority, quality, and an air of culture or superiority. I certainly don’t read Spencer because I find his works enthralling and wonderful, I read Spencer because I am told that they are so, and by the time I’m done reading his works, I may not personally feel enthralled or wondered, but I should recognize why he is identified in this way.
We talked about Shakespeare and J.K Rowling, identifying how in our culture (in most cultures now), Shakespeare signals serious authority while Rowling aligns with popular culture and a child’s level of entertainment. It is easy enough to recognize that throughout much of our lives, Shakespeare was pointed to as some kind of supreme artist. The mention of his name in conversation or a consideration of him or his works in an essay automatically elevated the discourse to a higher level. He is held in our society as a genius and therefore must be known and celebrated, so we read him in our classes and show cartoon versions to our children and we then grow up assuming his greatness.
I wonder though, if this power of the name can extend beyond cultural appreciation to a point of cultural imitation. We assume that our culture allows us to like Shakespeare, but could the name and the authority behind that name, that identity, actually become so powerful that we continually construct our culture to match the icons within it? And thereby, hinder society from a natural progression in thought or belief because we must maintain these to continually honor Shakespeare, for example.
It’s a tempting thought, and perhaps not altogether impossible, but my instinct is to say “no”. There are so many things within Shakespeare’s works that assume a societal and contextual understanding that we may recognize as contemporary readers, but don’t necessarily ascribe to. His depiction of women for one thing, or class structure. It seems that a work may remain poignant, while losing the immediate truth authority granted it, in the context of its original publication.
Nevertheless, I wish to challenge Todorov’s assertion in Structural Analysis of Narrative that scientific method is applicable to the study of literature (or poetry) by showing how his own example of how this operates isn’t even itself scientific.
Within the plot sequences Todorov gives us from Boccaccio’ s Decameron, he identifies two primary ways or structures of dealing with plot conflict. The two methods he identifies for resolving conflict back to equilibrium are “avoided punishment” and “conversion”. Boccaccio utilizes either one of these plot structures to bring about the greater structure heading of “equilibrium”.
We may take it for granted that these methods of harmonizing plot conflict are obviously culturally situated. It doesn’t take a great amount of imagination to envision a society that operates under different moral rules and conceptions about how that morality functions. To this hypothetical world, utilizing Boccaccio’s two methods of resolution would be incomprehensible.
I would then inquire as to whether or not these structures could be studied scientifically if they cannot function in an universal way. Studies of science do not have this distinction.
Let us consider The Study of Literature as a subject of the Humanities compared with The Study of the Human Body as a subject of Science
Todorov suggests that in The Study of Literature, the types of plots may change, but this does not subtract from the greater fact that all literature must contain a plot. Likewise, the type of human body may change, (consider skin color or eye color) but this does not subtract from the greater fact that these items help comprise a body.
In literature however, the function of the plots vary. In Decameron, the function seems to be to restore equilibrium, but looked at separately, we see two distinct functions. The first being, to attain equilibrium through avoiding punishment and the second, to attain equilibrium through conversion. They are actually separate functions, one avoids and the other converts.
We do not see this distinction in our case study of the human body. Skin may have varying colors, but its function is always to protect. Likewise, eyes may vary in their color or even shape, but they still function for the purpose of seeing.
Todorov is exceedingly convincing in his argument for the scientific study of literature. But the fact that literature does not and cannot function under the same structures as science, may prove the the scientific approach invalid.
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Emerson also doesn’t give an account of how people fail at attaining the sublime. How does he account for the fact that some people have access to poetic inspiration and some don’t? And if we assume that he is right and not everybody is granted access, then why would it be negative to encourage people to read another’s account of the encounter if (even though filtered) it will be the closest possible contact with the divine/sublime/inspired poetic realm? He seems to selfishly want restrict any semblance of this experience to himself and his comrades whom share it.
I’ve been mulling over Emersonian beliefs in my head lately, and the more I consider his words, the more turbulent they become to me. So, I thought I should try to uproot the problem and pinpoint what about his writings (Well, The Poet and The American Scholar anyway) that just doesn’t seem to mesh well in my mind.
My musings begin with his definition of the Poet. He identifies the poet as reaching that “which no man foretold” (726). The poet “stands among partial men for the complete man” (724). He is representative, a “natural sayer, sent into the world to the end of expression” (725). He makes seen that which would otherwise remain unilluminated, he speaks what would have remained dumb. The poet makes all men richer for his work, he is “an eternal man” (726).
Emerson even goes so far as to assign the poet near-magical capabilities, “The poet is the person in whom these powers are in balance, the man without impediment, who sees and handles that which others dream of, traverses the whole scale of experience, and is representative of man, in virtue of being the largest power to receive and to impart” (725).
Emerson assigns great capacity to the role of the Poet. His language of eternity and descriptions of the poet being “sent” into the world, clearly draw upon Christian imagery. For many Romantics, the realm of the Sublime as described perhaps most famously by Burke (http://www.bartleby.com/24/2/107.html) and Kant (http://www.iep.utm.edu/k/kantaest.htm) often became a place of divinity. Emerson would claim that the poet alone is allowed to reach this divine realm and yet although this assumption is inherently elitist, Emerson projects this task in the disguise of public service. He would have us believe that the Poet works for the everyman, bringing the light that he cannot see. Yet, he simultaneously suggests that men ought not to read for fear that reading other’s would close off our minds and cancel our own imaginations. And if the everyman should not read the works of the poet, then how exactly is the light from the sublime reflected off the poet? and how does everyman come into contact with sublime? Which may as well ask how the everyman comes into contact with God and the divine?
In The American Scholar, Emerson expresses his fears that books will create satellite men, not system men. He argues, “Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over-influence” (722).
*This is where his argument becomes muddy to me*
Surely, Emerson would not dare argue that everyman is a genius. Given his elevated and billowy depiction of the Poet, the representative for what other men can not be, it feels safe to assume that the genius of which Emerson refers in this quotation is synonymous with the Poet. Does this then imply that only the Poets and Geniuses must not over-influence themselves with reading? The everyman is not a genius, but born a satellite and will surely remain a satellite forever under the influence of other’s thoughts/writings. It seems that Emerson only perceives reading as dangerous for those men already grand through their divine connection to the sublime. If he intends to suggest an elimination or severe restriction of reading amongst genius-men, then he condemns his own beloved to their extinction. Experience with the sublime is essentially about connecting with the most and greatest possible. It is the aim of the Poet, elevated and expansive and encompassing of grandeur. The same wide desire for the sublime motivates the reading of other’s works. Reading is a mode of expansion, a way to include more ideas, more thoughts… more, more, more. Experiencing more allows one to create more and more of greater quality. Closing off mind expansion through reading is counter-intuitive to the Romantic goal of Sublime.
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Does anybody have a guess as to what Wimsatt and Beardsley, or even the Formalists in general would say about the study of history? History must be recorded in order to be studied, that is, history must have an author. Studying the events and attitudes in history is necessarily to study world history context. But then history itself depends on its own intrinsic external evidence, which opposes Wimsatt and Beardsley’s idea that value lessens as it encounters external evidence. If a poem must fail because it relies on external evidence, then why would an authored history be anymore legitimate a study? There seems to be some hypocrisy there.
Furthermore, what about historical poetry, or even poetry that makes mention of historical events and depends on the names of these events to add depth and meaning to the work? Whereas one point in history explanation would have been unnecessary, perhaps it becomes vital to a modern reader, making the poem nearly dependent on contextual analysis and research. But if this poem was great when the people understood the nuanced references, then why shouldn’t it also be great now, even if research is required? I guess I’m asking if a poem can lose its status? If this is so, then these theories that would deny that flexible space for understanding, undermine their own authority by implying that yes, indeed, the audience does matter, in fact, the audience, and the situatedness of the audience becomes the basis for judgment of a poem.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Intentional Fallacy, The Author, The Poem
In talking of the intentional fallacy, it remains a given that the poem in itself is supreme while everything extraneous to the words on the page are impermissible evidence when considering the work. Using Wimsatt and Beardsley standards we could never presume to ask the author, “What did you mean by “x”?” To really seek after the intent or request to know his/her desire for our understanding seems, even to this intention junky, a cop-out for examining the poem. That being said, I believe there is somewhat of a significant difference between inquiring directly after the intent of a work, and using/engaging your other knowledge to arrive at hypotheses of intent (if you so desire those) or merely just a heightened experience of the poem.
I don’t want to linger on this poem, but let us return for a moment to our class reading of Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask.” Before certain biographical and historical facts were presenting surrounding this poem, most students in our class were still able to examine the poem and interpret the poem and the work stood just fine on its own two legs, without any extra knowledge. However, once it was revealed to us that Dunbar was the son of former slaves, living in post civil war America, for many, the poem took on new connotations and meaning. Naturally, we cannot use this knew information as the sole measure by which to judge and interpret the poem, but perhaps it adds new depth and insight. It in no way invalidates the first reading or understanding of the poem.
Wimsatt & Beardsley seem to have an unjustified fear of knowledge. Learning outside information about the poem or poet or social atmosphere can only help a reader. Whether or not these facts exist in the minds of readers, the words on the page, the actual poem, cannot change. Their precious insistence on the autonomy of the poem is not actually threatened by other information because the poem with or without this information, the poem stays just as it was written. The words, the punctuation, the format, the rhythm, all this remains exactly as it was at birth. By insisting that a reader must close themselves off to anything not in the poem for fear this information might sully their reading, is really to have no faith in the readers. We have the capacity to interpret and understand on multiple levels. Information can be both ignored and called upon, whenever the circumstance sees fit and either way, the poem, as Wimsatt and Beardsley would insist, stays central the work of interpretation.
As a slight caveat not in the least appealing to Wimsatt and Beardsley’s mode of consideration, I would also argue that despite what may result in expression at the end of a poem, the author’s motivation and (dare I say) intention, whether explicitly made clear or not, is always in the poem. The poem would never have been without this catalyst and so maybe the poem isn’t all, as Wimsatt and Beardsley would like to think, but maybe those extra details about the life and times of the poet are the true work of the reader to discover, and when these are made open and available for understanding, the poem can really begin its birth.
Just as we must as/assume that this is the true condition of the world in which the writer writes, why is it not also fair to consider other aspects of that same world? While reading, “We Wear the Mask” one must necessarily and sometimes subconsciously consider/inquire after/assume that some condition or state of the world of which the poem speaks includes a state where some are hiding from the world, masquerading behind a decorative lie. If we are allowed to inquire after the world of the poem, then why is it any worse to inquire after those things which inform the world of the poem (i.e the experiences of Dunbar). To assume that a black man would only have something to 
say about a black issue could easily be an oversight, but a far worse oversight would be to assume that his writings had nothing to do with the state of black Americans subsisting in his world. Certainly by granting Dunbar’s poem this contextual reading, one must admit that your relationship to the poem is less intimate, it does not refute another’s access to the poem. This is the primary oversight of Formalism as I understand it now. Much, though not all poetry is confessional or quasi-confessional in nature. Art that grows out of the sufferings of any people group has a particular propensity towards revealing what those who suffered know and experienced. Formalism would seem to want to ignore this reality. The religiosity, the psychology, the anthropology, and all these things form the boning of a poem. The history of the poem, that is to say, from where it came and why, is as essential as the “traditional” beliefs of Formalism.
