Diversion...by the name of Benjamin...

At Paige's request, here are pics of my dog! :) (Oh yeah, and my sister and father, too!)

Plato's Symposium

As a dinner party among friends, Plato’s Symposium recounts a conversation on love by seven men, each with different professions and therefore different understandings of love. Its ultimate point is that through love, we can reach the good and the beautiful because love propels us toward it.

Plato assumes that his audience shares values of beauty and that beauty comes from universal sources. In addition, beauty is aligned with the good, and the good is transcendent – there can be no discussion of what is ultimately good. That is, he assumes that his audience has at least some idea of what the transcendent “good” or “beautiful” is, though they cannot attain it. Plato also shares with his audience the belief in rhetorical style – the Socratic or plainer style that gets us closer to truth, instead of the neo-sophistic, more ornamented one. Finally, I think that Plato assumes that truth can be assessed through speeches; in other words, that if a person delivers a good speech, his beliefs should be accepted. In some sense, this might suggest a belief in a speaker’s morality as reflected in their speech.
In terms of changing the ideas in place, I think it’s important to note that Plato brings into play the variety of opinions and perspectives. Whether he ultimately endorses them is a different issue altogether – and, obviously, one that warrants discussion -- but in the long run the style of the piece does not call on his trademark, traditional “dialogue.” Readers see speeches within speeches, and really have to work to get the message, which, I think, presents the complexity of the issues at hand as well as mirrors the kind of work needed to achieve the good and beautiful.

Since love propels the search for the good and beautiful, I am interested in how Plato conceives the relationship between love and good. Can’t love be destructive? Can love also blind us to things that we believe are “good” and “beautiful,” but are actually the opposite? Of course, these are universals, which carry with them their own baggage. Who, then, decides the absolutes? Further, why are there only absolutes instead of degrees? Can we have an aesthetic experience without love?

Another question focuses on the form of this piece. Why does Plato stage a dinner party as the scene of this conversation? Could it be a comment on how environment influences aesthetic experiences? Why did Plato make this choice, and what could his point (or several) be?

What I like about this piece is its variety; I like that the perspectives shift and yet all are inflected with Plato’s control. I like the intellectual puzzle. It seems almost Talmudic, where there’s commentary upon commentary, but nothing really resolves on its own accord. As I write this, I’m beginning to question whether my assertion that Plato’s ultimate message was that love drives us toward the good and beautiful; perhaps I am only seeing this point because of other factors at work.

Longinus's On the Sublime

Longinus's "On the Sublime" discusses the conditions where the sublime can occur. For Longinus, it lies in literature because literature incites critical emotions in the reader. Through literature, the sublime is accessible to everyone.

Longinus assumes, first, that everyone is aware of, and believes in, the sublime. He also believes that everyone recognizes genius. He also believes in human nature; that the essence of the sublime can be found in human nature. This would require a belief in essences or essentials, which he also assumes that his audience shares. It seems likely that Longinus also assumes that his audience shares the belief in a one-to-one correlation with art; in other words, that there is a universal, and direct, experience between looking at an artwork and a sensory response. Perhaps this might mean that there are little to no contingent factors that go in to aesthetic judgment, or even interpolations that permit people to be open to having these experiences. Because literature is didactic, he assumes that literature itself is pure.

However, Longinus seems to want to change the fact that the sublime is merely transient or a brief escape from reality. He believes that literature itself can provide the model for purity; that everyone can find in literature how to act or behave. He says, “persuasion, as a rule, is within everyone’s grasp” which suggests that he is making the sublime an experience anyone can have.

I am wondering about Longinus’s definition of “ecstasy.” He writes: “The sublime leads the listeners not to persuasion, but to ecstasy: for what is wonderful goes always together with a sense of dismay…”. What, then, is ecstasy (and its relationship to “dismay”?) Further, how does ecstasy jibe with his idea that the sublime is more than a mere transitory, out-of-body experience?

Related to this question, I think, is how Longinus’s conception of the sublime relates to the body itself. If it is found in literature (created by Genius), then it must – at least in some degree – exist outside the body. However, it can be accessed by everyone through literature, so we have again an external force that acts outside of the body. Then, I wonder, how does Longinus conceive the relationship between the body’s ability to receive the sublime, and the external forces acting upon the body?

For me, what stands out in this piece is its focus on literature and the sublime. Others discuss art, poetry, etc – but Longinus discusses literature almost exclusively. I’m also interested in his conceptions of Genius, and how genius is conferred. Unlike Horace, who values hard work and dedication, Longinus seems to place a large focus on innate abilities – both of the author and of the work itself. So, then, where does Genius lie? Is it in the relationship between work and author? Or between author and reader? Who confers this status? I’m also interested in the distinction Longinus makes between persuasion and ecstasy, given that persuasion has been linked in classical Greek rhetoric to deception, ecstasy, and all sorts of “bad” things. That is, what is the difference between these two, and why is persuasion entirely separate from a subliminal experience?

I’d also like to briefly mention Longinus’s style, which, like Horace, I found quite good and even pleasing to read.

Horace's Ars Poetica

At the center of Ars Poetica is decorum. Decorum refers to the sense of balance that all good poetry must possess: instruction and delight. Poets must pay attention to appropriateness, unity, correct ratios, and talent. Horace emphasizes revision and truth; good poetry must be true to life.

Horace assumes that his audience already understands purity and the importance of balance. He seems to suggest that poetry is tied up in ethics, hence the need for balance and instruction. I would say that he takes for granted the access to poetry and the material conditions surrounding its production; that is, it is assumed that his audience can read, has been educated, and can afford to write poetry without working in the fields. In addition, Horace assumes that his audience already knows what poetry is, though he seems to expand its didactic and pleasurable dimension. Like Aristotle, Horace is a man speaking to other upper-class, educated men, whose values of ethics, education, purity, wealth, and duty he shares.

Though he does share quite a bit in common with his audience, I think that Horace believes in poetry’s ethical potential. With his conception of appropriateness at the center of his treatise, it would seem that poetry had gotten out of hand. Horace seems concerned with the ways that poetry has either been corrupted, or has been used to corrupt. I think he’s interested in creating a poetry that is morally and ethically pure, with just the right balance of beauty to offset its instructional impulse. In order to create poetry, the poet must constantly revise, and refrain from “sex and wine” while he writes. Poetry must mimic reality; Horace tells us that a good poet should only write what he himself has felt. Perhaps Horace is trying to purge the world of what he deems “bad” poetry; or poetry that serves no other purpose than to falsely delight. By promoting this, Horace reinforces ideas of decorum, purity, access, and truth. Like Aristotle, he, too, seems to place pleasure derived from poetry as a universal experience, with a universal formula for achieving this pleasure.

What is the relationship between pleasure and instruction? Does this relationship carry over today? I want to say no, because I can’t think of a time when I saw something designed to instruct me, that I also found beautiful. Then again, I’m always intrigued by cookbooks and 19^th-century domestic manuals, which do have some aesthetic appeal. Obviously, instruction itself can be pleasurable, especially if I’m the one doing it. But I don’t think this is what Horace means.

I’m also intrigued by this idea of balance. What does Horace have to gain by creating “balanced” poetry? Why the emphasis on balance? This might be because we tend to like things that are neat, clean, and, well – balanced. A “balanced diet” is what is supposed to make us healthy, and we’re supposed to keep our lives balanced as well. Is this what Horace means? Do we get this idea from Horace? How does balance contribute to aesthetic experience in general?

Finally, how does Horace conceive poetry’s role in shaping society? If poetry ought to have an instructional element, who – and for what purpose—shall it instruct? This seems to differ greatly from today, where poetry is primarily expressive, seen as an “art” requiring talent and lots of hard work. Does poetry continue to instruct us on how to think? Live? Engage with the world? How to see itself?

What strikes me the most about this piece is its beauty. Many times over I was caught up in Horace's imagery, his passion, his turns of phrase. It makes me wonder about the relationship between form and content. Did he think himself an example of his own aesthetic theory, especially given that his piece both delights and instructs?

Aristotle's Poetics

The Poetics outlines Aristotle’s tri-partite classification of poetry: comedy, epic verse, and tragedy. At the center of his theory is tragedy, because it incites the most pleasure. Tragedy imitates real action, and we derive pleasure from its complexity. Representation plays a key role in how we experience poetry.

Aristotle assumes that his audience is men, men who value beauty and reasoning. He assumes that his readers already understand his theory of representation, and that they do not pursue the Platonic theory of ideals. Aristotle takes for granted that his audience values taxonomy; assuming that his audience will be welcome to his own theories on art. Finally, not only is poetry important, but its experience is universal; everyone (by this he means educated men) derives the same amount of pleasure from the same things. These values come through in his articulation of beauty, pleasure, and the satisfaction of the "whole." Apparently, Aristotle believes that his audience appreciates closure and complexity; the "simple" things in life are not those which incite pleasure. Furthermore, Aristotle's Poetics values the universal and the idea that representation can transcend differences to inspire pleasure in all. At the heart of Aristotle's discussion seems to be a value in beauty and art, albeit a particular kind of beauty and art.

Aristotle seems to be reinforcing the kind of beauty and the universal experience of pleasure. In addition, he reinforces the idea that there is a singular experience of pleasure caused by specific elements. What's interesting to me about this is that Aristotle is really only speaking to a select group of men, and therefore does not consider other types of pleasure. On the other hand, Aristotle believes that he is enhancing the experience of poetry by classifying its elements; it seems that he wants to articulate that which gives pleasure so that it can be studied, explained, etc. It seems, too, that he wants to place poetry on the level of art.

My questions come from the very beginning. Aristotle writes, "we delight in looking at the most proficient images of things which in themselves we see with pain" (5). He seems to mean here that within the recognition of pleasure or beauty, we also recognize pain; that is, the beautiful can be painful. The question then becomes, is it in fact pain that we experience? Can pain actually give us pleasure? How does one distinguish between pain and pleasure? Furthermore, is the experience of pleasure always painful? What is the relationship between pleasure and beauty?

Aristotle also writes that "if one has not seen the thing [that is represented] before, its image will not produce pleasure as a representation, but because of its accomplishment, color, or some other such cause" (5). Essentially, he argues that we enjoy representations because of their correspondence to the "real thing." Only if we have not seen the "real thing," can we pay attention to color, etc. This suggests to me that the pleasure we derive from seeing a representation without its "real" counterpart is somehow lesser than if we had experienced it. In some cases, I think this might be true, but it seems to ignore the pleasure we experience in seeing brushstrokes in a painting, for instance, or the way that it is composed. Are these two forms of enjoyment separate? In other words, can we somehow enjoy a print of the Mona Lisa without having seen the original? Further, is our attraction to things like still life painting because they represent so vividly the real scene? Benjamin takes up these questions, and it would be interesting to see how Benjamin has been influenced by Aristotle here.

This second quotation is what stuck out to me the most, and I'm trying to puzzle it out as I write this. I think I'll come away from it for awhile and see if I can make sense of it. I was also struck by the idea of the whole, which has pervaded our ideas about any creation (a paper must have an intro, body, conclusion; we can't just leave our readers hanging). How can this one text change consciousness in such a profound way?!? This is not the first text of Aristotle's I've read; and in every text I am amazed at the degree to which he taxonomizes everything. Finally, I'm also intrigued by the similarity between his descriptions of that which gives us pleasure and the descriptions we posted on our blogs. In almost all of them, complexity, familiarity, and closure were values that kept cropping up. Again, I'm not sure what to make of this at this point.

Theorizing Audience

Audience is tricky. So much depends on a plethora of factors, that makes it virtually impossible to convincingly articulate what, exactly, audience is. We can contextualize it, and make valiant theoretical attempts, but we might never get to a real understanding of what it "really" is. And I'm okay with that. At least until I have to theorize it on my own.

Mary Louise has asked us to contextualize our "communicative audience" -- i.e. the audience for whom we are writing. I've never been asked to do this before, and while I welcome the challenge, I'm a bit at a loss. So here goes.

The academic audience is a fickle group. Generally, academic audiences are highly educated (obvious) and are thus familiar with highly complex ideas, texts, and writing. In addition, this echelon of society usually enjoys reading these complex texts. Perhaps it's a value of sorts. Academic audiences tend to be "good" readers; that is, they are patient, usually forgiving, and devote ample time to work with texts/ideas. For writers they might represent a version of the "ideal" audience: people who will stay with you no matter what.

Criticism of the academic audience tends to focus on the fact that academic audiences reproduce --and, in fact, admire -- obscure, inaccessible, and well, just, bad writing. I've seen a great deal of it in my day, and even done quite a bit of it as well. Part of the reason for the criticism is that many of the concepts are too difficult to explain concisely. Many academic writers don't want precision; Derrida and Foucault, for instance, try to write outside the conventional (academic) apparatus. That can't be done neatly. Others write complexly but cleanly. (I'm thinking here of Anne Wysocki, Jane Gallop, and Susan Edmunds, whose writing is stunningly precise). I'm aiming for clean, clear, elegant writing, because I think we've too long ignored the potential for beauty in academic prose.

However, this is not to say that all academic audiences are the same, or that they will always cut you slack. There have been several academic audiences in my experience that have -- and I hate to say this -- not even paid attention to my arguments or ideas because they disagreed with my approach. While this is to be expected (you can't please everyone all the time), my reaction was, come on! You guys read worse stuff than this! And you don't hate it! But approach, then, does matter, at least to some audiences.

But these audiences are likely rare. The particular academic audience I perceive now is a forgiving audience with just the right amount of skepticism. They play Elbow's "doubting game," for sure, but they are nonetheless open to experimentation. More specifically, I perceive an audience that is looking for new ways to work through ideas; they value unconventional, or resistant, ways to write, think, speak, and act. In some cases, we might think of this audience as rhetoricians, but even that's too broad. I'm talking here about audiences that consider argumentation, writing, rhetoric as actions with social consequences.

So then where does this leave me? How would my essay respond to these concerns? Since there is a traditional standard of "academic writing," a set of conventions that are expected of viable writing, it would be remiss to ignore these conventions entirely. At this (early) point, I am imagining something blending anecdote and theory; something that begs the question: does the personal inform the theory, or the theory inform the anecdote? Jane Gallop poses this question in her brilliant Anecdotal Theory. I don't want to steal her fire, and anyway I wouldn't be able to, at least not as eloquently and elegantly as she does. But I want to start with that question. And, I want to figure out how it can be deployed to think through issues of the everyday/ordinary, the writing classroom, and rhetorical invention.

High stakes, these.

An Aesthetic Experience

The last time I took a course on Aesthetics, we were asked to go out and "have an aesthetic experience." Though somewhat puzzled, I thought I'd head to the library and see what befell me; I spent so much time reading and writing that I wanted to have a truly aesthetic response to works of literature I normally critique and examine. So off I went, choosing T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" as the object of my predetermined aesthetic experience.

Though this experience was a few years ago, I remember it pretty well. I remember standing in the library, the sun streaming in behind the rows of bookshelves, and the musty, wonderful smell of books. Perhaps captured by this smell, I remember lovingly plucking the volume of Eliot's poems from the shelf and turning right to the page -- I owned this volume myself. As I began to read, the feel of the book overtook me, and I could not stop stroking the pages as I read the familiar poem.

When I think of this poem now, the experience of reading it in the silence of the library is somehow irrevocably tied to it. I can no longer read the poem without remembering the way the pages felt, the smoothness on my fingertips like soft water; the smell of the books and the pregnant silence that permeates all libraries. Perhaps this was the aesthetic experience; perhaps I was mistaken that day when I reported my reactions to Eliot's haunting words.

This is not to say that the poem -- that day, and presently -- did not invoke a host of aesthetic responses. It's my favorite poem, and is so for many reasons. I love the images; how they are so real and timeless and yet fragmented. My favorite image from the poem is "I will show you fear in a handful of dust." Every time I read the poem, that line snags the flow of reading. I always stop, and picture a vivid scene in which two faceless men stand with each other, the first cupping a mound of gray dust in his hand, and the other looking at it in sheer bewilderment. I imagine the fear as real, as almost permanent -- once you are confronted with the permanence of the dust, I imagine that it conjures fear. And I am fearful too. As I read the rest of the poem I'm on tenterhooks, my mind and body waiting for the next image to haunt me. Other images I love from the poem are the dirty river, the sledding, the dried tubers, and Lil's scene at the bar ("hurry up please its [sic] time") repeated over and over like a metronome counting off the seconds.

But I love this poem for reasons other than its powerful imagery. I'm always moved by Eliot's language, especially his masterful ability to turn somewhat ordinary language into sheer magic. Example: "Son of man,/You cannot say nor guess, for you know only/a heap of broken images" or later "and the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief/ And the dry stone no sound of water. Only/There is shadow under this red rock/(Come in under the shadow of this red rock)..." The sheer beauty of these images lies in their ordinariness (a point Eliot was arguably trying to make). But I'm catapulted into the sounds of these images as well. The whole section I've quoted sounds like a slow, measured chant; a quiet, almost mournful song that continues slowly. Though the sounds vary, giving the lines color, they move slowly, quietly; the "s" sounds follow with lilting "l"s and the repetition of silent images (no sound of water, sun beats, no shelter) -- things we cannot hear. I always stop over this section, read slowly, mouth the words to myself so that my body can relax, can drink in these mesmerizing sounds. In contrast to the mood that pervades the section described above, I love the line "with a wicked pack of cards" because the sounds seem to express the relish with which the speaker delivers them. This line has some of the earlier lament, and does move with a slower pace, but is propelled by the hard, quick sounds of "k" and "c". I just love to say this line out loud...

I could go on, but I won't. Suffice it to say that this poem moves me because of the language, the sounds, the images -- quite like many poems. I love poems not for their subject matter but for their language, for the way that the words make me feel as I read them, picture them, feel them on my tongue, in my heart, and on my fingers. I choose this poem even over other poems I love (and there are many) because as of yet, no other poem I've read has given me such thrills. Cheesy, I know, but I can't help it. The poem makes me shiver...in a good way.