Wednesday, September 12, 2018
The author’s photo
That is what he looked like young, alive.
None of us survive
But, gone, let there be this assurance
Against being forgot,
A thing enduring, idealized,
A time when we were not
Not.
Tuesday, September 11, 2018
Been thinking about the functions of lit lately. Some thoughts...
Functions of Literature/Art
1) to test moral systems with "what ifs"
2) to explore "being"
3) to regulate culture (which would include savory and unsavory things) and go along with many other forces/voices that do the same work
4) to heighten and focus an emotion (sentimental literature does so out of proportion to the occasion, like eating straight sugar or too much of any food until it is cloying; pornography does the same thing)
5) to keep cooped up people "emotionally alive" (Wordsworth)
6) to ease the burden, make life bearable (but do nothing, which is wrong) (Barth/Auden)
7) to heal. Boswell calls one of Johnson’s issues of The Rambler “medicinal.”
8) To comfort (perhaps falsely, by for example creating false equivalencies metaphorically, day/night, life/death).
9) To burn down the house before the others enter
10) To explore imaginatively issues relevant to the culture: e.g. AI (explored in thought experiments).
10a) To relieve cultural tensions
10b) To advance cultural conversations
11) to imagine the future into existence (a specialty of sci-fi)
12) to avoid reality, “There is no problem so great you cannot turn away from it entirely to make art" (Archambeau)
13) to reveal the reader to him/herself. To re-create, mold the reader. cf. Hamlet
14) to regulate behavior. Stories are good at changing behavior, attitudes, not beliefs. People do not act on their beliefs easily—dieting is an example (cf. “Hidden Brain” episode on Rwandan genocide).
15) to create selves (cf. #13) (PROUST: Through art alone we are able to emerge from ourselves (464))
16) to enhance intersubjectivity
17) to carry on overt and disguised conversations
18) to see in ways that cannot be seen via any other means (See Hirschfeld's first chapter re: poetry—a way of seeing the world that only poetry can do, or Borges, notion that only the short story is essential).
19) To meliorate (Barthelme, Not Knowing). This covers unevenly the same ground as 3, 6, 7 and others but in a more general way.
20) To defend against death and forgetting (a hallmark of Renaissance sonnets in a way that is probably too trivial to mention but more significant culturally, not to fade out of existence, as did so many of the pre-Columbian peoples who had no writing system. Irrelevant for the cultures that no longer exist, but of great import to the conquerors who have used the gap to tell whatever story serves their interest).
21) To enlarge our sensibilities (Updike), give voice to the silenced (Diaz).
22) Give words to your unformulated desires and fears--mundane and metaphysical.
1) to test moral systems with "what ifs"
2) to explore "being"
3) to regulate culture (which would include savory and unsavory things) and go along with many other forces/voices that do the same work
4) to heighten and focus an emotion (sentimental literature does so out of proportion to the occasion, like eating straight sugar or too much of any food until it is cloying; pornography does the same thing)
5) to keep cooped up people "emotionally alive" (Wordsworth)
6) to ease the burden, make life bearable (but do nothing, which is wrong) (Barth/Auden)
7) to heal. Boswell calls one of Johnson’s issues of The Rambler “medicinal.”
8) To comfort (perhaps falsely, by for example creating false equivalencies metaphorically, day/night, life/death).
9) To burn down the house before the others enter
10) To explore imaginatively issues relevant to the culture: e.g. AI (explored in thought experiments).
10a) To relieve cultural tensions
10b) To advance cultural conversations
11) to imagine the future into existence (a specialty of sci-fi)
12) to avoid reality, “There is no problem so great you cannot turn away from it entirely to make art" (Archambeau)
13) to reveal the reader to him/herself. To re-create, mold the reader. cf. Hamlet
14) to regulate behavior. Stories are good at changing behavior, attitudes, not beliefs. People do not act on their beliefs easily—dieting is an example (cf. “Hidden Brain” episode on Rwandan genocide).
15) to create selves (cf. #13) (PROUST: Through art alone we are able to emerge from ourselves (464))
16) to enhance intersubjectivity
17) to carry on overt and disguised conversations
18) to see in ways that cannot be seen via any other means (See Hirschfeld's first chapter re: poetry—a way of seeing the world that only poetry can do, or Borges, notion that only the short story is essential).
19) To meliorate (Barthelme, Not Knowing). This covers unevenly the same ground as 3, 6, 7 and others but in a more general way.
20) To defend against death and forgetting (a hallmark of Renaissance sonnets in a way that is probably too trivial to mention but more significant culturally, not to fade out of existence, as did so many of the pre-Columbian peoples who had no writing system. Irrelevant for the cultures that no longer exist, but of great import to the conquerors who have used the gap to tell whatever story serves their interest).
21) To enlarge our sensibilities (Updike), give voice to the silenced (Diaz).
22) Give words to your unformulated desires and fears--mundane and metaphysical.
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