Cheerskep, still - I must add that your remarks about literature and drama just made this whole dispute infinitely more comprehensible to me - I'm embarrassed to have spoken about universal applicability and God knows what nonsense without having considered literature at all. If you were now to ask me, what is it then that constitutes "sensual pleasure" in literature or drama, I couldn't answer you.
Perhaps it is the case that literature can afford a more direct artistic a.e. because it doesn't have to deal with the hurdle of sensual pleasure, which presents the risk of sensually derived knee-jerk rejection. But then again it has to face the even more banal hurdles you mention, of not offering sufficient "food for thought", or suspense, or material for sentimental identification with characters, that the Nabokovian "bad readers" expect from their reading matter. 17. maaliskuuta 2012 7.34 john m <[email protected]> kirjoitti: > Cheerskep, > > Having some background in formalism (before I started to doubt it), I > whole-heartedly agree with what you say about "literature appreciation"; I > think Nabokov in his published lectures has said everything that needs to > said about this subject. I will add that in these what I used to call > "1984" cases (a work of art built solely on some Great Idea or Message) it > is anyway the author's intention you can't agree with that inhibits your > a.e. (even if it's because it's bad writing, it's bad writing because their > intentions don't have to do with producing good writing) > > I'll once again stress what I already said two for three times above, and > this is my heritage from formalism which still seems unquestionable: > everything necessary about the work can be culled through the senses, so > no, you should't need to be told what the artist is doing; you should sense > it when you've jumped into their shoes in order to properly contemplate the > work. > > Regarding the sensual/artistic dichotomy: I guess what I've been trying to > say is that these two varieties of pleasure seem to me to exist (and I'd > certainly be glad if someone else here gave their two cents on this), and > they often seem to be confused in everyday language and experience. I don't > think there's any doubt that huge differences in sensual taste actually > exist - I don't like the flute, you don't like pastel colours, he doesn't > like electric guitar etc., and these are neurological or genetic or > inherited preferences that can't be discussed much further than > acknowledging they exist. What I AM saying is that these issues should not > enter the artistic appreciation of a work. > > It seems to me that the initial or persisting failure to derive sensual > pleasure from an artwork often interrupts the process of familiarization, > although there is no reason why that failure should impede an a.e. of the > artistic variety. And I know from personal experience that intense artistic > a.e. can bring about the sensual one (taste can change and develop). > > To give a practical example why this matters is if we enter the realm of > ethics. Now this is a completely unfounded hypothesis, but I suspect that > some artists might have experiences of having been badly reviewed or > criticized as a result of the critic's failure to derive sensual pleasure > from their works. In such a case it would seem to me wrong to say that it's > a matter of taste, to each their own, etc., when in fact the artist has > been subjected to invalid subjectivist criticism. You can say there is no > possibility of objective criticism because the critic has no way of knowing > what the artist intended EXACTLY and thus has to rely on their subjective > impressions, but I can't subscribe to that notion because of too much > personal empirical evidence to the contrary - and all my blabbering is a > feeble attempt to explain this. Some of the practicing artists on this list > might have experienced something like this (I'm not an artist myself, my > interest in this matter is theoretical).
