In reference to the universal only, perhaps an anesthetic experience may be created B upon sensing something never sensed before, in a work of art, but may create one.B B when it is sensed in one's mind .
AB ________________________________ From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 9:38 AM Subject: Re: "The problem with Hegelbs aesthetics is the assumption that the truth of a work of art emerges completely via its conceptual In a message dated 10/26/12 10:47:53 AM, [email protected] writes: > how does one not reveal what is latent in the text > The ambiguous phrase "what is latent in the text" suggests to me you are assuming some of the very points at issue. When the topic is a written work -- a poem, play etc -- I infer that someone who says 'text' wants me to think of the collected "words" -- the scriptions on paper, or the sounds and sights of the actors on a stage.B In a dictionary, under 'latent', you're likely to find an entry like : "present and capable of emerging or developing but not now visible", as in "latent fingerprints".B This suggests that something "latent" in a text of words is fixed and definite, but that's misleading, wrong.B The main trouble is that when a variety of people hear those sounds, highly various notions are apt to arise in the various minds.B What arises in a listener's mind is a function of his receiving apparatus and memories of what ran through his mind during previous hearings of the sound. The poet, in choosing her words, relies on -- i.e. guesses, "intuits" -- what notion will arise in minds of many readers.B Which is to say she imagines what notions arose in the minds of those readers when they heard the word previously.B But Shakespeare,B when he wrote in Macbeth, "Yet doe I feare thy Nature, It is too full o' th' Milke of humane kindnesse," was counting on 'milk' to occasion notions of more than simply the white stuff yielded by cows; he figured it would bring hints of nourishing, nurturing, and benevolence. However, it would do this only in certain minds familiar with the sound 'milk'. In sum, "what is latent" in word-text is solely its likelihood to occasion notion in hearers/readers -- but what that notion will be is, unlike the latency in a fingerprint,B wildly various, non-fixed, non-definite.B I cannot help feeling that when you write, "how does one not reveal what is latent in the text", you feel there is a specific thing in there that cannot but be "revealed". That's wrong. (Throughout this posting, I've taken the "text" of a painting to be all the lines, shapes, colors, composition etc of what's on the canvas.)B
