There is a difference between recounting an interesting football game and actively watching it play out. One is a matter of planning and the other a matter of observation,which nobody gives a damn about until you write it down.
-----Original Message----- From: Tom McCormack <[email protected]> To: aesthetics-l <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, Dec 12, 2013 5:20 pm Subject: Re: Aesthetic feelings and other things On Dec 11, 2013, at 9:30 PM, [email protected] wrote:
One of the differences between Cheerskep's football game and a Shakespeare play is that the play was planned, is a description of something as Shakespeare imagined it, and the football game is an
event
whose occurrence was not planned, was not imagined by a coach or player and in some respects is a matter of chance, where the writer
of
the play may consider chance as a force but doesn't use its actual self in his play. Either thing, play or game, may have a sad or
happy
outcome, and may reveal facets of character in the players or actors.
I don't disagree with any of what Kate says here. (Except possibly her notion behind her line "where the writer of
the play may consider chance as a force but doesn't use its actual self in his play." With that one I'm unsure just what she's
thinking; but I sense it's not essential to the point she wants to make with the paragraph. I myself might speak of "chance" as a FACTOR but not a FORCE, but for all I know Kate would have the same notion behind either use. Many a non-fiction writer has attempted to describe a "real life" occurrence realistically and accurately, because the writer is convinced it's a wonderful "story". More than once as an editor I encountered such a description so effectively done I found myself experiencing a feeling that was indistinguishable from the "aesthetic" feeling I might get from an "imagined" story in a novel or play. Indeed, part of the power of the non-fiction tale came from one's realizing that the events it presented were not planned, but still unfolded in a form that achieved "dramatic" impact -- "aesthetic" impact.
