Now to discuss writing itself - writing about writing.....For any fellow literature students, how many times can our lecturers suggest that Shakespeare et.al was in fact writng about the art of poetry itself? Although it is fascinating and I'm sure writers themselves do it all the time.....Just take a look at any of Joyce's work, Aristotle, or even Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray. I had a very interesting discussion with an ex of mine about Dorian Gray, although I am ashamed to say I never had in fact read any Wilde at the time, I did try to discuss with him (the ex - a scientifically inclined mind with a strong musical background) how often nature imitates art rather than vice versa...Can anybody give any examples? I think he beat me during that debate, although it kept his brain ticking!
So to actually put forward a point, instead of just posing questions...I wish to write in order to learn. Not about myself, but to pose questions and perhaps receive theories, arguments, discussions. If I have one goal in life it is to continually probe and question - WHY? I was, as many young teenagers, fairly stubborn and narrow minded growing up and am trying to make up for it now....If anybody can challenge or rather teach me new things, suggest new reading, explain theories to me...than you are more than welcome to this virtual friendship group :P
Now, if a writer I can call myself, it would look rather unprofessional to ask my readers what they would like to hear about. But as Barthes would have us believe 'the death of the author is the birth of the reader.' That is to say, I can do what I like with my writing as can you....you who read it, some may psychoanalyse my character through my writing, some may evade disrupting the writer's character and focus on the gaps, the omissions (yes, I am plagiarising Barthes and Lacan again!)
For those of you already familiar with Barthes, I think it is important to not forget why Barthes wrote 'Death of the Author' :
"The 1960s also saw a famous polemic, provoked by the Sorbonne professor Raymond Picard's attack on Barthes's idiosyncratic Sur Racine (1963). In Nouvelle critique ou nouvelle imposture (1965), Picard took Barthes to task for irresponsible neglect of basic standards of scholarship [see Literary History, 2]. Barthes riposted vigorously in Critique et vérité (1966), distinguishing criticism from science."
Criticism from science - what does that mean to you?
Btw do YOU find it rather demeaning or patronising when I use the second person form?
Criticism from science to me, is linked in with the idea of 'truth' that I was referring to previously. We can't really talk of truths in the same way that we would in science, but that is to state the bleeding obvious. I think if all potential students of literature at higher education just thought of 'criticism from science' before entering into a degree, there would definitely be fewer tears upon the sixth attempt of reading say Ulysses, or any modernist literature! And it would open up many eyes to the nature of CRITICISM rather than spoon feeding at schools.
I'm sure that last sentence remains unecessarily complicated, but as above, I'm really quite the opposite of a perfectionist! And very very rarely will go over my work...yes I am lazy. Please help.
Now, what have I been trying to say for the last hour, but have been distracted by my own thoughts...? Is anybody still there?
Ahhhh yes.....Now in spite of Barthes' rant about readers deciding what the author is talking about....and DESPITE being a raving feminist (well I prefer the term 'queer'....Oh, yes, darrrrling, didn't you know, the word is all the rave! Coming soon to a university near you :P) ...I have to categorise topics between female/male.
This is DEFINITELY NOT to say that all women talk about....oh I don't know....say dating and how men are the biggest pricks (ARE NOT HAVE), sex, makeup, shopping, and clothes, oh and shaving, waxing, electrolysis, laser/IPL, manicures, extensions etc! Sex in the City, and Twilight and OMG 'I think I just peed my pants' and sooooooooo many superlatives and elongated vowel sounds!
Yes, I am one of these unfortunate chicks that you probably want to slap with a wet fish and command her brain cells to start multiplying coz the solo one is growing insanely lonely! I am proud to say I have never watched either Sex in the City movies, but yes I do have two facebook albums dedicated to it...and NO I do not have a vampire fetish either! But I can admit that the lazy, girly part of me often dominates. And I wish to apologise, because I'm sure most blogs will be filled with my dating angst, and horror stories of men with girlfriends and wives that try to seduce me.....Because I know it fascinates me, it is one of my vices, trashy writing keeps me hooked! So do trashy TV shows!
Men, I wish to make clear do NOT escape the brush of trash-iness! As Mark Kermode always criticises films for having the 'phwoooarrr' factor (equating to trash), men's magazines also include superficial crap on how to look good at the gym, how to seduce several girls at once, football, beer, etc! BUUTTTT perhaps I am meeting the wrong girls, mooosttt conversations, challenging conversations I have are with men....because they dig deep on a regular basis.....Or do they?
Or am I just one of those chics, that rather naively asks herself 'Why do all girls hate me?' whilst bitching to her girl associates about the other girl that walked out with a layer of fuzz around her legs, and simultaneously believes all her guy 'friends' are just that ......'just friends?'
Errrrm yer right!
And so my writing returns to trash :P But I'm going to retain it, and let you people make of it what you will. So what's the verdict people.... Are women incapable of discussing the great philosophers over coffee (N.B. coffee and NO illegal substances mentioned) because they WANT to rather than they HAVE to? I would never suggest women are dumb, as I have met some of the most intelligent girls at university....neither do I wish to suggest just because you understand philosophy that makes you 'intelligent'.....
My question is about people that think profoundly and make it their task in life to challenge and to do so....Or is this just a trait of mine....Is it because I am lazy and unwilling to change, that I cling to this false belief that what I am doing, by always interrogating, is in fact intelligent and will serve me well in finding a career path and a future partner?!
Or do men do this on a regular basis but remain quiet and discreet about it? How often do men indulge in trashy reads? Are they fascinated by how the female mind works when it comes to dating? Or have they met enough girls that frequent clubs every weekend, in a bid to find their future hubby, only to ask why men just use and abuse them?
So no conclusion for now, just awaiting comments from you all...... :)
Love, peace and happiness to youuuuuuu beautiful people xxxxxxxxxxx
Nice start, my darling! I think that you covered rather a lot in this entry, so I will talk to you about the topics raised one by one, starting with the one that interested me the most.
ReplyDeleteWhat examples do you have of nature imitating art? I actually couldn't think of any, so I would love some enlightenment on that. If I am being honest, I don't see how nature can imitate art. Let's say that Art is what is created by man, very broad, I know, and that nature is the world that we live in (obvs). Within the creative process of art, there is a consciousness in the process of creation, i.e. Man is aware that he is creating, and thus creating an imitation of nature (whatever it may be, as all of our creations are based on images/ scenes of/ from nature). However, for nature to imitate art, it would mean that nature would have to have some conscious awareness of it creating, but nature isn't conscious.... either that, or there is a conscious force behind nature making it imitate art.
Ultimately, I am saying that nature cannot imitate art as art is based on nature, which was the origin of all truth, inspiration and art (no matter how distorted, as everything we imagine comes from images based within nature), in which case, nature would only be, at most, be imitating itself/ being itself.
Sorry for this philosophical blurb (if you can call it that), would really like to hear your thoughts on this... (This is basically my dissertation, which is why it interests me).
Lemme know what you think Chickadee. x
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ReplyDeleteSir P. Sydney in his Defense of Poesie in reference to the purpose of creativity states a third purpose for poetry: "For these third be they which most properly do imitate to teach and delight; and to imitate borrow nothing of what is, hath been, or shall be; but range, only reined with learned discretion, into the divine consideration of what may be and should be. These be they that, as the first and most noble sort may justly be termed vates, so these are waited on in the excellentest languages and best understandings with the fore-described name of poets. For these, indeed, do merely make to imitate, and imitate both to delight and teach, and delight to move men to take that goodness in hand, which without delight they would fly as from a stranger; and teach to make them know that goodness whereunto they are moved: - which being the noblest scope to which ever any learning was directed, yet want there not idle tongues to bark at them."
ReplyDeleteTo view literature and art in an imitation of nature way, as Aristotle did would simply mean that literature is repetition. "The poet he nothing affirms, and therefore never lieth. For, as I take it, to lie is to affirm that to be true which is false. So as the other artists, and especially the historian, affirming many things, can, in the cloudy knowledge of mankind, hardly escape from many lies. But the poet (as I said before) never affirmeth. [ . . . so wise readers of poetry] will never give the lie to things not affirmatively but allegorically and figuratively written"
Oscar Wilde in simple terms states that "Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life."
Now for a stupid and vague example of art imitating nature....in my eyes books like Ulysses and Eliot's Wasteland, changed our world...at least the Western world, into one made up of fragments, one full of histories from several backgrounds, shards, and where one meaning never can come about. And we see this influencing poststructuralist movements, which have now touched every aspect of our modern world and university education, and not only in the humanities but even in architecture etc!
Perhaps people can think of better examples?
What does everybody think??
What exactly is your dissertation title? And is it this year's one? Or next year's?
Loveeeee xxxxx
This one should go before the last post!
ReplyDeleteyaaaaay so excited! My first comment!!!
Well the reason I say Nature may indeed imitate Art is because several artists have put this hypothesis forward. For instance, when an artist draws - does the image come from his eye and is simply copied down and transferred to his brain and then nerve signals sent down to his arm so he can draw the image seen by his eye? Or is the image itself created by the brain and then the eye sees that as an idea, which is then transferred down to the arm to be drawn?
It is quite interesting when we refer to creativity and literature.... Obviously this is another topic of debate/discussion, however one which is closely intertwined with the nature/art divide.
I can't say I agree that 'nature is the origin of truth' inspiration and art yes but I believe creativity plays a huge role too. Referring again to the modernists, in particular Joyce, and his The Portrait of the Artist as A young Man (and at times Ulysses) and his references to mirrors. Now take a look at this hyperlink: http://www.letsbuyit.co.uk/product/29581837/classic-literature/a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man-oxford-world-s-classics
This is the cover to Joyce's book and I think he's a real advocate of Nature imitating art...Why is this image not whole? Can we make any sense of it? yes we can - we can correctly assume that the artist intends to draw a face. (Btw - this is an example of Cubism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubism)
And our mind sees from nature a face and through our common sense we link the image to a face. But what gives it this unified wholesomeness that we can term it 'face'? Is nature really ever so unified and true?
Or is it easier for us to IMAGINE that it is so, and provide big sweeping brushes over items and label them black and white?
Aristotle said that the basis of all art is imitation of life.
I think that this debate could go on forever... I am intrigued by some of your points, but feel signifincantly underqualified to comment on some of them due to a lack of knowledge in regard to some of the authors you are referring to, namely Joyce and Eliot (who I have not yet read), so I will make some comments where I feel comfortable enough in my knowledge to make them.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I think that your example of the book cover is flawed in the sense that it is not nature imitating art; it is a work of art that has been distorted and the only way in which we can comprehend or unlock its meaning is because the images or the distorted images correspond to recognisable ciphers anchored in the material/ natural world. I don't really understand where nature is imitating art here... we would not find that image in nature, so it cannot be nature, but it is a work of art with the influence of the imagination distorting the image. Maybe I missed the point...
I don't think that the imagination could be described as a kind of sweeping gesture... Let's be clear about what the imagination actually is or what its role is in human life. “Elle modifie notre perception, mais n’invente rien. Fidele au réel, elle récompose le monde en sa juste expression.” (Raphael Enthoven) In this way, what we imagine and, therefore, the creations that emerge from Art, are based on a truth and knowledge of nature. But also, in a more creative and poetic light perhaps, Romain Gary posits, « rien ne vaut la peine d’être vécu qui n’est pas d’abord une œuvre d’imagination, ou alors la mer ne serait plus que de l’eau salée ».
I do think that it is necessary to differentiate between LIFE imitating ART (as Wilde says) and NATURE imitating ART. Firstly, life imitating art I feel is much more about when strange coincidences or chance comes into play... for example reading about a disaster in a piece of literature and then it actually happening in real life. (This is not to say that literature is prophetic in any way). I think it is perfectly likely that Life imitates Art, after all, it would be bizarre if it didn't. However, nature imitating art is different... nature is NOT life.
What IS subjective, however, is how we view nature. But when you talked about the two types of "perception" your first is perfectly true, but your second example is flawed because the image that your brain may have imagined, as you state, is still based in nature... just because you couldn't see it in front of you doesn't mean that its origins are not based in nature.
Sorry, you're going to have to spell it out to me, as I still don't where NATURE imitates ART. Can you define exactly what you are saying and separate nature (as an unconscious force) and art... of course there is going to be some overlap between nature and art, and life and art, but it is not a conscious overlap when refering to life (ie. it's a coincidence) but it will be a conscious overlap when considering art.
I DUNNO! I wonder what other people think... it is interesting to hear your views on this, especially because I have been looking at this question for a while now. My dissertation title is, "Giving Body to Thoughts; Diderot and [In]animate Sculptures".
I am intrigued that you feel "proud" that you have not seen either of the SATC movies... I think that SATC is certainly not trash and actually would confirm that woman can talk about "intellectual" issues, regardless of whether they take place in a coffee shop or in the lecture room. I wondered whether you could expand on your point because I think that you are wrong that women don't philosophise as much as men... or maybe your point is that we philosophise in different ways? I think that there are certainly huge differences between the way in which men and women approach not only essays and work in general, but also how they think about things in general. I WANT YOU TO EXPAND... I find this all very interesting.
Love you. x
This was the article in the guardian that I read... I do think that 'Confessional Literature' is a different thing, though may be interesting to read all the same.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/01/emily-gould-meghan-daum-confessional
xxx
Dearest Goggler (et.al)
ReplyDeleteI apologise for not having responded to you sooner! But I have literally been out most days this week. Here though we have some more food for thought and hopefully will write up my next blog shortly, all thanks to the fever that is keeping me off of work today!
Ok, me thinks I need to clarify a few things....Perhaps things have been taken out of context.
I'll endeavour to cover each of your topics one by one....
My example of the book cover was not intended as a direct example of nature imitating art, but a mode for you to think about the imagination and art. If art simply replicated nature then we would have as your Raphael Enthoven quote suggests a case of being 'faithful to reality' (that is if I have translated his quote correctly!)
If this were the case the term 'avant garde' would never exist, and all literature and broader cultural works of art would be simple moral fixes, to try to 'recompose the world'. I am not exactly sure what your second quote is trying to say, as it seems to contradict the first quote? If I have translated it correctly - does it say : nothing is worth the pain of being unless it is initially a work of the imagination...and then goes on to compare the world without the imagination as a sea without sea salt?? Is this correct? Or have I slaughtered and quartered the french language?
I really can't agree with you that all 'that we imagine and, therefore, the creations that emerge from Art, are based on a truth and knowledge of nature.' After all what is truth and knowledge? Do we have knowledge? The purpose of literature is not to be a mirror, and by a mirror I do not mean one which reflects back because even the realist novelists of the Victorian era suggested that a mirror distorts. I think we both agree on this, that nothing is a true reflection of nature?
If so, then our disagreement is simply on whether nature can ever go as far as imitating art? you suggest, art is mainly based in nature. Perhaps this is true....However, I did not wish to propose the opposite. I wish to put forward that in some rare circumstanes, outside of your suggestion of coincidence, can and does in fact occur.
Now, before I go on to give examples, I would like to clear up the definitions you suggest for life and nature.... I do not wish to rectify them. Why? Because I do not see the world as providing dictionary/web definitions of words....life encompasses nature for me. The only difference, in my eyes, is that the human life has the factor of morality and ethics, and yet an anonymous follower of this blog....has even suggested to me that studies in a US university have found that even plants can feel. I am still dubious about this finding, but we digress. I do not wish to differentiate nature from life, because without life nature does not exist. However if by nature you refer to vegetation, then yes I guess I am making that differentiation.
Now, before I go on to give examples, I would like to clear up the definitions you suggest for life and nature.... I do not wish to rectify them. Why? Because I do not see the world as providing dictionary/web definitions of words....life encompasses nature for me. The only difference, in my eyes, is that the human life has the factor of morality and ethics, and yet an anonymous follower of this blog....has even suggested to me that studies in a US university have found that even plants can feel. I am still dubious about this finding, but we digress. I do not wish to differentiate nature from life, because without life nature does not exist. However if by nature you refer to vegetation, then yes I guess I am making that differentiation.
ReplyDeleteSO the examples:
Some very basic examples include hardcore fanatics of Star Trek, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings. These works of art are all based in literature (even those who suggest they are allegories for Christianity, still the works themselves are primarily based in literature. N.B this is NOT to say that Christ is a work of art) The cult followers dress up like their favourite characters, speak in elvish and genuinely believe that they become the characters from the books. Crazy, nut jobs, in need of an asylum? Perhaps not....and I'll explain later on.
I am almost certain you have seen, even prior to his untimely death, Michael Jackson impersonators that so truly believed that they were him, that they went and had major surgery just to look at him. That my friend, is called performance art.
And what better example do we have, in the naughties, than the ledgend that is Lady Gaga. She has not only taken gender theory and made it a daily part of her 'reality' i.e. her life but she breathes performanc art. She needn't be performing to dress up like she does, nor making one of her very intelligent music videos
- she regularly appears like she has just stepped out of House of Gaga Fashion, always flashing both bum, legs and breasts. A performance artist that lives her art!
(A friend of mine is currently writing a dissertation on gaga and it would be intriguing me thinks to hear her thoughts on this, once the disso is complete!)
I can think of countless times in my primary school years, when friends would play out Spice Girls videos. And we would become the Spice Girls. And dress like them to our school discos...Yes, I was always, Scary Spice! Why is it that MTV seems to have set the trend not only for dance, but for the way girls do their make up, the way they dress,....go I as far as to suggest even our dating trends are influenced by what we see as cultural art? No, I won't go that far, because I believe art and nature is in a continual battle, and there are certainly more than two factors which play in how we shape our lives.
ReplyDeleteHowever, let us return to the realm of the arts. Most specifically, DRAMA. Or should I say metadrama/metatheatre.
Since the 1970s metadrama and/or metatheatre has been a very popular mode of ltierary criticism. But I'm not sure why it took critics sooooo long to come up with this theory, because Shakespeare and his contemporaries were ALWAYS writing meta-theatrically.
So what does meta-drama or metatheatre refer to?
Meta comes from the Greek to mean 'beyond' or 'after', so I like to explain it as 'drama' after 'drama'. But a more orthodox definition would have it as "drama about drama, or any moment of self‐consciousness by which a play draws attention to its own fictional status as a theatrical pretence." I have a problem with the last bit of this definition, but I will return to this.
Now when Shakespeare wrote THE most famous poem about love: Sonnet 18, he was essentially just rubbing his own ego. The last sestet reads:
"But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee. "
'This' in the last line, of course, refers to the poem itself and how it will endure eternally and the art in the endurance of his poetry (akin to his love) will imbue her with life, and she will live. BS I hear you say, of course, lines of poetry cannot give her life. She is (or he is, as is more suited to Shakespeare's more mature years ;) ) now a rotting corpse, or at least has been for the last 400 years!
ReplyDeleteBut the love in the art has been monumentalised, and I am certain to this day, men and women alike use this poem as declarations of their love, and thus art has given life to love :D
Moreover, to return again to another v famous Shakespeare play, Midsummer Night's Dream....another metatheatrical play. A play about a play. A play within several plays. A brief outline of the summary: there are two worlds in the play, one of the fairy kingdom of Oberon and Titania and Puck, and the other of the mechanicals who are rather unskilled in the art of playmaking and the king and the queen of Athens and the four lovers, that come from other more ancient plays :P
Because it is a comedy the fairy kingdom comes to rule over the 'real' kingdom in Athens momentarily wreaking havoc, only to be rectified when the magic has been dissolved. Or has it been dissolved by the end of the play?
If we were to be watching a production of a Midsummer Night's Dream, we are involved directly in the drama. Shakespeare speaks directly to us! In spite of the costumes, the lighting, the stage itself, we as play goers, or viewers of the film, are absorbed and for that moment drama/art becomes life. This is not to say that what we are watching is real, or we believe it is 'real' - but we suspend our disbelief and imagine....and enter into the realm of art. Hence Puck's final words of the play:
If we shadows have offended,
ReplyDeleteThink but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends"
There are countless and countless examples of this in Shakespeare alone, e.g. The prolouge to the Taming of the Shrew, and all the cross dressing in Twelfth Night, Cleopatra's hissy fits right before she dies, Antony's moving speeches in Julius Caesar, King Henry VIII and the cut and paste of history that Shakespeare masterfully did! etc etc etc Just read any Jacobean/Elizabethan play, they are full of them!
I think, Goggler, you will identify with the socialist realist and playwright Bertolt Brecht. He believed that all plays should have 'Verfremdungseffekt' (translated as "defamiliarization effect", "distancing effect", or "estrangement effect", and often mistranslated as "alienation effect"). He proposed "that a play should not cause the spectator to identify emotionally with the characters or action before him or her, but should instead provoke rational self-reflection and a critical view of the action on the stage. Brecht thought that the experience of a climactic catharsis of emotion left an audience complacent. Instead, he wanted his audiences to adopt a critical perspective in order to recognise social injustice and exploitation and to be moved to go forth from the theatre and effect change in the world outside. For this purpose, Brecht employed the use of techniques that remind the spectator that the play is a representation of reality and not reality itself. By highlighting the constructed nature of the theatrical event, Brecht hoped to communicate that the audience's reality was equally constructed and, as such, was changeable."
Source:
Source:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertolt_Brecht#Theory_and_practice_of_theatre
[Sorry for using wiki, I couldn't be bothered to dish out my lecture notes on Brecht!]
Many many many modern theatre acts and films have used his 'anti-realist' technique, which is very interesting to read and watch. Prime example of this and a very easy read is Caryl Churchill's Cloud 9.
However, I think some anti-realist techniques are unnecessary, although hilarious to watch, in some cases they utilise anti-realist techniques beautifully! I have heard that Mulholland Drive is a prime example....but haven't yet seen it....Any film critics out there?
Ok, I'm going to end the nature/art commentary here because otherwise I'm going to start suggesting that plants will start imitating Ulysses and will write poetry!
NEVERTHELESS I doooooo want to suggest that I'm a firm advocate for the imagination, and although I agree most things have a base in reality. I don't believe ALL works of art have a base in nature, because then the imagination is not the imagination but just a mirror which distorts and cuts and pastes images from reality. How else did people come up with the idea of little green men bursting forth from women's chests in Alien? :P
Dearest Goggler,
ReplyDeleteI realised that I have only sufficiently responded to only one of the points of discussion!
Let us now talk about SATC and women and the way they write. In my initial blog, I NEVER stated that women are less intelligent,or in fact less capable than men at discussing. What sort of a feminist would I be if I stated such a thing? Moreover, we are, both female....both engaging in 'intelligent discourse'....My point is more about the preference for intelligent debate. And as you stated in one of your previous comments, our perception is of course subjective, therefore what counts as intelligent is open to interpretation.
And the article you sent over was vv thought provoking so thank you!
I cut out several chunks of the article, as it dealt with several issues. One which I was trying to suggest in my first blog, but could not masterfully articulate, is summarised here below:
"According to Neill Denny, the editor-in-chief of The Bookseller, the sudden rash of confessional memoirs is partly attributable to the rise in popularity of blogging and reality television. "It's the idea that everyone's got a story to tell and everyone is a star, a media brand in their own right," says Denny. "It's the Big Brother phenomenon, where we are led to believe that our own stories are valid and have resonance. The world of the web has definitely opened up the market in a way that wouldn't have been conceivable 15 or 20 years ago. The things people would have written in a diary for themselves, they are now writing in a diary in a book. That has combined with a big tectonic shift in our society talking openly about sex and I think it has been led from America."
In the UK, we are still slightly discomfited by the idea of baring all in a confessional essay, partly, one presumes, because we are restrained by a sort of cultural prudishness, but also because we do not wish to appear self-indulgent. "American writers of that type are prepared to lay more on the line," agrees Denny. "The British are good at producing plenty of gripping, hardcore misery memoirs or they tend to write confessionally about the past."
I was trying to suggest that a blog, and by my continuous utilisation of the first person form, it is seemingly self-indulgent. My thoughts on this, aren't gender/sex based, but rather I do not wish to make the 'I' the centre of attention. Hence my first blog was dedicated to the thoughts of my fellow bloggers (rather than followers) so we could engage in debate rather than my 'blog' becoming an 'article' and a form of authority.
Now the part of the article about us Brits being crude, I will I think come back to in my second blog....which I want to dedicate to the concept of SHAME.
In the article, Emily Gould is cited with the statement that "If a woman writes about herself, she's a narcissist," "If a man does the same, he's describing the human condition." I don't agree. But the words got me thinking about the 'I', the ego, and what bothers me about gossip columns and diaries, and yet what simultaneously draws me in and I lap up the writing as if it were milk being fed to a newborn baby!
ReplyDeleteAnd I thought of Ulysses and how the storyline could very easily be made into an episode of Eastenders, at the heart of it is really a man caught in an uncomfortable family affair wherein his wife is cheating on him, and has lost his progeny. And yet what makes it a great book is the ability to shift between opinions and perspectives and thoroughly encompass all of the english language and literature! And yet Joyce gives Molly the final episode, which is this huge outpouring of sexual gratification, with not one moment of punctuation! And is one of very few characters to use the 'I' form....Some argue that Joyce is being misogynist throughout, I argued in my final paper that Joyce is in fact a feminist....
More on that, when you read Ulysses, and I will make you read it :P
I think, my personal preference for literature is that which is of an elevated nature, and by an elevated nature I mean something that is thought provoking. I do not agree with Crosley that confessionals need structure, nor can anything called 'literary absolutism' ever be reached!
An 'elevated nature' may even be something as simple as a work of art in the cinema: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1boyzDEyZbk&feature=related (Day and Night, a short Pixar film at the beginning of Toy Story 3) ...I agree that the quotidian as mentioned by Gould may be unconventional and the stories of those on the margins (the subaltern) are often those which go unheared. But in our modern WESTERN society, to talk about female emancipation and female sexuality, personally I find tired. But is this really what SATC discusses?????
Do you leave SATC and really question some of the issues raised??
I had a better review of SATC2 but I have mislaid it, so this one will do for the time being: http://www.slate.com/id/2255246 AND this one exemplifies everything that is wrong with SATC and its banal 'topics for debate' : http://www.loonwatch.com/tag/satc2/
If this is Western feminism, then I wash my hands of the word feminist. The whole point of feminism is to help liberate women that are oppressed, not necessarily by men, but perhaps by economic and unfortunate circumstances. it seems these women are self oppressed by wealth, Grobalisation (yes i do mean to spell it with an R) and the only way to happiness is by owning plenty of shoes and obviously having that fairy tale wedding followed by tantric sessions!
I am not a prude, I can talk about sex openly....but as a topic of conversation, for 24 hours 7 days a week...well that's the topic for my second blog :D
Goggler SORRY. Here is the article I had initially read that put me off seeing SATC:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thestranger.com/seattle/burkas-and-birkins/Content?oid=4132715
You say you feel shameful from doing something wrong because someone might find out. For religious people that someone is also god, so maybe religion has caused people to feel shame because they know god is always watching.
ReplyDeleteSo you could say religion has made us understand why to feel ashamed because we might be doing something wrong such as stealing from, killing, even abusing someone. Maybe the person committing the act doesn’t feel ashamed but when this act is seen by someone on the outside they see the person who the act is being acted upon and feeling sorry for them. That is how you know that religion tries to prevent someone being harmed by showing good from bad and that shame is a human feeling when doing something wrong.
When religion states ‘sex before marriage if forbidden’ I think it is to prevent children from growing up without a mother or father, to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and so on. Therefore, sex before marriage is very likely to cause harm to someone which in turn makes people to feel shame. That is why BOTH women and men should not have sex before marriage.
Culture is also formed from religion.