Just a few words to clairify what I was trying to get at in our last class:
In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard seeks to defend Abraham's decision to sacrifice Issac against critics who claim that any child sacrifice is morally reprehensable and thus condemn Abraham to the same level as any other filicides (such as Jephthah). To Kierkegaard, since Abraham receives a direct command from God (unlike Jephthah, who invokes God with no reply) our attempts to empathize with Abraham, and thus to understand him are futile. Importantly, this creates a system of morality where there are two types of value between which there can be no exchange. For instance, child sacrifice is not (for instance) a certain factor more acceptable when God demands it: it changes from the most reprehensible act to one that is absolutely required.
This paradigm stands to contrast Marx's idea of the cash nexus. In my understanding, the cash nexus is the distinct attribute of modernity wherein all objects become commodities; where cash can become any object worth having. Perhaps Kierkegaard shows one way, spirituality, in which some things can exist in a system skewed to the cash nexus.
Balzac shows us another: love. While Grandet conceives things only in terms of the cash nexus (he focuses on the cash itself, at the consequence of distancing himself from the other characters), Eugenie can give a set of valuable gold coins to her beloved cousin, even though there is no "just" recompense (just being linked to the cash nexus). In this way, the major conflict between the two characters appears: neither can be forced to understand the other's system of valuation--they cannot be reconciled with one another.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
(This is a few weeks old; I didn't realize that I hadn't posted it.)
Two smaller-scale observations for this post:
First, I have been struck by the treatment of class in all of the works we've read so far, but an observation really became concrete to me while reading Frankenstein, specifically on the treatment of servants. In each of the novels, there has been a scene where the presence of a servant surprises us, not by the nature of their actions, but by the way the author leaves their presence unmentioned, thus making their actions "jump out" to the reader, at least from my modern perspective. Did Jane Austen, Goete and Mary Shelley expect their audiences to assume that servants would be following the protagonists at all times, and therefore to be unfazed by their unprepared introductions? Am I just a poor reader? This phenomenon reminds me of an essay by George Orwell--the name escapes me--written while he was in India. In Orwell's account, the British colonists treated the Indians as invisible people, only seen in terms of action, never as a being. I will do more research on this and write more on this theory.
Second, I am almost incredulous that Mary Shelley, as a woman (and the daughter of one of the most famous feminists in history) would have written a character so uninteresting and passive as Elizabeth, who seems shallow and unrealized, thinking only of her cousin's happiness to unbelivable extents. The only explanation I can think of is that perhaps since we are seeing Victor's subjective account (told to the ship's captain), what we recieve is only Shelley's impression of a man's idealized supplicating woman. However, I am disinclned to pursue this theory. The author seems to have forgotten that her narrator is speaking to a person in a higher level of the narrative; many details are included that I find unconvincing in that context, that would fit more readily with an omncient narrator (or the psuedo-omnicience of Emma's narrator).
Both of these topic beg for some research and further contemplation.
Two smaller-scale observations for this post:
First, I have been struck by the treatment of class in all of the works we've read so far, but an observation really became concrete to me while reading Frankenstein, specifically on the treatment of servants. In each of the novels, there has been a scene where the presence of a servant surprises us, not by the nature of their actions, but by the way the author leaves their presence unmentioned, thus making their actions "jump out" to the reader, at least from my modern perspective. Did Jane Austen, Goete and Mary Shelley expect their audiences to assume that servants would be following the protagonists at all times, and therefore to be unfazed by their unprepared introductions? Am I just a poor reader? This phenomenon reminds me of an essay by George Orwell--the name escapes me--written while he was in India. In Orwell's account, the British colonists treated the Indians as invisible people, only seen in terms of action, never as a being. I will do more research on this and write more on this theory.
Second, I am almost incredulous that Mary Shelley, as a woman (and the daughter of one of the most famous feminists in history) would have written a character so uninteresting and passive as Elizabeth, who seems shallow and unrealized, thinking only of her cousin's happiness to unbelivable extents. The only explanation I can think of is that perhaps since we are seeing Victor's subjective account (told to the ship's captain), what we recieve is only Shelley's impression of a man's idealized supplicating woman. However, I am disinclned to pursue this theory. The author seems to have forgotten that her narrator is speaking to a person in a higher level of the narrative; many details are included that I find unconvincing in that context, that would fit more readily with an omncient narrator (or the psuedo-omnicience of Emma's narrator).
Both of these topic beg for some research and further contemplation.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Was ist Romantik?
I'd like to elaborate a bit further on my concept of romanticism in regards to the relationship between artist and subject, beginning with an elucidation my definition of the term, which I believe remained particularly oblique in my last post.
Charles Baudelaire wrote (as recorded on Wikipedia) that "romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor exact truth, but in a way of feeling," which I interpret to refer to the counter-enlightenment character of the movement. Where the works of the earlier era were primarily concerned with the rational investigation of the nature of the universe and the absolute ability of human perception to find rational explanation, romanticism often rejects these principles in favor of portraying the world as mysterious and unknowable.
Through this definition of the romantic movement, I have derived a term to refer to the action that one takes in using this sort of perception: "romanticize." This contrasts with the perception involved in Enlightenment perception, which I refer to simply as perception. Of course, my nomenclature implies a hierarchy between the two; romanticism being an additional step in the process of perceiving, which may expose my bias on the matter. To me, emotion is a product of perception, not a rival; thus, when we find heightened emotions of the romantic movement, there must be some occurrence of imperfect reporting.
At this point, I would like to remind the reader that I am speaking in terms of the relationship between the author and subject, and not in the terms of the quality of the literature that results from this relationship. I think it is important for literary criticism to theorize on the hierarchies and presuppositions of these relationships to better understand the work in question, not necessarily to judge the work.
To return, I find it important that Baudelaire uses the word "feeling" as a contrast to "truth." This implies to the reader that to "feel" a subject one must suppress what one knows about that subject, or perhaps to prevent perception of the subject. Or perhaps this is best understood through the phenomenon of social transference--the process by which one "fills in" one's understanding of another person with the aspects of a third person of whom the second person is reminiscent. Perhaps the process of romanticization can be understood as partial understanding of the subject coming from the artist's perception of the subject, with certain scripts and schemata added from preexisting sources, most often from a store of cultural stereotypes and ideals of lower-class agrarian lifestyles. The question then becomes, in what proportion is the subject perceived, and in what proportion does the subject act as a cipher for the ideas of the subject.
My theory is largely negated by its many presuppositions. The author must be directly perceiving some object and consciously attempting to recreate it in the work. Also, I have failed to take into account an instance where the author may consciously create a speaker who initiates a process of romanticization on his perceptions, let alone an instance such as Emma, where the speaker, a disembodied narrator, seems to often fall prey to the preexisting schemata of the characters which it describes.
Charles Baudelaire wrote (as recorded on Wikipedia) that "romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor exact truth, but in a way of feeling," which I interpret to refer to the counter-enlightenment character of the movement. Where the works of the earlier era were primarily concerned with the rational investigation of the nature of the universe and the absolute ability of human perception to find rational explanation, romanticism often rejects these principles in favor of portraying the world as mysterious and unknowable.
Through this definition of the romantic movement, I have derived a term to refer to the action that one takes in using this sort of perception: "romanticize." This contrasts with the perception involved in Enlightenment perception, which I refer to simply as perception. Of course, my nomenclature implies a hierarchy between the two; romanticism being an additional step in the process of perceiving, which may expose my bias on the matter. To me, emotion is a product of perception, not a rival; thus, when we find heightened emotions of the romantic movement, there must be some occurrence of imperfect reporting.
At this point, I would like to remind the reader that I am speaking in terms of the relationship between the author and subject, and not in the terms of the quality of the literature that results from this relationship. I think it is important for literary criticism to theorize on the hierarchies and presuppositions of these relationships to better understand the work in question, not necessarily to judge the work.
To return, I find it important that Baudelaire uses the word "feeling" as a contrast to "truth." This implies to the reader that to "feel" a subject one must suppress what one knows about that subject, or perhaps to prevent perception of the subject. Or perhaps this is best understood through the phenomenon of social transference--the process by which one "fills in" one's understanding of another person with the aspects of a third person of whom the second person is reminiscent. Perhaps the process of romanticization can be understood as partial understanding of the subject coming from the artist's perception of the subject, with certain scripts and schemata added from preexisting sources, most often from a store of cultural stereotypes and ideals of lower-class agrarian lifestyles. The question then becomes, in what proportion is the subject perceived, and in what proportion does the subject act as a cipher for the ideas of the subject.
My theory is largely negated by its many presuppositions. The author must be directly perceiving some object and consciously attempting to recreate it in the work. Also, I have failed to take into account an instance where the author may consciously create a speaker who initiates a process of romanticization on his perceptions, let alone an instance such as Emma, where the speaker, a disembodied narrator, seems to often fall prey to the preexisting schemata of the characters which it describes.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
A Long, Long, Long, Boring Post
I was just thinking about the role of the speaker in the poems we read in class last week. As I began to speak about one of the Wordsworth poems, it seemed as though the entire class jumped up and replied in chorus, "you're synthesizing the poet and the speaker!" I was a bit taken aback by the display.
I too, know the difference between the poet and the speaker in a poem, but to dogmatically adhere to this or any other model of interpretation limits the number of ways that we can understand a work of art. There are many works of prose that are meant to be interpreted as a direct connection between the writer and the reader; why should poetry necessarily be any different? In the case of the Wordsworth poem, I believe that having this different perspective allows us a little more power to interpret.
Allow me to demonstrate. Whenever we are interpreting language, there must be a level to which we describe as "most true." Newspaper articles and diary entries have very simple relationships with this truth and the reader, because there is no level of truth beyond what they point to directly (in the vast majority of cases). More complex is the epistolary novel where an author has arranged a set of texts that point to the level of truth. This can be made even more complex if these documents where, in the world of the fiction, created by an unreliable narrator. For each of these levels of complexity, we must adjust our level of processing in order to keep track of which levels are "reliable" and which are "unreliable," a distinction which may remain plastic.
My thoughts were captured by a comment made by one of the other students: what if the speaker is telling us a romanticized story about the mountain girl? This would add another level of processing to the fiction of the poem...but to which model can it be ascribed? I believe that the speaker, if separate from the poet, cannot romanticize his subject. Romantization, at least by my definition (confabulating perception with preexisting notions and biases about the subject), can only happen as an unconscious process, or else it would be a totally different (and less interesting) process. I would like to go into this difference in greater detail at some other time. For now, let's concentrate on how this model could change our understanding of the poem.
Thus, if we cannot apply my romanticization ideas to the [POET-->SPEAKER-->SUBJECT] model, let's try it with a simpler one, [POET/SPEAKER-->SUBJECT]. In this case we can ascribe the process of romantization to the SPEAKER because he is now one with the POET, a thinking being with the capacity for unconscious processes. Thus, we can update our model to, [POET/SPEAKER-->SUBJECT(perception)-->SUBJECT(reality)]. Using our model, we can interpret the poem in a very different way: Wordsworth himself, considering himself to be an impartial watcher/recorder instead perceives this mountain girl not as she actually is, but as he would like her to be, filling in those facts he doesn't know about her with schemata from his memory and from his expectations for simple mountain girls.
more on this later...
I too, know the difference between the poet and the speaker in a poem, but to dogmatically adhere to this or any other model of interpretation limits the number of ways that we can understand a work of art. There are many works of prose that are meant to be interpreted as a direct connection between the writer and the reader; why should poetry necessarily be any different? In the case of the Wordsworth poem, I believe that having this different perspective allows us a little more power to interpret.
Allow me to demonstrate. Whenever we are interpreting language, there must be a level to which we describe as "most true." Newspaper articles and diary entries have very simple relationships with this truth and the reader, because there is no level of truth beyond what they point to directly (in the vast majority of cases). More complex is the epistolary novel where an author has arranged a set of texts that point to the level of truth. This can be made even more complex if these documents where, in the world of the fiction, created by an unreliable narrator. For each of these levels of complexity, we must adjust our level of processing in order to keep track of which levels are "reliable" and which are "unreliable," a distinction which may remain plastic.
My thoughts were captured by a comment made by one of the other students: what if the speaker is telling us a romanticized story about the mountain girl? This would add another level of processing to the fiction of the poem...but to which model can it be ascribed? I believe that the speaker, if separate from the poet, cannot romanticize his subject. Romantization, at least by my definition (confabulating perception with preexisting notions and biases about the subject), can only happen as an unconscious process, or else it would be a totally different (and less interesting) process. I would like to go into this difference in greater detail at some other time. For now, let's concentrate on how this model could change our understanding of the poem.
Thus, if we cannot apply my romanticization ideas to the [POET-->SPEAKER-->SUBJECT] model, let's try it with a simpler one, [POET/SPEAKER-->SUBJECT]. In this case we can ascribe the process of romantization to the SPEAKER because he is now one with the POET, a thinking being with the capacity for unconscious processes. Thus, we can update our model to, [POET/SPEAKER-->SUBJECT(perception)-->SUBJECT(reality)]. Using our model, we can interpret the poem in a very different way: Wordsworth himself, considering himself to be an impartial watcher/recorder instead perceives this mountain girl not as she actually is, but as he would like her to be, filling in those facts he doesn't know about her with schemata from his memory and from his expectations for simple mountain girls.
more on this later...
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
The Sorrows of Young Adolphe (and friends)
Throughout Adolphe, Constant characterizes his protagonist as unable or perhaps unwilling to coexist with others in society. This begins early: in Chapter One Constant presents with Adolphe, who can aptly perceive the hostile responses that he receives in response to his actions against those around him, but who refuses to alter his behavior to ameliorate these relationships. Instead, he invents excuses--they do not understand me, they aren't intelligent enough--explaining why they were unworthy of his attention from the beginning. In this way, he is continually ostracized from others and repeats his cycle of insult and alienation.
Only Ellenore enters this solitary world, and only because of Adolphe's jealousy over a rival's romantic conquests. One could even argue that the two of them share a relationship so passionate (or, perhaps more appropriately, so clingy) that their bond transcends the distance between people that Adolphe has found so difficult to cross (perhaps because of his father's "shyness," or perhaps because of his early experiences with death). Although we know little of her internal states, Ellenore may feel as distant from society as Adolphe: her birth is lower than the courtly friends who are forced to be friendly with her due to her relationship with the Count.
What could possibly end this relationship, if not the very society from which it acts as shelter for its two constituents? Although he claims to want to end his relationship, Adolphe's lack of action indicates rhat he truly desires to stay with Ellenore, and that his words towards his father are only hiding this fact. Eventually, the inexorable power of society that, acting through Adolphe's father, that forces them apart, by driving Adolphe's words, effusive in their intent but pointed in their content, as a wedge between the couple, eventually leading to Ellenore's tragic (at least dramatic) death.
We can draw a connection here to The Sorrows of Young Werther, as they are both stories of relationships thwarted by reality, and although it is tempting, I cannot unequivocally say that it is society itself that causes the conflict of both works because it seems untenable to claim that Werther's love for Lotte could be realized in a different sort of society, unlike the Sorrows of Young Adolphe, where one feels that they could be in love in a universe where only Adolphe and Ellenore existed, even if they built their relationship on jealously and alienation.
Only Ellenore enters this solitary world, and only because of Adolphe's jealousy over a rival's romantic conquests. One could even argue that the two of them share a relationship so passionate (or, perhaps more appropriately, so clingy) that their bond transcends the distance between people that Adolphe has found so difficult to cross (perhaps because of his father's "shyness," or perhaps because of his early experiences with death). Although we know little of her internal states, Ellenore may feel as distant from society as Adolphe: her birth is lower than the courtly friends who are forced to be friendly with her due to her relationship with the Count.
What could possibly end this relationship, if not the very society from which it acts as shelter for its two constituents? Although he claims to want to end his relationship, Adolphe's lack of action indicates rhat he truly desires to stay with Ellenore, and that his words towards his father are only hiding this fact. Eventually, the inexorable power of society that, acting through Adolphe's father, that forces them apart, by driving Adolphe's words, effusive in their intent but pointed in their content, as a wedge between the couple, eventually leading to Ellenore's tragic (at least dramatic) death.
We can draw a connection here to The Sorrows of Young Werther, as they are both stories of relationships thwarted by reality, and although it is tempting, I cannot unequivocally say that it is society itself that causes the conflict of both works because it seems untenable to claim that Werther's love for Lotte could be realized in a different sort of society, unlike the Sorrows of Young Adolphe, where one feels that they could be in love in a universe where only Adolphe and Ellenore existed, even if they built their relationship on jealously and alienation.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Structure, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Unreliable Narrator
I think it's important, when discussing The Sorrows of Young Werther, to remember that any time the word "truth" enters the conversation, we begin to tread on unstable ground. Of course, by the nature of its structure, we can only know what Werther wants us to know (or, by the conceit of the novel, what he wants Wilhelm to know). However, we must approach the work with an additional level of uncertainty due Werther's dissolution from society. In other words, we must assume that Werther is not only an unreliable narrator, but an unreliable perceiver as well.
Truth?
What exactly is one discussing when one speaks about "truth" in a work of fiction? In daily life, we say something is true when it corresponds with some sort of empirically verifiable reality, a distal stimulus of which our experience can be nothing more than what our senses perceive. We verify the existence of these objects by comparing our perceptions with those reported by others. In this way we are able to coexist with others in a relatively stable world. However, in fiction we are often presented with facts by an omniscient narrator who exists outside of the events presented. In this case, we take the narrator's word as truth and the text becomes synonymous with the "truth" of the story.
When, like Werther, the narrator of a work of fiction appears in the story, we must account for the viewpoint of the narrator when we determine what objects exist in the "real" world of the work--in terms of Werther, what actions really took place. When asking a question such as, "do you think Lotte led Werther along?" We must take into account the fact that we are referring to this "real" world, which exists (A) beyond the words that Werther has written and (B) beyond the perceptions of the character Werther.
I believe that it is impossible to ascertain whether or not Lotte acted with impropriety, but we can say that in the realm of Werther's perceptions it may have seemed to be so. Throughout the novel, Werther repeatedly states his belief that he and Lotte are a perfect match, and that he cannot understand how cruel fate could keep them apart. Of course, like anyone in love, Werther has built a romanticized representation of Lotte, and their relationship, in his mind. The simple answer to Werther's complaint, "if we are perfect for one another, why doesn't she love me," can be answered by stating that perhaps they are not perfect for one another, and perhaps Lotte acts in a perfectly honest way-- you, Werther, just choose not to change your mental representation of her.
In this way, he perseveres, preserving his fantasy of love, too much of a spoiled immature whelp to allow himself to perceive reality as it actually exists. Thus, when the climactic scene occurs and he kisses Lotte, only to be rejected, his cognitive representation finally proves itself incompatible with reality. Still unable to change himself, Werther chooses suicide rather than adjustment.
Truth?
What exactly is one discussing when one speaks about "truth" in a work of fiction? In daily life, we say something is true when it corresponds with some sort of empirically verifiable reality, a distal stimulus of which our experience can be nothing more than what our senses perceive. We verify the existence of these objects by comparing our perceptions with those reported by others. In this way we are able to coexist with others in a relatively stable world. However, in fiction we are often presented with facts by an omniscient narrator who exists outside of the events presented. In this case, we take the narrator's word as truth and the text becomes synonymous with the "truth" of the story.
When, like Werther, the narrator of a work of fiction appears in the story, we must account for the viewpoint of the narrator when we determine what objects exist in the "real" world of the work--in terms of Werther, what actions really took place. When asking a question such as, "do you think Lotte led Werther along?" We must take into account the fact that we are referring to this "real" world, which exists (A) beyond the words that Werther has written and (B) beyond the perceptions of the character Werther.
I believe that it is impossible to ascertain whether or not Lotte acted with impropriety, but we can say that in the realm of Werther's perceptions it may have seemed to be so. Throughout the novel, Werther repeatedly states his belief that he and Lotte are a perfect match, and that he cannot understand how cruel fate could keep them apart. Of course, like anyone in love, Werther has built a romanticized representation of Lotte, and their relationship, in his mind. The simple answer to Werther's complaint, "if we are perfect for one another, why doesn't she love me," can be answered by stating that perhaps they are not perfect for one another, and perhaps Lotte acts in a perfectly honest way-- you, Werther, just choose not to change your mental representation of her.
In this way, he perseveres, preserving his fantasy of love, too much of a spoiled immature whelp to allow himself to perceive reality as it actually exists. Thus, when the climactic scene occurs and he kisses Lotte, only to be rejected, his cognitive representation finally proves itself incompatible with reality. Still unable to change himself, Werther chooses suicide rather than adjustment.
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