Pater, Lessing, Bourdieu

Wow. Lots of great material for discussion this week. I am finally feeling up to par, so I think I am ready to tackle this...thank God (or rather, thank Zemka) we didn't have to deal with Kant this week. - hope I didn't make everyone sick by appearing this morning. I think I was no longer contagious, though. - OK, to the task at hand. I have to start with Pater, because I just loved it. I can't believe he was a Victorian, his sensibility is so Romantic, almost like Thoreau...but I am probably being overly hard on Victorians (bla, bla, bla) I like his advice, such things as "the critic should posess...the power of being deeply moved by the presence of beautiful objects" and "the service of philosophy, of speculative culture, toward the human spirit, is to rouse, to startle it to a life or constant and eager observation." and one more "gathering all we are into one desparate effort to see and touch". OK, one more: "our failure is to form habits" - this last one is not a romantic description, but relevant, nonetheless. I think habits are the enemy, in many ways, I relate this to Bourdieu, as well. It is just these sorts of habits that cause us to see things without really seeing them, by looking through the habituated lens of culture, we become lazy, and do not see things with a fresh eye. But back to Pater. I think what he says really strikes a chord with me, at this point in my study of literature. I seem to be getting further from this sort of true enjoyment and pleasure from the beauty of poetry, the more I learn to analyze and distance myself from it, viewing a poem as an object to be acted upon, instead of a piece of art to be passionately experienced. I want to devote my time to the study of literature, but somehow still very much desire to enjoy literature, and for that matter, life, from this perspective as well. Is it possible, though? OK, one more quote from Pater:
"art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake."
Is it possible to move on to Bourdieu from here? I think not. I found him pretty completely abhorent. I see his point, but I just really don't want to believe it. I guess I am too young and idealistic...well, at 31, it may be time to drop the "young" (lol). I guess I believe too much in the idea of inherent beauty, that the innate beauty that an object, or a poem, posesses can be appreciated by anyone, if given proper illumination (which can take the form of education, it is true)

OK, enough of that. I am going to highlight this, because I want to know what everyone has to say about it. Regarding Lessing, I keep wondering what he would have had to say about the medium of Film as Art. Does it actually leave anything to the imagination? Arguably not, since it fills in all of the temporal and visual gaps traditionally left to the imagination in narrative and visual arts, respectively. By virtue of being a visual narrative art, is film inherently flawed, then? I don't think so, but I wonder if he would. I suppose there is something left to the imagination, in that we don't always see what is happening off screen, or after a scene (love scenes come to mind). But I can't help but think back to all of the times I have seen a movie after reading the book, and saying "that is not what he looks like" or "that scene just wasn't how I imagined it". Clearly, we all to often prefer the way we imagined the scene, or a character to the director's representation. Hmmm. What do you think?

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Lacan. What to say about Lacan? OK, there is a quote that I found to be really sad in the first piece, so I will start there. It was regarding the two kids on the train, who thought they had reached the towns of “ladies” and “gentlemen”: “For these children, Ladies and Gentlemen will be henceforth two countries towards which each of their souls will strive on divergent wings, and between which a truce will be more impossible since they are actually the same country and neither can compromise on its own superiority without detracting from the glory of the other”. What a rotten thing to say. Really. Is the situation of male/female relationships really so hopeless? His words are a slightly different take on the battle of the sexes idea, but not at all in a comforting way. And one dares not disagree with his assertion that “they are actually the same country”, since such a disagreement merely feeds into his next assertion! The whole thought is just thoroughly depressing. Interesting, I suppose, but in the end so very sad. OK, moving on.
I wonder about how to apply Lacan’s theories to literature. His idea that no one is actually complete, but we look to be defined by others, or The Other, (another thoroughly depressing concept) could perhaps be applied to reading, as well. It is rather problematic, though, since in reading, we are not interacting with a person, or palpable other, but a representation, using of the flawed medium of language, of people or situations. Since there is not an actual way to receive personal validation, this reason for reading, if it is indeed what Lacan asserts is happening when we read, seems completely futile. Perhaps one can identify with a character in a book, and see himself reflected back through the book, and hence the language functions in this scenario as the infant’s mirror. Even in this limited way, though, it seems like a poor shadow of validation. If we seek a concept of ourselves (which is completely defined by how The Other sees us, a concept I really don’t buy, BTW) as individual and unique, this can hardly be the case in the instance of identification with a literary figure. It is inevitable that a figure we relate to has been read and reflected countless times before us, and will be after us. The figure is always/already someone else, not just us, certainly not a whole, unique, individual representation of the reader. I give up.
After the dark cloud that is Lacan, Kristeva seems almost liberating. The assertion that we can reach the semiotic, that it is possible to return for brief, fleeting interludes of inspiration, is refreshingly hopeful in comparison. I can certainly see the fleeting approach to the unguarded or unsocialised primitive, which seems to correspond to Kristeva’s semiotic in the language of young children, and in the mentally ill. The idea that poetry should ideally achieve these fleeting insights is certainly a revolutionary theory, and one that I am going to need some more time to process, I think. I seem to recall a section where Kristeva cites music as a way to perhaps circumvent the trap of the symbolic, which strikes a chord (pardon the pun) with me. I have often wondered, in previous readings, what these theorists would say about music as a medium of communication. The act of hearing music is certainly on a separate plain, far more subjective and “listener response” if you will, but still tied to the symbolic, actually. After all, when a musical plays a piece of music, he reads symbols on the page, in the form of notes, and turns them into music. Is the music then distorted by having gone through the process of notation, and then being reproduced, though? Hmmm. Is it like having someone read aloud? Well, not really, I guess, since language is the medium of communication either way, which is the distorted medium. So, perhaps musical communication is a truly primal, undistorted means of communication. Still, I don’t think we will be abandoning language in order to play all of our thoughts on personal accordions anytime in the near future.

The man himself

Marx, Freud

What can I say about this week’s readings? Really, they weren’t that bad. I don’t care much for Freud; he has an unsettling way of painting women out of the picture, unless it is to objectify them as “castrated” men. Given the choice I would much rather study Jung. But Freud did start the ball rolling in this area, and he makes some very interesting points. I keep going back and thinking about his analysis of Hamlet. It is brilliant and fascinating, but I just can’t get behind it. His explanation that the entire plot of the play, comprised mostly of Hamlet’s deliberations on how and why to kill Claudius, can be crystallized into the fact that Hamlet doesn’t want to kill Claudius because Claudius really did him a favor, in acting out Hamlet’s own oedipal urges to kill his father. Of course, he explains it better than that, but I can’t figure out what it is that bothers me about it. It is, on the surface, a reasonable possibility. There does not seem to be a reason given in the play for Hamlet’s delay. In many ways, though, this is the heart of the play. His endless intellectual contemplation and inability to act are what make him such a frustrating yet fascinating character. In some ways psychoanalytical theory is frustrating, because it is rather subjective. I cannot prove it is wrong, but I, well, it’s just wrong. It is too simple. His argument that Hamlet proves himself a man of action, thus refuting the Hamlet-as-ineffectual- intellectual argument is weak, for one thing. True, he does manage to kill Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (henceforth to be called “R” and “G”, as Freud points out. But these circumstances are much different. For one thing, he kills Polonius in the heat of the moment (heat of passion?) when he is acting on impulse, and thus freed from the torture of his over-analytical brain. Furthermore, he thinks that Polonius is actually Claudius, hidden in the bed curtains. (I know, I can hear Freud now “but does he really, or does he subconsciously know it is not him…”) The murder of R and G can also be explained away as an act of self-preservation, and thus out of the norm. It is still cold and heartless, but in these situations he was forced to make a choice, not allowed time for the brain to be “sicklied o’er with pale cast of thought”. OK, so Freud, I reject your interpretation. I don’t believe that the driving force behind “Hamlet” is Hamlet’s, and by extension Shakespeare’s, Oedipal complex. I have no hypothesis to offer in return, however, I think that Hamlet’s actions and thought processes are mysterious for a reason, and that is what makes the play so engaging. One can impose any number of possible interpretations upon it, without ever totally isolating the one true motivation. OK, enough Hamlet. Except to say, I wonder if Freud had access to Quarto 1, and if it holds up to his theory as well…hmmm…I would find Freud interesting to sit down and have a discussion with, but I don’t think I would like him very much…

And the castration anxiety thing…oh boy. Does he really believe this stuff? “Probably no Male human being is spared the fright of castration at the sight of a female genital” Really? Because I have asked around, and I find this not to be the case. I even interviewed my three year old (poor thing) to ascertain the truth, and he assures me that he is perfectly comfortable with the fact that I have no penis, and he is confident in the knowledge that I have never had one. In fact, he comforted me simplistically, saying “No Mommy, you have a vagina instead, remember? You’re a girl, like Bree” (Bree, short for Brianna, is my 10 month old daughter) So, I felt a little silly, but nonetheless vindicated.

Marx. Now that’s another story. I like the idea (ideology? :-) behind both psychoanalytical and Marxist criticism. Both put forth the theory that there are forces at work in our lives of which we are not even aware, and that these forces influence, nay, are the unseen foundation for our literature and art. I like the thought that there is something greater behind it all, because it makes more sense than many other theories, which discount the author entirely, or assume that he works in a vacuum of sorts, un-influenced by outside forces. We do bring the baggage of our social consciousness and political and cultural identities to everything we read or write. But I am hesitant to apply this interpretation as an all encompassing explanation, as well. Yes, looking at a text as playing out the elements of capitalism, products and consumption, the characters as workers and bourgeois, adds an interesting and thought provoking dimension. I do not believe that it is the only dimension, however. And on that note, I will sign off. Have a good Fall Break, everyone!

Jen