Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Contemplating ...

... The End of Art (I take "end" here as referring principally to art's teleology, though the pun with disappearance applies, too, I think).

We live at a time when art is enlisted in all manner of extra-artistic projects, from gender politics to the grim leftism of neo-Marxists, poststructuralists, and all the other exotic fauna who congregate around the art world and the academy. The subjugation of art—and of cultural life generally—to political ends has been one of the great spiritual tragedies of our age. Among much else, it makes it increasingly difficult to appreciate art on its own terms, as affording its own kinds of insights and satisfactions. Critics who care about art—even those who want to insist on art’s religious depth—are forced to champion art’s distinctively aesthetic qualities against attempts to reduce art to a species of ­propaganda.

5 comments:

  1. Speaking of Art, aside from the fact the disappearance of the variety given over to the various critical-agenda skewls bodes beautifully for the art of poetry, this brings up the question I have now had time to contemplate myself:

    That is, when does a poem cease to be a poem and become preachifyin' or politickin' (and, is there a scale on the continuum where a little burning of the candle at both ends justifies the means or not)? Is there a place for pulpitting or propagandising in poetry's domain?

    (The question arose in a discussion of the friendship between Levertov and Duncan withering to n'existence because of the Vietnam war.)

    Personally, I'm of two minds concerning the dilemma; for example, some of the war poets transcended the immediate; and, IMO, thereby satisfied the universality the art-form demands.

    The soul-crushing and heart-shattering "Dulce et Decorum Est," an obvious example, yields, for me, a path towards a less obvious, more achieved one than Wilfred Owen's, even: The work of David Jones; but, even Whitman, Cohen, and Ginsberg, on some level, can be labelled political poets; thus, does Duncan's argument hold water?

    And, speaking of water, I might well argue that "The Red Wheelbarrow," for all its metric brilliance and poetic diction, is primarily as political as Frost's "Stopping By Woods" indictment of the haves versus the have-nots.

    Both, IMO, are, without doubt, brilliant poems; yet, they do deliver a political message (which is propaganda). Am I both right? Was Duncan (or, more to the point, Levertov, in shunning Duncan, perhaps her closest friend but, most assuredly, her finest teacher)?

    On some level, isn't most poetry, by default, political since once you put two people together, politics always enters the equation, again, natch, IMO.

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  2. Some interesting questions raised.

    I think the problem with political poetry is that as a category it's usually ham-fisted didactic polemic broken into lines. In other words, not well done. What makes Whitman, Owen, and the rest, get out of that trap, perhaps, is that the poem is still a poem first, and political second. Political content in such poetry is content that is presenting a moral or ethical view, a critique of social injustice or suffering, and has something to say about that; but the poem remains artful, not a lecture. This is a success in the artistry of the poet.

    Duncan's position was a purist one about art, and that's in part because the politics were a given, and didn't need to appear or be expressed in his own art. Some great anti-war poems have been great and endured because they depict suffering. They transcend the topical to become universal.

    Transcending the topical to become universal is a good goal for any poetry, actually, not just the political.

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  3. The great war poems are just that: poems of war. Wilfred Owen doesn't preach against war; he simply depicts what war is like, what its personal consequences are. He writes from experience, and experience trumps all theories - and all ideologies.

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  4. Good point, Art; and, then, it follows that, if it is ham-fisted didactic polemic, then it isn't poetry in the first place, of the only order, since there are no degrees of poetry (nor, despite what we're lead to believe, IMO, in poetry from universities, e.g.).

    Your notion that the message doesn't overtake the medium, I think, has much to do with this discussion; but, you've read more around the problem Duncan and Levertov confronted (or, ISTM, avoided confronting for as long as possible). IIRC, you noted that the poetry that did issue from that war, in your opinion, didn't suffer from its message, meaning, I believe; it was intrinsic and grew out of the experience's process; when one feels deeply about *anything* and, one's only way towards coming to terms with it, either aesthetically or poetically, is to incorporate it into the fabric of one's life and work (since we all work in words), that's integrity, IMO. But, why did the rift happen, then; and, why could neither come to terms with the fact that there's more than one way to approach the voice calling, calling, no matter where or why or how you're stalling :).

    See, this is ultimately the problem I had with Olson, on a profound, almost incommunicable level, after years of close reading of EVERYTHING he'd written and said and done and EVERYTHING around him, including visiting Black Mountain and Gloucester and all of it. I was deeply enamoured, I guess; he was my first true love :). Bob Buckeye felt I was I drawn to him because of the relationship he'd (not) shared with his father; but, whatever the reason, I know I ultimately turned away from his work because I could not accept the edict concerning "form" and "content" Creeley championed, mostly, in his behalf. Also, the notion "private souls" at "public walls," I think it was once put? It became increasingly clear to me if you took the private soul out of the poet, you'd be taking the soul out of the poetry, period.

    Thus, you'd wind up exactly where I think I hear you heading; that, yes, on one level, all poetic expression is first-personal because it is felt that way; but, if it doesn't expand, doesn't become something more or other, a third element, one that includes the reader, it's not doing its job on a universal level.

    Publishing is publicking; if we put these things in books, we are attempting to communicate. That's why I say poetry is prayer, it's inclusive, not exclusive, as it must be, IMO. (And, again, IMO, I think that's the wrong turn it took, its tendency towards exclusion so that, ultimately, no one read the work of the Objective I as opposed to the transporting one, I guess; subjective is subjective, so I can't deploy that here without moving into a discussing of "the subject").

    Intrinsic / extrinsic . . .
    Inclusive / exclusive . . .

    I can see where I'm inning and outting and exxing but, I don't think it's even that clear-cut.

    I have said, however, I think I know the different between poetry and prayer (and they require each other): The former melts yours bones, the latter reconstructs them. (But, I might be wrong.)

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  5. Can't argue with experience trumping ideology, Frank, and wouldn't (because it's the truf); but, consider Four Quartets, the most gorgeously prayerful sequences in the history of the art, the be-all heartrend-all beginning and ending of everything for me, costing not less than everything.

    Is it Eliot pulpituating or struggling or divinely coming to terms with the on-going existential (argh) dilemma in a world where chaos seems to rule supreme? How does faith and / or belief, despite the meanings we attach to either, figure in the process? Does this even matter since "all shall be well . . . All manner of thing shall be well . . . When the tongues of flame are infolded . . .?"

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