January 2009 Archives

Tradition and individual Talent

“… French were the less spontaneous. Perhaps they are; but we might remind ourselves that criticism is as inevitable as breathing, and that we should be none the worse for articulating what passes in our minds when we read a book and feel an emotion about it, for criticizing our own minds in their work of criticism." Paragraph 2

            Critics developed popular believes on works of art and language. “Criticism is as inevitable as breathing” is a brilliant way to explain my last blog. We all subconsciously critique works of literature.  Do you like it, do you not like it are two ways that everyone critics literature, however it only means something if you define why you like it or why you don’t.  Which brings me to the next quotation.

“This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity.” (Bottom of paragraph 3)

So does timelessness make a work traditional? Why does something have to be timeless for it to have substantial meaning in the future?  A peace of writing can mean much more in the past because of its surroundings at the time then in the future where the scenery of the poem has been changed.  If the history is not remembered the poem is not timeless at all. So is it the history of a poem that makes it timeless and the timelessness makes its traditional. Why must something be temporal and not spiritual?

" No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead."

First of all, what about the living artistes, why cant you compare new artiest to living artists? I do agree however, with the fact that other art creates the meaning of a work.  People are affected by many different things that change the way they create their art through out their lifetime.  Which is why the background of an artist is important when doing a literary criticism of a certain literature. 

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“Gibbon no doubt thought that he was writing the historical truth, and so perhaps did the authors of genesis, but they are now read as fact by some and fiction by others;” (Eagleton 2)

            Literature around the world, through translations, and the editing processes have let to the questioning of whether or not a work is literature, fact or fiction.  Just because some books say they are true story doesn’t mean they are true story. One word could but altered and the story could mean something totally different accidentally. How could anyone decided what was true and what was just a great story. Many leave it to the publishers to decide, or the critics, or the writer. Who said that these were the people who know best about literature? The only reason that these people seem to know what they are doing is because they are confident in what they think. I think that this quote has a very important message to its readers, and I urged all who read to think for themselves and see what they find.

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