Voice--always there

We were talking in class today about how poems don't describe emotions or have emotion-words in them; but their job is to evoke emotions. Make a person feel a certain way. And thus, Wimsatt and Beardsley use the phrase "emotive import" to describe the transfer from words to emotions. I just...really like the phrase "emotive import."


on voice:
Someone expressed dissent that the voice of the poet, the poet's feelings, should be discounted while reading the poem. This is how I think poems are written, and why I think the background of the author of "We Wear the Mask" shouldn't affect us as readers.

Emotions that are to be evoked, are universal. An author feels something, and then wants an audience to feel the same way. To create that feeling in an audience is difficult because we all have different experiences. There needs to be a universality about the art as well as a specificness about it. And yes, some people might be more closely affected than others because of this, if their backgrounds are more similar to the author's. But by and large, that balance of universality and specificness is crucial to poetry.

To do this is like focusing a microscope on the environment surrounding the feeling. The reader's attention is precious. There is no room for anything beyond the emotive import. Dunbar, as much as his personal background may have made him feel the need to wear a mask (which is complete and utter speculation...he could have just been observing exlovers or family members who hate each other of the same race), did not have time to write about anything except why masks are warn. Here is the poetic microscope; here is the field of vision: masks.

The reader sees this image, subconsciously connects it with his/her own experience, and reacts to the poem. Given that humans have similar motivations and desires, all readers should have similar reactions if the poem successfully accomplishes the author's intent (which of course, the readers have no way of knowing). If the poem is successful, and readers feel the way the author hoped they would, then the audience actually is connecting to a part of the author's experience through similar emotional reactions. In a way, the poet's voice does come through. But it is much more subtle than curious readers want to know. For example, Dunbar could have described masks as ultimately protective and people as invasive. But he doesn't. And neither does the reader thinks so (if the readers reacts the way I do).

Thusly, I do not worry about the poet's voice being lost when we as critics disconnect the poem from the author's life. A poem may stand on its own, but an author has to make it. And a poem will stand according to how it is made.

Criticism...just because we want to.

Though William Wimsatt Jr. and Monroe Beardsley have a very full, rich essay about formalism and internal and external evidence for meaning, and three realms in which to find meaning...I would just like to discuss one statement, because a lightbulb went off when I read it.

"The poem is not the critic's own and not the author's (it is detached from the author at birth and goes about the world beyond his power to intend about it or control it). The poem belongs to the public" (1376).

In terms of criticism, I think you can discuss a poem in whatever realm you desire (realm meaning solely the poem, or from the perspective of the poet, or what the poet intended, ect.) and still have it be contructive/analytical. To me, criticism should not be bound by absolute laws, but should focus on the relationships within the world of the poem. Wimsatt and Beardsley say that the poem belongs to the public, but is it not also important how the poem was formed and how the poem lies in and of itself? Yes, an author wrote the poem and that is not deniable. Yes, that author had a life. Maybe, perhaps, such and such an experience had an impact on such and such a poem, but that does not mean that it ultimately did.

For example, when we read the poem about the masks in class, some people were not influenced by the knowledge that the author was an African American, and others were influenced by that knowledge. If a reader wants to know about the author, research is available for that purpose, but if a reader believes that background knowledge will negatively influence that poem's effect on the reader, it is the reader's choice whether to engage in this knowledge or not. No one tells a reader "you must know how the author's life influenced her choice of writing." We research for one reason: we are curious. If we are not curious we need not research.

Eliot, his own devil's advocate.

article: T.S. Eliot on the limits of criticism: the anomalous 'Experiment' of 1929 (Experiment in Criticism, lecture)

author: Ashley Marshall

Marshall discusses one of Eliot's essays, entitled "Experiments in Criticism." She notes how all throughout Eliot's career, he is conflicted with what exactly criticism should entail: how much criticism on the purely literary, and how much on the "extraliterary," which he defines as moral, social, and political content. In "The Frontiers of Criticism," Eliot says the following:

"It is reasonable, I feel, to be on guard against views which claim too much for poetry, as well as to protest against those which claim too little; to recognize a number of uses for poetry, without admitting that poetry must always and everywhere be subservient to any one of them" (11).

" 'there are limits, exceeding which in one direction literary criticism ceases to be literary, and exceeding which in another it ceases to be criticism' ". (6)

However, in "Experiments in Criticism" (1929), Marshall makes the case that Eliot apparently abandons his typical conflicted blend of criticism in which he struggles to separate the two kinds (literary and extraliterary), but realizes in the end that the two kinds are inseparable. One point that Eliot makes in the essay is that the literary relies upon the extraliterary, and that literary without extraliterary is imperfect and insufficient to understand. So that’s an important move on Eliot’s part.

Marshall is therefore very surprised that this essay has been ignored by critics because she sees it as being a defining moment in Eliot’s literary career. As I am not an Eliot scholar, I cannot say whether this is true or not, but Marshall includes another quote of Eliot’s which warns critics against deriving extraliterary questions from literary questions, that “the appreciation of genius and accomplishment should come first” (pp. 210-11) in the analysis. And to me, this is not a deviation from what Marshall had previously described as Eliot’s style of arguing with himself.

Whether or not “Experiments in Criticism” was a turning point for Eliot, I don’t blame him for being conflicted and trying to find a reliance, a connection, between the two types of criticisms. Even in his essay entitled “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” Eliot finds two valid points that could be stretched to battle against each other: the necessary impact of the past on the poet’s work (1093), and also the desensitization (“perverts” is the word he uses) that learning does to a poet’s abilities (1094). If romantics like Emerson and Shelley argued about what in fact poetry IS, Eliot can certainly argue with himself about what we must take from poetry/literature/art.

The American Scholar

Emerson feels sketchy about reading. But only because reading is abused. Or, more accurately, because thought has been abandoned by so many readers. He says that "books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst" (printed, p. 4 of 12). Though I think that there are worse things in life than misread books (it is the failure to think, not the general misreading of books, that I believe Emerson means), I agree with Emerson in that knowledge means almost nothing without the ability to analyze. Unless you know the right questions to ask, the answers will have little meaning.

This reminds me of one of my favorite books, Waterland, by Graham Swift. Unfortunately I don't have the book with me, so I will have to wing this quote, since Google served me poorly. ~"Children, be curious. Nothing is worse, that I know, than when curiosity stops. Curiosity weds us to the world."~ In the story, the narrator's wife, Mary, grows up an ever curious girl until infertility causes her curiosity to die (she also goes crazy). The narrator implores his audience--both the readers and the classroom he is teaching--to never stop asking questions, and that it is in the questions, the mystery, and the unquenchable thirst for such, that life has meaning.

Emerson might strike many as overly romantic, but I don't think he ever implies that reading itself is a bad thing (if he says that he is usually referring to reading without thinking). And our system of education is so developed now, probably much different from what his was--all my classes ask for responses from the individual, from personal engagement, and not for a formula-essay. So. Generally, I'm cool with Emerson.

Poetry's different effects

Shelley, slightly more analytical than Emerson, makes the argument that poetry helps society because poetry enlarges the imagination, and an enlarged imagination helps society. I partially agree with this...

Shelley says, "Poetry enlarges the circumference of the imagination by replenishing it with thoughts of ever new delight, which have the power of attracting and assimilating to their own nature all other thoughts, and which form new intervals and interstices whose void for ever craves fresh food."

Now it is true that you NEED to have a somewhat sophisticated imagination in order to "be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively...put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own."

(both quotes from page 700)

Because to help society, you NEED empathy. To have empathy, you NEED the cognitive requirements of thinking outside yourself, and imagination CAN help this, and poetry CAN help the imagination.

So yes, poetry can help society.

Let's get back to a deliciously ironic quote: "Poetry enlarges the circumference of the imagination by replenishing it with thoughts of ever new delight, which have the power of attracting and assimilating to their own nature all other thoughts, and which form new intervals and interstices whose void for ever craves fresh food."

What are your first thoughts when you think of poetry? Mine are an adolescent locking herself in her room, painting her nails black, listening to As I Lay Dying (maybe even reading As I Lay Daying), and writing freeverse about emptiness and being stripped bare and disappearing. The last thing she will do is think, "hey, maybe the guy who broke my heart isn't so bad after all," or "I wonder how I could make myself a better person." At least while she's writing the poem.

Even before the emo subculture, poets like Edgar Allen Poe and Emily Dickinson did anything but inspire philanthropic thoughts. One could argue against Shelley, in fact, and state that poetry has only caused society to degenerate into self-absorption, pain-obsession, and emotional masochism. Poems like "Lady Lazarus," and any pining, sobby, Petrarchian sonnet only encourage me to saturate myself in the pain of the speaker, and afterwords, in my own writing, and after that, in my real life.

What is unarguable, is that poetry, like art, is powerful. Poetry has influence over people. And it certainly, certainly can help society. But even though there are kinds of poetry that do not improve the soul, this does not mean that poetry must be done away with. Use its power, wield it, and let it take you where it will. Just because something doesn't help society, does that mean we still should not explore and use it?

Emerson: "I love him, even when I disagree with him." --Dr. Powers

Emerson was a Platonist...or so go his musical prose. He was a Platonist because he wrote, "poetry was all written before time was," (p. 726), and "poems are a corrupt version of some text in nature with which they ought to be made to tally" (p. 732). He writes that poets "miswrite" them, suggesting the Platonic idea that there is somehow a perfect version of that poem, an ideal poem that lies out there that must be pursued (poets, therefore, are pursuers of that perfection).

So, of course I'm no Platonist. But I will sympathize with Emerson if he makes this claim simply for the difficulty of the poet to create the perfect piece. Because I'm sure all of us can attest to the anger and actual, physical pain that happens in the brain when we just can't find the right words. Richard Brown puts it perfectly in the film The Hours (directed by Stephan Daldry):

"I wanted to be a writer, that's all. I wanted to write about it all. Everything that happens in a moment. The way the flowers looked when you carried them in your arms. This towel, how it smells, how it feels, this thread. All our feelings, yours and mine. The history of it, who we once were. Everything in the world. Everything all mixed up, like it's all mixed up now. And I failed. I failed. No matter what you start with it ends up being so much less. Sheer f***ing pride and stupidity."

As much as I disagree with Emerson's definitions and statements (I don't, for example, believe that a poet necessarily has to say what has not yet been foretold, p. 726), I completely agree with the principle that poets never get it right, that they are always missing something. (I can say this...because I'm a poet.) I can see Emerson working out in his head right now, starting from that fundamental point of poetic flaw: "we never get it right...but there has to be a right because there is something that we are pursuing...we are therefore pursuing the unknown...poets are prophets trying to happen."

Yes, Emerson. Poets are nothing if not pursuers (but are not all craftsmen pursuing the perfection of their craft?).

genre...

Currently reading--Kinsella: On genre: a reader's guide to the writing and reading of ...

(I'm pretty sure the link won't work, so I apologize, but you may search for the author and title in the Literature Resource Center.)

'So-called "literature" still wrestles with the laws and conventions of genre. I have implied that the more a work challenges these laws or rules, the more it becomes consciously literary, the more it places itself "above" the gratification of certainty.'


Kinsella discusses how true literature is not confined to most people's conceptions of genre. People might say that there is the novel, the poem, the biography, the article, and with fiction: the crime novel, the science fiction, the heterosexual romance. Genre is convention, genre is what has been done in both subject and form. But true literature, argues Kinsella, is confined to no such expectations. True literature surprises us.

I don't think true literature has to necessarily be surprising or unconventional in themes and messages, but it often is. Our culture is so obsessed with rebellion and challenge and daring to be the voice of truth that there is little left to challenge. Which is not a bad thing as long as one's ultimate goal is discovery and progression.

In terms of genre, however--whether that be fictional genres such as fantasy, romance, or crime, or merely what type of writing, such as poetry, prose, song, blog post, ect--literature needs to be as free as it can in order to most effectively communicate with the reader. And in most cases, that necessitates surprise simply because there are so many genre-overlaps that have not been done yet, or have been done very few times. Plotless stories, sarcastic biographies, artistic philosophy, ect. One cannot overwhelm or confuse the reader, of course; craft is only so helpful as it strengthens the message. The human mind WORKS by making associations and logical connections, which would include artistic connections and therefore, artistic categories.

But let us also not have the arrogance to say that we fully understand ourselves. And let us at least accept the challenges to our categories to see if connections lie between them.

Critical Lenses

Vince Brewton's article "Literary Theory" summarizes what literary theorists do as well as many of the movements and perspectives within literary criticism in general.

Most of the critical lenses are from whoever is marginalized: the poor (Marxism), the women (feminism), non-caucasians (ethnic and postcolonialism), non-heterosexuals (queer theory), and so forth.

What I used to gripe about while reading critics' takes on literature and plays was that I felt that they were not doing justice to the rest of the piece. All they could see was "this work is a triumph of the working woman" or "The closeness between the Chief and McMurphy symbolizes their repressed sexual desires for each other..." And I would angrily protest. "It has NOTHING TO DO with sexuality!"

We cannot fully escape the lenses we bring to the table of criticism. But I hope we can escape them enough to embrace the actual theme of the story. True, authors (of published stories...but you should have gotten that from the context ;) ) will write with lenses that may be antifeminist or white supremacist, and this we can analyze and discuss, and this can range from thick lenses to thin ones. And there is nothing wrong with analyzing what the author believes in, based on the text. But my hope is that while we strive to search for the lenses of the author, we do not let this search distract us from how the story touches us.

Oftentimes we criticize (in the academic sense) literature based on how it touches us. So if a story feels tinted with suppression or marginalization, this needs to be explored by the reader. But sometimes a story will simply touch us as tragic, situationally hopeless, or prophetic (to name a few arbitrary reactions).

I do not wish to dictate how others should approach literature, or suggest that there is a correct or incorrect way to approach it--and I apologize here and now if I have done this. Personally, I find it interesting to explore the cultural and political context of the author of a story, but I am first concerned with the story that the author has captured and brought to others--especially since it is up to the reader how the story will be taken in. Again, that is merely my preference.

What is an author?

Whatever comes under the category of "author" depends on how you define the word. And how you define the word may depend on a number of things, such as how you think the majority of people define or use the word, or possibly how you see it to be the most useful to yourself.

This brings us to a deeper philosophical question: where do definitions come from? Do definitions emerge from usage of others (practicality), from the individual's preferences, or from the context of the statement?

The reason the question of definitions is relevant to the question of authorship is because different people have different opinions of the word "author." Hence, which definition does one pick?

Some say that an author has to be someone who has published a written work. Others say that an author can be someone who is published with something written, but does not have to have to have chosen to be published, such as Emily Dickinson. (Marianne Noble, http://go.galegroup.com/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=RELEVANCE&
inPS=true&prodId=LitRC&userGroupName=messiah&tabID=T001&searchId=R2&resultListType=
RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=1&contentSet=
GALE%7CA70976325&&docId=GALE|A70976325&docType=GALE)
Still others say that an author can be anyone who has written anything (I, who post this right now, and you, who email your friends, are equally authors), and finally, there are those who believe that authors are those who create things (your sibling who made a lego spaceship is an author of that spaceship).

Our professor, Dr. Powers, told us in class today that the word "author" was never even applied to people who wrote until the printing press was created. "Author," therefore, carries with it a certain dignity. The first people referred to as authors were those who became published with documents that were important enough, and intelligent enough, to print. Thus, even when the term "author" is used metaphorically, it carries the flavor of dignity and sought-after writing.

No matter what words people use, they cannot deny that 1) people publish intentionally, 2) people become published unintentionally and that piece of writing still impacts its readers, whether the writer desires that or not, and 3) people create things. Thus, if a person limits "author" to the first instance, that does not nullify the existence of the other two instances. But it does disallow the previously described "dignity" from pertaining to those instances.

Personally, I like metaphors. And when people use a certain word metaphorically, I like to do that too. Hence, if someone uses "author" in a broader, metaphorical sense, I also widen my usage of the word to give it metaphoric value.

The film Waking Life (one of my favorites!) contains the following statement: "We are all co-authors of this dancing exuberance where even our inabilities are having a roast." As one of my artistic and intellectual influences, this film describes everyone as a "co-author" of life. Though this is a much broader action than specifically "one who publishes writings," its usage of the metaphor is specific. It does not allow one to say "Hundai is the author of an amazing vehicle" or "I am the author of this sandwich." It requires a romance, an intimacy between the creator and the created, as there is an intimacy between the writer and the written. In the statement by Waking Life, the term is used to say that we are collectively creating the life we experience.

When the word "author" is used metaphorically, there needs to be a metaphoric transfer, a connection between the original meaning of author and the new connection. It can even be used in a joking manner--"I authored that fashion statement"--but the metaphor must still have a meaning (in the example, the connection between the metaphor and the original meaning is the pride and professionalism inherent in both printed writing and this alleged fashion).

No matter what the definition means to you, no doubt that others have and will continue to use the word metaphorically, and no doubt the meaning of this word, like the meaning of all words, depends on the context, tone, and intention of the statement.