"Why do I make you read things you don't initially like?"

Because if we only read what we liked at the time, we would be stuck in one time, and only ever like one thing. When we are pushed into strange and unfamiliar territory, our brains assimilate or accommodate; look for connections and clicks. This restructures our brain, which then restructures our tastes. Reading what we don't like is not just for educational purposes; it's ultimately in the best interests of pleasure.

This does not mean that we will at some point love everything we initially do not like. But it does mean that the latter has the potential to change what we like and bring us into new territory.

Does this mean that we must love or should love everything that we have the potential to love (through experience of different works)? I do not know. I will be thinking about this.

benjamin interrupted

K. So, I'm only on the fifth page of Benjamin's "The Story Teller," but I've reached one of his points--perhaps his thesis, but I'll only find out when I'm done--and I had to start posting because I had a thought. Benjamin says in section VIII that a story "precludes psychological analysis" and that it uses "psychological shading" (not bolded in original essay, I added that) to engrain itself into the memory of the listener.

When I read this I immediately thought of Todorov's essay on how reading and properly analyzing (because everyone has an opinion of what is improper analysis) literature helps us to understand its "abstract structure" (p. 2100).

And then, I thought about how I write.

You can learn about craft, which is especially helpful in the editing process, and helpful in the process of recording what you need to tell. And you will fail without this discipline, hands down. But to tell what you need to tell, there is a step that comes before the discipline of recording. And please...excuse my romanticism. As much as I heckle romantic criticism for what it lacks, I do have some very romantic ideas that I would not be complete without.

As a writer you need to get in the moment. You need to close your eyes and feel the spirits around you. When the characters talk, it's not you talking; you need to listen to the voices inside yourself; you need to reach a place in your head. I only know this because I have to ask myself, "what would this character say?" Or when I'm writing a poem and I'm stuck, I need to close my eyes again, and revisit, and see what else is in the scene, or if there is nothing else and I need to end it.

"Herodotus offers no explanations" (part VII). Benjamin is talking about how the story teller, having to tap into this world of a layered story that s/he knows little why and more what and how, brings the listener also into this world. Story telling, like literature (though Benjamin contrasts it with literature but I tend to disagree with the differences he mentions), is not about explaining why, but explaining what and making YOU (you the reader, not you the writer) think about the why. But only if you want to.

Onward to the rest of his essay.

Beginning thoughts on structuralism

Today we talked about the formalists vs the structuralists, especially in terms of how they view literature, the author, and the reader. They both saw the poem as a separate entity, and the author as significant in and of herself, but not as a part of the poetic criticism. However, there is an interesting distinction between the two views, in that structuralists believe in an absolute artistic science, and that the poem helps us understand more about this system. The formalists, however, have not developed this scientific view, and for this reason, they have nothing but the poem to discuss. And it's because of a certain point they make clear that I have a wonder about them...they are quite clear on the fact that we DO NOT TALK about the author or about intent because that information is unavailable, is not public. Well. It made me wonder if some formalists long for that information. It's just that personally, when I am adamant about what I claim because of what information is available, I am adamant because I long for what is not there, because a certain desire is going unfulfilled.

However, I agree with the structuralists in that I do not talk about the author, not because the information is unavailable (with the research and technological access we have to certain records, we at least have enough information to make an educated guess that can be taken with a grain, or a spoonful, depending on your epistemological tastebuds, of skeptic salt), but because that information is irrelevant when you believe in the "artistic system." *takes a breath* The Inklings would have been proud of me for that sentence. No one else is. XD

Anyhoo, I at least mostly agree with the said system. I want to be careful, because there needs to be wiggle room for a mysterious subjectivity when it comes to art. But by and large, there is good and bad art, happy and sad poems, consistent and inconsistent themes, confusing and clear artistic statements. Yes. Art is its own biology. I think so anyway.

Hughes and Beardsley in the ring

So, Langston Hughes writes about the "Negro poet" in "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" (p. 1313). He contrasts the jazzlike, unrestrained, musical voice of the Negro poet to the calm, collected voice of the white poet. To me, skin color is only what started the different cultures, because several African Americans hopped on the Anglo-Saxon culture-train to get more societal acceptance. But for the purposes of brevity I will refer to them as Negro and white cultures, since that is how Hughes (and many others) refer to them as. I would like to stretch my creative juices and imagine what an argument between him and Beardsley would be like:

H: How else can you account for the differences in poems written by the white man and the Negro man besides the fact that it is the poet that we connect to when we read the poetry, that the poet and his life and experiences are intimately woven in with the poem?
B: I did not say the two were not intimately connected, I just said that they are not one and the same. And that when we read a poem, we are not reading an author. We are reading what comes from the author, but we are not reading the author himself.
H: When one author moves with the jazz and is the jazz and his poetry is jazz, and another author buttons up his coat and takes a quiet walk and his poetry is proper, how do you say that we are not reading these men?
B: What comes from the author is like the author. What comes from the author can only come from that author. But, as I said before, what comes from the author IS NOT THE AUTHOR. It is a poem. Are you, Mr. Hughes, a daybreak in Alabama? Or the silver rivers of jazz instruments? Or a river of tears?
H: I am all those things. And I am everything I write about.
B: But are you not also more? And does it not reduce you to a line of verses, and reduce the poem to a single man, a single set of experiences, if you make the two equal? Would you not say that there is more to you as a person than these poems?
H: The poems are the deepest part of me, they encompass me.
B: But "Daybreak in Alabama" does not talk of romance, and you in fact experience romance.
H: It's still a part of me you're reading.
B: But does the poem not also gain power when it is put down onto paper? I am talking to you right now. And you are enjoyable. But when I read what you write, I am moved beyond words; it is an entirely different experience. It comes from you but it gains a power and becomes a...a thing.
H: It's still me. Just because you don't see that "me" when you talk to me. The "thing" that moves you so much when you read my writing is still encased in this body.
B: I will have to trust you on that, because I cannot see inside you, and I do not know you. That information is not accessible to me. The only thing accessible to me is the poem. And what is true of your connection with your writing is not true of all writers.
H: I think it has to be, or else they wouldn't write it.
B: Well, again, I wouldn't know. I can't see into every writer and confirm that.
H: You just have to trust it.
B: You can claim ownership of the poem if you want. You can think that "poem" means "piece of me." I don't really care to be honest. But I am still calling it "poem," no matter where it comes from, because that is all I can prove.
H: Whatever floats your boat.
B: Care for a beer?
H: Budlight, please and thank you.

So, I like when things end happy. Who knows, they might have ended up in a fist fight. Not in my dreams though....(yes..I dream about these things..)