Kevin, Your 'historical and political'(or 'fettered') point is so
interesting. A poet cannot fudge his/her motivation, I expect you'd agree.
So George Orwell said he could not but write politically, but did not find
that interfered with his 'literary' impulse - the listening for what must be
said, the inspiration as to how to say it. Czeslaw Milosz found that
responding to his muse and writing about humanity rather than society got
him into political trouble. (It is surely hugely important for your thesis
that modern totalitarian societies cannot put up with the real thing -
literature?) Harold Pinter is a political animal but not in his plays, which
answer to something else. J. M. Coetze is a fascinating example. Under
apartheid, he was moved to write 'politically'. Then rather than find
another cause, he waited and listened for what it was he called to do next -
something very different, but arguably the real thing, too.
Your puzzlement about Spenser's motivation is I think justified. Why such a
long poem, so little differentiated in its parts? Dryden said it was to
flatter Philip Sidney. I don't think Spenser listened enough to Sidney:
'Look in your heart, and write.' I fear he wanted to be writing, rather than
to write. Two or so stanzas from Book 2, canto 12, 74-5, burst out of their
frame as being the real thing, not just for the sentiment, but the phrasing
. . . everything. 'What has got into him?' one thinks in amazement. Sadly,
the answer is Tasso: he's translating. I wish he'd done more of it - he's
brilliant. Only the motif of Prothalamion matches it. But who wants to know
which great man's house the Thames runs past? In a patronage society, almost
everyone, because that looks like 'the point of it'.
Penny McC.
-----Original Message-----
From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Kevin Farnham
Sent: 23 October 2005 16:41
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: unfettered art: one more question (with apologies)
Posited Points:
1. To gain significant insight from the Commedia, a reader must
have significant knowledge of historical and political issues in
Italy during Dante's lifetime.
2. To gain significant insight from the Faerie Queene, a reader
must have significant knowledge of historical and political
issues in England/Britain during Spenser's lifetime.
3. To gain significant insight from Ulysses, a reader must have
significant knowledge of historical and political issues in
Ireland during Joyce's lifetime, and also have knowledge of the
Odyssey and Hamlet.
Question:
1. To gain significant insight from MacBeth, MUST a reader have
significant knowledge of historical and political issues in
England during Shakespeare's lifetime, and also have knowledge
of the historical King MacBeth?
Conditional Questions:
IF the posited points are accepted, and the answer to the
question is "no" or "to a much lesser extent than is the case
with Dante, Spenser, and Joyce", is it true that MacBeth is a
more effective vehicle for communicating the artist's insight to
a broad spectrum of potential readers, who may live during the
artist's lifetime or centuries or millennia thereafter?
Posited Point:
A benefit of art is communication of "light" or "vision" or
"knowledge" or "insight" or "wisdom" from one who has been
gifted with ability to "see" / understand aspects of human
reality (the artist) to those who may not readily "see" without
being taught (the "common" reader).
Conditional Question:
IF the posited point is accepted, isn't it true that the more
highly "fettered" a work of art is with detailed local political
and historical references, the less effective the art is at
accomplishing the posited "benefit"?
Question and Conditional Question:
Is it likely that 400 years from now MacBeth will be much more
widely read and studied by "common" readers than will be the
Commedia, the Faerie Queene, and Ulysses?
IF "yes", is this because MacBeth is referential not to the
issues of a specific locality at a specific point in history,
but rather to the same type of issues, but embedded within a
mythology that allows the reader to "see" MacBeth as discussing
political, moral, intellectual, and social issues that exist
within his/her own specific locality and lifetime, because the
issues elaborated in the play have existed and will exist in all
localities throughout all of human history?
Questions:
Is art that is "fettered" with issues of specific concern in a
specific locality at a specific time in history less valuable
and less significant and less important as a tool for
transmitting human knowledge and "wisdom" than art that not
"fettered" by temporal and geographic locality?
Is it correct to attribute "the invention of the human" to
Shakespeare in part because his works can be read and understood
as archetypal myths that are self-referential and referential to
all times and all localities? Such that each reader ("common" or
academic) can witness the invention of humanity within his/her
own locality and time by studying Shakespearean text?
Conditional Question:
IF the answer to the last two questions is "yes", is
"unfettered" art superior to "fettered" art because it is
ultimately more beneficial to the entirety ("common" as well as
academic) of humankind?
Apologies:
1. for being obsessed with these issues
2. for breaking my vow of silence and, in general, talking too much
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