This is a reasonable reading of the passage, which I had not thought of, so
thanks. It clarifies some of my confusion, and reminds me once again of
Rilke's profound compassion.
I agree also (as I think most people do) that the sublime is not
antithetical to beauty, it's just one form of it.
But this interpretation of the passage confirms my claim that it is art, not
beauty, that is terrifying. The beautiful is only beautiful because we say
so (for whatever reason) -- that is, because we've internalized it, become
habituated to it. The beautiful is what is always already understood to be
beautiful, and it is the task of art to move beyond that, to take away (or
rather, to supercede or enlarge) what we recognize as beauty. If we cling to
recognized beauty, we are indeed going to be hurt when it is "taken away" --
i.e., superceded by previously unrecognized beauty. But if our attachment to
(need for) beauty is not specific, then it can never be taken away. It is
always, as Cage put it, "where art begins," and art is always beginning.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Shaw, Dan" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 1:11 PM
Subject: Re: beauty is the beginning of terror
My reading of the passage is that what we find beautiful is terrifying
because having it taken away can hurt us the most. It is the most dear to
us, and we love it so because it doesn't always just go away. Sometimes it
lingers...
Also...I have never thought of the beautiful as the antithesis of the
sublime...indeed, what I find most beautiful has more than a hint of the
sublime in it (as Stanley Kubrick so eloquently demonstrated about
Beethoven's 9th in the way he used it for A Clockwork Orange.
But then, I just love horror too!
"For beauty is the beginning of terror we are still able to bear, and why we
love it so is because it so serenely disdains to destroy us" Rilke's First
Duino Elegy
Daniel Shaw
Professor of Philosophy and Film
Lock Haven University
Managing Editor, Film and Philosophy
website: www.lhup.edu/dshaw
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