One of the lines that struck me the most in this article was " ... a poem must not mean, but be..." This line struck me for many reasons, but the most predominant one being that as a poet myself I understand how, or what, it is to have someone read your writing and try to find a meaning behind it.
Though there may be a meaning or some kind of reasoning behind a work of art, does not mean that it is meant to be found, and in that case, even looked for.
This also speaks volumes for human nature and our constant need to break everything down into simple terms.
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." How many times have you (or someone around you) spoken just because you (or they) wanted to fill the silence? I mean that in the sense where you kind of ask yourself what was the point of what he/she just said? The article does bring about the question of why people criticize or even try to understand art.
Most, if not all, of the time when people verbally respond to any form of art it is because it brings about an extreme emotion... usually anger or some sort of inner conflict, whether it pertains to one's morals, religious beliefs, innate tendencies, or ethics. And a lot of the time art which does not disturb the observer goes unnoticed. "... all those that bite or sting are carefully classified, but butterflies form one huge class regardless of size or color."
For example; if I were to write two different poems:
1. In every poet
there is a virgin
waiting to be molested
& touched
in ways on the devil could desire
2. With the touch of a second
we'll fly into this seedless land
& rid these girls in white dresses
of raging love
Which of the two is more likely to be talked about? The one with 'bite', no?
Is it just human nature to disassemble everything? To only respond or think critically when provoked? It does seem only natural to only think deeply about things you find interesting or which stimulate you, but there are so many more things in the world that one will discover only be looking deeper, and a lot of those things are not going to have big flashing lights around them.
What I got from the overall article was that we, as humans, have the tendency to break things down until we feel they are simple. We do not want to feel over powered by anything or anyone, much less a piece of art or an artist.
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2 comments:
I agree with you on so many levels. While the article talks so much about art, I feel as though there is a bigger message within it talking about human nature. I've always heard a saying about how people "fear what they do not know or understand" and I think that in order to overcome this fear they attempt to analyze things to their liking, as critics and observers do with art. I think that's so much of the reason why only those works with "bite" get looked at over and over again.
-Stephanie Perez
I agree with your thought that as human beings from the beginning of time that we've always had the feeling that we must have knowledge of everything that graces this earth and to not understand or find meaning behind something means that it must have no reason. Thats the problem sometimes you can't understand everything, or be able to analyze its reason for being. Man has on so many levels created their own manual to life and the way it should be lived that sometimes we live it and don't even realize it. For instance what is the true definition of Art? Who gave made up that definition? Nine times out of ten it was some wealthy pompous jerk who thought that he knew it all and was able to get the definition cemented because he had the status to do so. Art is all around us we see it on a daily basis and don't even realize it. We as human beings are art, there are no two people that were created the same, our personality is art, are mannerisms are art. The houses, the buildings we go to school and work in. The way that people form their sentences, and "act" it out. Open your eyes life is an art, only some people are able to see it that way.
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