The Function Of Art And The Artist

Front 1

Arnold (Preface to Poems)

Back 1

1)The importance of the choice of subject 2) the necessity of accurate construction 3) subordinate character of expression
--Greeks regard the whole while we regard the parts: They are not focused on the expression. The Expression is just part of the poem. You need to concentrate on the action. Expression must be suboirdinate to action. What you say must be properly poetical.
--Vague vs. the precise.
--What is not interesting are poems that do not add to our knowledge due to being vague
--Should inspirit rejoice the reader
--The right art is what creates the highest enjoyment
--What are the eternal objects of poetry? Only excellent actions that last throughout time and appeal to all types of people and have elementary feelings.
--It is about the timelessness of the action. You must go far back. The present was too close to be properly written about in a good manner.
--"All depends upon the subject; choose a fitting action, penetrate yourself with the feeling of its situations this done, everything else will follow."
--Produce a total impression, rather than a single line
--Criticized Shakespeare: Would write a good sounding line and not think about where it fit in the action.
--The present age makes great claims upon us. The present age needs to have commerce with the ancient age. Remember the ancient artist who sought out the universal, which leads to the highest form of pleasure.

Front 2

Arnold (The Study of Poetry)

Back 2

Poetry vs. Religion. Religion is based on fact and narrative, while poetry is based on "stuff".
--Poetry, philosophy, and religion will all merge, and eventually poetry will take over!!
--Charlatanism: makes the distinctions between the true and the false unclear. It obliterates the distinctions. Important for the future of poetry.
--the best poetry is what WE want. It will have the power to form, sustain, and delight us as nothing else can.
--Touchstones: in alchemy a touchstone is used to touch and detect real gold. Tells real gold from fake. We must find the touchstones in poetry. Great poetry is touchstones for other poetry.
--Personal estimate: dealing with contemp poets. Fallicious because we judge based on how it applies to our recent life.
--Historical estimate: Judge on what best expresses the civilization of a particular era. There is a difference between great poetry and "first poetry". IT has a great value in history but is not a REAL estimate.
--Touchstone are concrete examples therefore eliminating abstraction
--They will only work if you have tact. Being able to judge what is good on your own.
--Touchstone are: Hamlet's dying lines, Paradise Lost, Henry IV, Homer, Dante.
--Can't define touchstones in abstract terms

Front 3

Arnold (Function of Criticism at the Present Time)

Back 3

Epoch of expansion vs. Epoch of concentration:

expansion: great literature is created here. Great literature can only be created under epoch of expansion. Rennaisance is the "great" example. We are on the verge of an epoch of expansion.
--greater tolerance to new ideas and a lot of creative force.

Concentration: French revolution. Concentrated on itself and its political movements. Must proceed epochs of expansion. Concentration must come before expansion. Just as criticism must come before creativity.
--Burke was the great leader of E. of concentration. "He brought thought to bear on politics" He brought high ideals through common political struggles.
--critic creates a free flow of ideas without influencing the practical.
--Criticism is to know what is the best. Touchstones how do they know they are "the best"?:
--They teach us not to become complacent.
**Criticism is the defining quality of an epoch of concentration.
--once you determine a disinterestedness love towards free ideas, real criticism is the excercise of curiousity and the attempt to know the best of what is best in teh world. Poltics, habits, what is popular and what is becoming more popular. COncerned only with WHAT IS BEST.
--The virtue of DETACHMENT
--it is only in small circles of disinterestedness that adequate ideas may form; Ruskin and Carlyle are not disinterested.
--serves a cause of perfection by establishing the rules of perfection.
--be ever knowledgeable of foreign ideas. England is not the world. This can happen under expansion.
--criticism is the lower falculty, but you can't have the second without the first.

Front 4

Ruskin (The Stones of Venice and the Nature of Gothic)

Back 4

It is better to be imperfect in a higher state of being than being perfect in a lower state of being.
--perfection requires mindless labor. Those who have to execute the will of another. Mindless slaves.
--The asyrian, the greek workman. Both tried to achieve perfection. Asyrian's would ask workers to create something impossible to be perfect and then accept the imperfection. Greeks did the opposite.
--Then Christianity realized the importantance of the individual. And the reality of the individuals imperfection. Man is imperfect yet important.
--The culpability of consumers. English are like greek people. Ex: The glass beads. Every woman who wants perfect beads is in a type of slave trade.
--man cannot be a tool and man
-- you can either make man a tool or let him be a man...cannot have both.
--Man was not intended to be perfect
--You destroy their soul if you force them to become a tool, BUT if you allow them to be creative you ruin their precision and this is a good thing.
--Christian or Gothic architecture is not only noble but ESSENTIAL.
--Don't make things that are not necessary and don't make copies of things and don't demand perfection for its own sake.
--"It is not that men are ill fed, but that they have no pleasure in the work by which they make their bread, and therefore look to wealth as the only means of pleasure.
--Never encourage the manufacturing of of any article not necessary in which invention has no share
--never demand an exact finish for its own sake, but only for some noble or practical end
--Never encourage imitation of copying of any kind, except for the sake of preserving great works.
--In these days we seperate. We want one man to always be thinking while the other is working, when in fact, the worker should be thinking more, and the academic should be working more.

Front 5

Arthur Henry Hallam (On Some of the Characteristics of modern Poetry, and on the Lyrical Poems of Alfred Tennyson)

Back 5

--The poet should be more concerned with sensation instead of being concerned with his reflection
--Titilate the reader rather than autobiography.
--The goal of art should always be beauty, anything else, the artist is creating false art.
--Modern poets should not focus on political action because of little authority
--"It is obvious that thsoe writers will be always most popular who require the least degree of assertion." (making argument of elitist view of poetry)
--"The number of real admirers is less than the number of apparent admirers."
--Why is Tennyson great and modern poety? 1) luxurience in his imagination 2) he has power of embodieing himself in ideal characters. Subjectively becoming universal 3) picturesque dillination of objects. 4) He has a variety of lyrcial measures. 5) He writes with an elevated level of thought.
--NOTE: French rev. is a finer theme than the war of troy, but it would be illogical that Homer was inferior. A better theme is not better than a better poet.

Front 6

William Wordsworth (Preface to Lyrical Ballads)

Back 6

--Goal of poetry: PLEASURE
--one of the fist works to be judged on an intentional basis. Trying to cultivate his readers.
--Strove to write in lang. of ordinary man...very benthem and mill ideal of ulitarinism
--What is a poet? He is a man? An ordinary man, but has a comprehensive soul
--They feel more
--soul that embraces everything
--The poet is always keenly aware of what he thinks and feels
--Poets are able in Wordsworth's opinion, to conjure up passion – passion that is inferior to the emotion recalled in tranquility, but is superior to emotions that are recalled by people that are not poets
--The passion is inferior when recalled in tranquility but superior to emotions recalled by those who are not poets.
--make the incidents of common life interesting in tracing them fullyin the primary laws of nature
--In rural life our essential passion have better soil . They coexist in a state of greater simplicity.
--Poetry must have a purpose, and good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.
--The subject is important because the mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants.
--The end of poetry is to produce excitement in coexistence with an overbalance of pleasure.
--

Front 7

Percy Bysshe Shelley (The Defence of Poetry)

Back 7

-Poetry creates new language through metaphor
--the route of all knowledge
--a striving for order
--incapable of thinking without metaphor
--recreates the universe in the use of his lang and diction that allows people to think about the unverse in complex manners ... life is a river.
--WE require metaphors to think and explain
--Poets will always have a place in society
--Metpahors do eventually lose power when over repeated.
--Poets are the unacknowledge legislators of the world.
--they put thoughts, moods, in the minds of the people.
--Poets dont outright change legislation, but plant ideas in those who change legislation
--poet is the best and wisest of the people.
--Reason Vs. Imagination
Reason: concious reflection of thoughts
Imagination: The color of those thoughts
--Reason: the vessel that carries it
--Poetry=imagination
--Poets should never embody their conceptions of right and wrong
--so just paint the pains of people.
--The great instrument of moral good is the imagination
--Poetry enacts upon the cause.
--Show don't tell
--Utilitarian pleasure (hungry want sandwhich earthly pleasure) vs. Universal pleasure (highbrow)

Front 8

Jeremy Bentham (The Rationale Reward)

Back 8

--Leading proponent of if it is pleasurable it is useful
--Pleasure by poetry is only offered to the few
--not useful because it is only to the minority
--routed in fabrication, falsehood, and false morals
--Passion is uncontrolled and unrestrained... that is why Bryon and Tennyson are critisized
--OTHER ARTS: are useful because they are good substiutes for the immoral vices
--offers moral utility
--redirect wars because they keep down the boredom.
--Lit critics suck, because they make pleasure less and less accesible
--make people harder to please

Front 9

Mill (Autobiography "A crisis in my mental Health)

Back 9

--suicidal --homosexual fascinating with Wordsworth
--scared that he had lost the ability to feel pleasure
**Happiness can only be achieved when focusing on other things. Find happiness by focusing on other things.
--All emotion when subjected to scrutiny ceases to exist.
--Ask if you are happy and you will cease to be so.
--Wordsworth poems expressed states of feeling, not outward feeling
--You can get basic pleasure from poetry and so can anyone. This is a direct contradiction to Bentham.
--Byron did not suite his condition, because Bryon suffers with the reader.

Front 10

Mill (What is Poetry?)

Back 10

--elequence is meant to be heard and is meant to be in speech form and needs an audience.
--Fiction paints a picture of life
--poetry paints a picture of the human show
--Drama combines all three
--fiction is inferior and for children
--Poetry is overheard inward
--These three things can be broken into pragmatic, expressive, and mimetic