Can Literature Survive Without Spirituality?

Discussion in 'Art & Culture' started by Carcano, Jun 28, 2009.

  1. sniffy Banned Banned

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    Anais Nin readers, let alone fans, are rare these days. Hmm perhaps they have always been...

    Respect due to Lucysnow.

    goes in search of....
     
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  3. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    What the hell does that mean? If material form has no continuity, then why did all those shakespear books remain shakespear books after he died?
     
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  5. Carcano Valued Senior Member

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    Rather than 'special' the appropriate word here would be 'desperate'.

    People have varying levels of desperation based on the extent to which they feel their own mortality.

    This desperation forms a kind of void in the psyche (like a Henry Moore sculpture) which must be filled with distractions.

    Truly 'special' experiences are only possible when this desperation has been lifted...and the world explodes with beauty and meaning.

    The great mystics of history speak endlessly of this. The Buddhist master Engo for example wrote these words several hundred years ago:

    "Those who think that in the mundane nothing is sacred, have not yet understood that is sacredness, nothing is mundane."
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2009
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  7. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    But without mortality, it wouldn't meen much to sacrifice yourself for a cause, to be a hero, to understand Romeo and Juliet, none of that would be significant. Life itself wouldn't mean anything without the looming possibility of not living.
     
  8. Carcano Valued Senior Member

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    Regardless of whether you died in some great effort or not...the effort remains meaningful.
     
  9. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Not if there was no mortal risk.
     
  10. Carcano Valued Senior Member

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    This is the highlight of your posts so far...you describe it well.

    Imagine an entire culture of people like that...persuaded by the emptiness of a transitory world.

    A rabble of egos and appetites.
     
  11. Carcano Valued Senior Member

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    If one dies building a great monument...is it any more or less magnificent to future generations?
     
  12. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    But in literature this can be described. Are you suggesting it should never be described? How else would a culture come to know itself?
     
  13. Carcano Valued Senior Member

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    Nevertheless, you cannot help but be affected by the principle of continuity.

    You psyche is molded by either its presence or its absence.

    Suppose for example that you died and were brought back to life with the absolute certainty that your consciousness is immortal.

    Would it change your whole psychology...of course!

    Instead of wrapping yourself in morbid images, worshiping death, insanity and mindless screaming.

    You might end up more like Barbara Streisand!

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    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rSA...149942941&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=8

    On a clear day
    Rise and look around you
    And you'll see who
    You are
    On a clear day
    How it will astound you
    That the glow of your being
    Outshines every star
    You'll feel part of
    Every mountain sea and shore
    You can hear
    From far and near
    A world you've never heard before
    And on a clear day
    You can see forever
    And ever...more!!!
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2009
  14. Carcano Valued Senior Member

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    Yes it can...but only in the same way that dissonant intervals are used to give music a dynamic motive force.
     
  15. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    So really you are not in favor of Literature at all. What you desire are RULES for what can be created in art, what you are hankering for is a new myth for our age not literature but myths evolve organically with a set criteria, which I believe is the one you speak of. Literature or none of the arts are able to function solely as a myth, what it signifies is altogether different. The arts address a variety of needs not just one.

    I believe a modern mythology is impossible at this time as society has lost its isolation, myths guide specific group thought and connects it to aspects larger than itself. The world at the moment is in flux, its in Toffler's Future Shock where mobility and changing cultures have yet to settle down into what it seems to be heading into which is an age of global oneness (whether this be a good or bad is another story). There is no story or no genre that can speak to all people at the moment as there is not one consciousness to which it can address. As Campbell has indicated a myth for a nomadic desert tribe would not be useful to an agrarian society or the ones living in the forest. Modern society has yet to create a myth for itself though I believe there have been attempts, The Matrix has the elements of myth but it fails to speak to us collectively as some would have contact with it and some would not, in this age we pick and choose our mythology. A mythology in order to be successful has to speak to the consciousness of all members. Old mythologies are breaking down and are useless to members of a modern age.

    You would dismiss Bukowski as a drunk and derelict who's life on skid row filled him with all you disdain. You would chastise him for describing these worlds and states of mind that permeate this area of existence but you do not credit him for addressing the humanity of life in this area, for speaking FOR the abandoned with empathy, people who's lives we never fully understand yet he is able to bring sympathy to the reader. You don't honor these writers for transcending that state through art.

    Its as if you blame the bottle for the wine it contains without addressing the grape that produced the wine, at least writer's in some way address this matter whatever you think of them.

    You see the magic of literature cannot be confined if its to evolve, it has to address the life of the individual and address its age. I would not find this magic in Hemingway but there were many men who did as he spoke of the life of the adventurer.

    Would you mind addressing post #78? You still have yet to move out of the area of critic without any answers.
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2009
  16. Carcano Valued Senior Member

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    You make two points in #78.

    1. The principle of beauty is still present in modern literature.
    2. Authors only reflect society, not themselves.

    The opposite of beauty *ugliness* is almost always used symbolically in modern literature as well as visual art, and has become very fashionable in the last few decades. What it symbolizes is DOUBT!

    On your second point, I dont think its realistic to make sharp distinctions between society and the individual in all cases.
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2009
  17. Carcano Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, all art has always incorporated RULES...at least until the dawn of the 20th century, when a new ideal emerged.

    The new ideal held that enlightenment was entirely a process of liberation.

    "It is forbidden to forbid!!!"

    Salvador Dali encountered this as a young man in the 1920s when he went to art school in Paris.

    "Everyone must find their own manner", his teachers cried!

    "There are no rules in painting...go to the core of the thing...in my class each student must work according to his own temperament!!!"

    Temperament? I could spare you some dear professor...Dali thought.

    How much time, how many revolutions, how many wars will it take to bring humanity back to the supreme truth that 'vigor' is the prime condition of every hierarchy, and that 'constraint' is the very mold of form!
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2009
  18. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    They taught skills not creation.

    Does Jazz bother you? Is it an affront to your sensibilities the improvisation that breaks and re-creates form in irregular fashion?

    A writer must know how to string words together and convey meaning but no one should tell him what is worthy of being told and what that meaning should be, I think this is a good thing unless you want to create the same greek statues over and over again..

    Yes but modern writing is not without restraint, it is utilized by the best of modern writers these works just don't have the old restraints, they have surpassed them. This constraint you would have universally applied would not address your concerns of spirituality or the lack of it though would it? If you say there is a worship of death and madness it would still be there in perfect form. Just look at what the Third Reich and communists did with art. Perfect form right masking death and destruction.

    Methinks you look in the wrong direction. I think you are judging art for ills that should be placed on society in general. You want to kill the messenger.

    What novel in your opinion exemplifies the qualities you admire in literature?
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2009
  19. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Yes to the first but no you misunderstood the second. They reflect themselves and society it would not be literature if they did not.

    How have you come to the conclusion that ugliness symbolizes doubt? You would have to elaborate on that by using some text examples. If it is indeed doubt and we live in a doubtful age why do you expect the work to reflect anything else?

    Who told you art is always has to be beautiful? To truly expose ugliness, to reveal it also has its place. Even Nature itself is not always beautiful.

    It's almost as if you fear that art will somehow never transcend what is present at the moment.

    Which novel is an example of what you are trying to expose as ugliness and anarchy on the literary alter? Which author do you think utilizes this on a regular basis to the exclusion of all else?
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2009
  20. takandjive Killer Queen Registered Senior Member

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    Nature is more indifferent than it is beautiful.

    Seriously, if art has to be beautiful, look at one of my favorite paintings:

    http://www.scottgbrooks.com/painting_fabulosity.html

    But on Nature: Nature doesn't give a bugfuck for anything and will bite you in the ass any time. Take that from someone who adores it.
     
  21. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Or the painting Venus or Chernobyl by the Norwegian painter Terje Ross Kolby

    http://www.rosskolby.com/gallery_index.html

    " He leads the spectator’s thoughts to the destinies of the people of Ukraine where the Tsjernobyl nuclear reactor melted down on the 26th April 1986 and created the worst nuclear cathastrophy since World War II. It forced 135.000 inhabitants to flee their home and left thousands of people to suffer great radioactive injuries. Kolby in this picture points at Man’s continuos experimenting with- and ruining of nature.

    Painting this young woman in the posture of Venus, Kolby grotesquely illustrates mankind’s vulnerability to the revenging nature - and creates a Venus as never seen before in the history of art."
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2009
  22. Carcano Valued Senior Member

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    Actually the two ideals are very much related.

    When the principle of continuity is erased the principle of constraint goes with it.

    Continuity means actions eventually have consequences and consequences create constraints, rules...the ability to say NO.

    One of the most glaring examples is that of 'moral reckoning'...the idea that evil will eventually answered for. It could be by divine judgment in the afterlife, or by the mechanics of karma and reincarnation.

    All majors cultures embrace it in some form.
     
  23. Carcano Valued Senior Member

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