Monthly Archives: November 2009

Announcement, English fiction, narrative voice

Session #19 December 2nd, 2009: The Age of Innocence

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* Photo: Edith Wharton, 1915 * License: Public...
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The next session will be on Dec. 2nd from 3:30-5:30. This will be the last meeting of the Informal Reading Group this year.

For this session I’ve chosen 2 pages from a novel by American authoress Edith Wharton, “The Age of Innocence”, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921.

Edith Wharton wrote in a post-Romantic style, the style called Realism. The story and the characters show the tension between Romanticism and Realism.

Edith Wharton on Wikipedia (English) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Wharton

There seems to be no Japanese Wikipedia entry for her, but perhaps some of you can find a good website in Japanese about her.

“The Age of Innocence” is also the title of a painting by the famous British portrait painter Joshua Reynolds. You can see the painting and read about Reynolds here.

Did this painting influence Wharton? We can discuss this in the session, perhaps.

This website tells the whole story of “Age of Innocence” in a “digested” form (in English, though).

This article writes about “Age of Innocence” and Gustave Flaubert‘s classic “Emma Bovary“, itself a novel about Romanticism.

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English fiction, narrative voice, philosophy / theory of art

Session #18 November 25th, 2009: A Sense of Place

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Today’s session will be on a Sense of Place, and the text will be an extract from British author Martin Amis’ book,  ” Money” (1984). I will bring Japanese translations of the extract.

The discussion will briefly include Romanticism and the Realism movement which followed it.

Session #19 will be next week, December 2nd, from 3:30 – 5:30.

P.S. You can listen here to an interview with Martin Amis discussing his book “Money” on the BBC (recorded 2002).

philosophy / theory of art

A few Ayn Rand quotes on art

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Zampicure
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Thanks for your comments. As usual, Rand seems to have stimulated your brains!

Here are a few short quotes from Ayn Rand’s “Romantic Manifesto“. (Signet Centennial edition 1975).

As man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul.” (p. 169, quoted from “Atlas Shrugged“).

Art is the technology of the soul. (p. 169)

art does not teach – it shows (p. 169)

Art gives [man] the experience of seeing the full, immediate, concrete reality of his distant goals.

Art – the integrator of metaphysics, the concretizer of man’s widest abstractions (p. 124)

not a theoretical principle, not a didactic “message”, but the life-giving fact of experiencing a moment of metaphysical joy – a moment of love for existence. (p. 170)

a beacon raised over the dark crossroads of the world, saying: “This is possible!”

Where… can a child learn the concept of moral values and of a moral character in whose image he will shape his own soul?

What Romantic art offers… is not moral rules… but the image of a moral person – i.e. the concretized abstraction of a moral ideal. (p. 146)

Romantic art is a man’s first glimpse of a moral sense of life (p.  152)

Romantic art is the fuel and the spark plug of a man’s soul; its task is to set a soul on fire and never let it go out. (p. 152)

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philosophy / theory of art

Follow-up to session #17

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Atlas
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In session #17, we read and discussed Ayn Rand‘s ideas about the meaning and purpose of art, as she expressed them in “The Romantic Manifesto“.

Art expresses the artist’s values. When we see or hear art, we are exposed to those values. Those values are expressed in the colours, movements, shapes, words, sounds, choice of subject matter, etc. Everything in the work of art is chosen by the artist, it is not there by mistake or accident (usually!). What guides the artist’s choice? His or her value system, or system of ethics.

Art affects us emotionally, but also cognitively. Usually, we are aware of our emotional response, but not always aware of our cognitive response.

This is why art is used in propaganda: it is so powerful because it affects people emotionally. Perhaps this is a good reason to teach art in schools: so that young people can learn to not only respond emotionally to art but also consider it cognitively (by thinking).

Finally, Rand considered herself a Romantic (with a capital “R”!), rather than a Realist or Naturalist, and she shared many characteristics with other, earlier, Romantic artists, for example, an admiration for the artistic, energetic individual who is unique and intelligent and creative and free. However, most Romantic artists in the 19th century were against the intellect and logic and preferred emotion and feeling and intuition. In this respect, Rand differed from the Romantics.

The 19th century Romantics were reacting against the earlier Classicism; Rand’s Romanticism was a reaction against the Realism and Naturalism that dominated in the 20th century.

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Announcement

Session #17 November 11th: British autumn, and the philosophy or art

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bookshelf meme 2
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Update #2: At the bottom of this page is an audio player. Click on it and you will hear a recording of this session. (The mic recorded my voice clearly; it was not intended to record the other participants.)

Update #1:  Ayn Rand‘s ideas on art, her philosophy of art, were expressed in a book called “The Romantic Manifesto”. I will bring some quotes from this book, to discuss. Do you know what Romanticism is? Here is the link to the Japanese Wikipedia entry, and to the English wikipedia entry, and to the Simple English Wikipedia entry.

The next session will be Wednesday November 11th, 3-5 pm.

As I said last time, I would like to discuss the philosophy of art.

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