At the end you've neared a version of eternity that I think is much more probable for the artist to achieve: the abstract infinity of spirit. This form of "foreverness" is the feeling of identification with other people - those in the past, the future and in fiction. It's the transcendent part of our being, the thing that makes us feel human (whatever that means) and awakens us to the universal experience. I think that artists pursue that more than actual eternity. It is true that the test of time unravels those gems of humanity. But also, and maybe much more so, it is the art that brings forth the eternal.
Thanks for this. Being a reader of the Great Books is a start as you’ve experienced helps us become more human. The aspect of genius I think is nurtured by a cloud of witnesses, those who came before us searching for the those universal truths and the ultimate end of man: Happines
Whether we believe there are three types of story or seven, of those which endure, all deal in the universality of the human experience and all either have something profound to say about the human condition, as though we can almost feel our characters hand reaching out to touch the numinous or can hear the tiptoe of his doom approaching. It's like encountering an awe inspiring vista for the first time- we know that a photo will never do it justice, but either a painting or the craft of a master of prose just might.
This is the tragedy of the intersectional landscape- although I don't doubt that some groups experience oppression more often than others, it ultimately stunts the work of whoever subscribes to the notion. The same for postmodernism- because if you really doubt the existence of searing hidden and unuttered truths, then how can you have your characters hunt for it, teasing your reader like Salome's Dance of the Seven Veils?
Through character, an author should possess the power to crush their reader's heart with the disillusionment of innocence, to lift it up to transcendent heights with love and then plunge them back down to Earth to crash them on the rocks of two characters failing to make that vital connection at just the right moment. But although cynicism has its place within writing, especially within the more gritty genres, if we begin with cynicism and make it unremitting, or only solvable through the mechanistic device of the ideological- rather than through the undimmed triumph of the human spirit, don't we rob our readers of something vital?
It's ironic, because within the endless sea of politics the collectivist always holds the upper hand, in terms of the narrative it can purport. What could be more alluring than selflessly joining a cause in pursuit of some tenuous and ultimately immaterial future good? But within the narrative frame of the author, it is always the individual who will triumph- one man's battle against nature, himself or another always more heroic than the march of entire armies.
Not that I don't like the odd battle in a novel, or even a dragon or two, but these things shouldn't come at the expense of the journey of our character- and in most instances our reader should be rooting for him, even if he is an anti-hero...
Otto Rank's thesis in Art and Artist is that art forms develop alongside society's soul belief, and influence the belief in immortality. If his own work can be criticized then you might say he overreaches in seeing all art as an immortality project.
At the end you've neared a version of eternity that I think is much more probable for the artist to achieve: the abstract infinity of spirit. This form of "foreverness" is the feeling of identification with other people - those in the past, the future and in fiction. It's the transcendent part of our being, the thing that makes us feel human (whatever that means) and awakens us to the universal experience. I think that artists pursue that more than actual eternity. It is true that the test of time unravels those gems of humanity. But also, and maybe much more so, it is the art that brings forth the eternal.
Thanks for this. Being a reader of the Great Books is a start as you’ve experienced helps us become more human. The aspect of genius I think is nurtured by a cloud of witnesses, those who came before us searching for the those universal truths and the ultimate end of man: Happines
Whether we believe there are three types of story or seven, of those which endure, all deal in the universality of the human experience and all either have something profound to say about the human condition, as though we can almost feel our characters hand reaching out to touch the numinous or can hear the tiptoe of his doom approaching. It's like encountering an awe inspiring vista for the first time- we know that a photo will never do it justice, but either a painting or the craft of a master of prose just might.
This is the tragedy of the intersectional landscape- although I don't doubt that some groups experience oppression more often than others, it ultimately stunts the work of whoever subscribes to the notion. The same for postmodernism- because if you really doubt the existence of searing hidden and unuttered truths, then how can you have your characters hunt for it, teasing your reader like Salome's Dance of the Seven Veils?
Through character, an author should possess the power to crush their reader's heart with the disillusionment of innocence, to lift it up to transcendent heights with love and then plunge them back down to Earth to crash them on the rocks of two characters failing to make that vital connection at just the right moment. But although cynicism has its place within writing, especially within the more gritty genres, if we begin with cynicism and make it unremitting, or only solvable through the mechanistic device of the ideological- rather than through the undimmed triumph of the human spirit, don't we rob our readers of something vital?
It's ironic, because within the endless sea of politics the collectivist always holds the upper hand, in terms of the narrative it can purport. What could be more alluring than selflessly joining a cause in pursuit of some tenuous and ultimately immaterial future good? But within the narrative frame of the author, it is always the individual who will triumph- one man's battle against nature, himself or another always more heroic than the march of entire armies.
Not that I don't like the odd battle in a novel, or even a dragon or two, but these things shouldn't come at the expense of the journey of our character- and in most instances our reader should be rooting for him, even if he is an anti-hero...
Otto Rank's thesis in Art and Artist is that art forms develop alongside society's soul belief, and influence the belief in immortality. If his own work can be criticized then you might say he overreaches in seeing all art as an immortality project.
"Vast swathes of the internet seem to be untouched by Google these days, a conscious decision to refocus our attention on the mainstream."
What do you mean by this?