In a message dated 3/8/09 10:39:07 AM, [email protected] writes:
> Ordinarily, an artwork cannot be assured by its explanation yet is unlikely > to be ruined by any explanation. > Two somewhat arbitrary assertions, with no great back-up corroboration: (1) An artist's or critic's "explanation" may lead to greater "understanding" of sorts, and "admiration" in a contemplator, but never to an "aesthetic experience" -- except of a bogus sort, like the shallow awe that arose in the minds of young readers of Eliot's "The Wasteland" a couple of generations ago when they read the "Notes" to the poem. (2) I think an artist's prouncements about the "meaning" or "theme" of a work restrict the work's apparent scope, and hobble viewers' imaginations. In fiction or theater, talk of its "meaning" tends to suggest the play is merely a useful ladder leading up to the real value: a non-fiction lesson. The real value of a play or novel or movie for me is in the multi-rung ladder itself, the story and its effects at each rung, just as it is in an opera or symphony. If the rungs can evoke tensions, laughter, gasps, rills of deep assent, a playwright should leave it to the viewers to find their own meanings and themes -- and they will be as various as the viewers' histories and receiving apparatuses. There is, in the end, no "the" meaning of any work of art. ************** Worried about job security? Check out the 5 safest jobs in a recession. (http://jobs.aol.com/gallery/growing-job-industries?ncid=emlcntuscare00000002)
