To me, art is not about form. It's not something that comes out of a set group of rules or standards made up by a committee of highly educated people who may or may not have created anything in their lives, but rather something that comes from the heart of the person creating it. Their voice, their thoughts, their experience, honest and true of themselves. I once had a creative writing professor who told us - don't write unless you feel you have something to say.
I can't agree with you. I don't think that because someone is genuine and sharing their feelings what they do is art. You can read the most heartbreaking autobiography where an author completey makes you feel what he/she felt, but it doesn't make of it a piece of literature.
I don't equate literature with writing. Literature implies an aesthetical dimension, a research on form. It is its goal, it's raison d'être before anything else. It can be through a very plain style or a luxuriant one, or becaus eof its cinematography...or it can because of a very original structure. It can be specific rythmes, whatever.
But it isn't only words telling a story with heart, expressing experiences or feelings. Literature is about the way a writer uses those words to tell a story, express an experience or feelings, about the effects he/she used. It isn't caracterized by a genre or a medium.
The fact it resonates with the majority and lasts avery long time is secondary. The fact that many people like a work or not isn't what defines literature. Sometimes they do sometimes they don't. There are some piece of literature I don't like. I never liked Flaubert for instance, but I wouldn't say it isn't literature. And there are books I like while I know they don't belong to literature.
And who should be the judge? Someone with multiple degrees or a PHd in art, literature, or what have you? Or a guy who barely has a high school diploma, but picked say - Huckleberry Finn and had an epiphany?
I think that some people are literary people, other aren't. It isn't a matter of rules or of Academy's approval or awards like Pulitzer.
I think that if you really like words, if you are a man/woman of letters, if you have that sensitivity and that aesthetic sense(and yes education can train them, but there are very educated people who would never feel it)you can recognize literature and tell it part from simple books. You may never be able to make literature yourself but you can recognize it.
But reading books that aren't literature is okay too. There's nothing wrong in enjoying them just like there's nothing wrong in enjoying catchy and dancing hits on radio or mariachis' songs.
Do have a question for you - do you consider the Nancy Drew Mysteries written by multiple writers under one psuedonyme, literature or fiction?
First off, I don't understand the alternative. Why do you contrast literature with fiction (it's funny btw because in French in the 17th Century "littérature" was rather derogative and meant "invention" or "verbiage")? It seems very bizarre to me. Literature includes fictional works and non-fictional works as well, and some books that aren't fictions aren't necessarily literature.
Secondly, I haven't read the Nancy Drew Mysteries, so I can't tell. But I could say that for instance that I don't consider Harlan Corben's novels literature. Same with Herbert Lieberman's crime novels yet I enjoyed very much most of them. James Ellroy, however, wrote books that I consider literature.
It isn't because we are deeply moved or entertained by a written work that it has to be called literature as if we'd need to justifuy our inclination. Some books of exceptional intellectual calibre, I'm thinking of essays on various subjects, are thoughts-provoking, inspiring, but they aren't literature for all that.
But there may be a cultural gap between the way Americans see literature and the way it's considered in France, methinks.
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branchandroot
Re: How do we define art?
Date: 2006-05-24 07:42 pm (UTC)I can't agree with you. I don't think that because someone is genuine and sharing their feelings what they do is art. You can read the most heartbreaking autobiography where an author completey makes you feel what he/she felt, but it doesn't make of it a piece of literature.
I don't equate literature with writing. Literature implies an aesthetical dimension, a research on form. It is its goal, it's raison d'être before anything else.
It can be through a very plain style or a luxuriant one, or becaus eof its cinematography...or it can because of a very original structure. It can be specific rythmes, whatever.
But it isn't only words telling a story with heart, expressing experiences or feelings. Literature is about the way a writer uses those words to tell a story, express an experience or feelings, about the effects he/she used. It isn't caracterized by a genre or a medium.
The fact it resonates with the majority and lasts avery long time is secondary. The fact that many people like a work or not isn't what defines literature. Sometimes they do sometimes they don't. There are some piece of literature I don't like. I never liked Flaubert for instance, but I wouldn't say it isn't literature. And there are books I like while I know they don't belong to literature.
And who should be the judge? Someone with multiple degrees or a PHd in art, literature, or what have you? Or a guy who barely has a high school diploma, but picked say - Huckleberry Finn and had an epiphany?
I think that some people are literary people, other aren't. It isn't a matter of rules or of Academy's approval or awards like Pulitzer.
I think that if you really like words, if you are a man/woman of letters, if you have that sensitivity and that aesthetic sense(and yes education can train them, but there are very educated people who would never feel it)you can recognize literature and tell it part from simple books. You may never be able to make literature yourself but you can recognize it.
But reading books that aren't literature is okay too. There's nothing wrong in enjoying them just like there's nothing wrong in enjoying catchy and dancing hits on radio or mariachis' songs.
Do have a question for you - do you consider the Nancy Drew Mysteries written by multiple writers under one psuedonyme, literature or fiction?
First off, I don't understand the alternative. Why do you contrast literature with fiction (it's funny btw because in French in the 17th Century "littérature" was rather derogative and meant "invention" or "verbiage")? It seems very bizarre to me. Literature includes fictional works and non-fictional works as well, and some books that aren't fictions aren't necessarily literature.
Secondly, I haven't read the Nancy Drew Mysteries, so I can't tell. But I could say that for instance that I don't consider Harlan Corben's novels literature. Same with Herbert Lieberman's crime novels yet I enjoyed very much most of them. James Ellroy, however, wrote books that I consider literature.
It isn't because we are deeply moved or entertained by a written work that it has to be called literature as if we'd need to justifuy our inclination. Some books of exceptional intellectual calibre, I'm thinking of essays on various subjects, are thoughts-provoking, inspiring, but they aren't literature for all that.
But there may be a cultural gap between the way Americans see literature and the way it's considered in France, methinks.