Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Frisardi
Meanwhile, I’m hoping that Bill Lantry has more to say on this: “Those are the two questions that most interest me: what can we say about beauty, and why are we so reluctant to say anything about it?” So far I draw a blank. But the questions are evocative.
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Forgive me, Andrew, for letting this sit so long. Things were overtaken by events, and then I got lost in research, which was ultimately unproductive.
The first question is still a mystery to me. Some don't like to put down their thoughts, out of concerns they'll change tomorrow. Others, like me, have entered into discussions with philosophers, and found my own thoughts cloudy, inexact, unsupportable. We all know so little about the history of aesthetics that it's easy to be bested in such discussions. Still others sincerely believe in Lao Tzu, and hold that those who know don't talk about it, and those who talk about it know little. I get really frustrated with that one.
On the issue at hand, what is beauty? Is it objective or subjective? Is it in the poem, or in the spirit of the reader? Can a poem possess qualities of beauty, which then stimulate the reader's mind? What kinds of poems are actually beautiful? Are poems beautiful in themselves, or only if they lead us to ethical action or intellectual insight? Does beauty lead us to other worthwhile things, and what is its relation to those things?
It seems to me these are the core questions of aesthetics, and the answers supplied are often unsatisfying. Take Diotima. Now, I'm rather fond of her. She says we should contemplate and study the bodies of those who we find physically attractive, and revel in the beauty of the loved one. Seems a worthy goal. But then she says this appreciation of physical beauty is simply preparation for appreciating other forms of beauty, intellectual beauty, the beauty of laws, etc. So I turn away, agreeing with Barthelme: 'I don't want to contemplate a silly red towel. I want to look at the beautiful Snow White arse itself!'
Plato is even less satisfying. Forms themselves are beautiful, but no poem can have real beauty (see under Emerson), since the most beautiful thing is objective truth, and no poem can fully possess that. This is why Keats' monism is so unsatisfying: one thing *is* the other, but we can't have either, since they only exist "out there" somewhere. All we can do is dimly remember a time when we existed in that pure realm of forms, and so poetry's only role is the equivalent of Proust's madeleine.
Now, Yeats says 'measurement began our might,' and so sides with the pythagoreans. Beauty comes from form and relationships, from numbers, and the best poets naturally embody such things without thinking (cf. Pope: I lisped in numbers for the numbers came). The people who point to the relations of music and mathematics must agree with this idea. And no-one's going to say Bach isn't beautiful. Still, after a little while, I admit to getting bored as he runs through all 16 progressions in sequence. It's like reading the Prelude: I want to throw the book across the room.
Before we leave the old people, there's one other idea they clung to: beauty is not truth, beauty is good. And by partaking of it... well, the poem is like syrup of ipecac: it purges the bad out of us. The most beautiful poem will make us throw up the most, and then we'll feel better: more balanced, more healthy. I shouldn't make fun of Aristotle this way, it's almost like heresy. But honestly...
As long as we're making fun of people, let's make fun of Shelley, shall we? Mount Blanc is literally awesome (yes, he's stealing this stuff from Kant) it's so big, it fills us with a sense of wonder precisely because it's beyond us. It takes away our puny thoughts, and leaves our mind empty, the way an overwhelming orgasm does. Cynics would say it no longer counts, because we now have enough explosives to blow up the whole mountain. But we can't blow up the universe, and contemplating its vastness leads to that same sense of awe. Under this idea, the deep space images Hubble sends back are the most beautiful things we have. Maybe.
But it sounds like we're going up in a balloon. Back on earth, some say beauty is conflict, or arises out of conflict and juxtaposition. Nabokov would hate the idea he's repeating Hegel and Nietzsche, but he does exactly that. Beauty becomes synthetic, you need two things for the synthesis to happen, and as soon as you achieve equilibrium, the new conflict leads to imbalance. This is why new poems have to be written. Adorno was wrong, we shouldn't stop writing poetry, the problem is that the world had gotten out of balance, and the only way to rectify the world is to write new poems to restore the harmony. Very hard to argue with that one, in spite of all the misreadings of Auden.
We haven't mentioned spiritual aesthetics, and I admit to being put off by them. Take Christianity: you're supposed to do two things - contemplate the cross, and contemplate the eucharist. Remember Diotima: contemplation leads us towards the beatific vision, and what could be more important than that? And it's like looking at Mount Blanc: we're so over-awed, our minds become empty, allowing room for something else to flow into us. The idea isn't unique to spirituality: when I first went out with Kate, we went for coffee. She seemed so beautiful I lost all my words, I couldn't even talk. W.C. Williams says the same thing: "Shaken by her beauty." The moment was transformational, it changed my life. This is the justification for beauty in poetry: a truly beautiful poem leaves us speechless, and changes us in a deep way. Music and painting can do the same - they're not simply objects (this is the mistake the New Critics made), they are truly transformative, real agents in our lives.
But why and how? We've just gone past halloween, a pale imitation of the Samhain my ancestors celebrated. They believed that, on this one evening, the barriers that separate the various realms became a little less solid, and movement between them became possible. It's a nice idea. Should we accept it?
For a long time, I didn't. Then one day, I went to one of Kate's concerts. There were all kinds of people there, rich and poor, educated and unlettered, young and old. I happened to be sitting next to a couple of 80 year old nuns. And when they heard her singing, after just a little while, they started to weep, not tears of sadness, but of joy. I've seen her have the same effect at funerals: people transformed from mourning to joyous peace. It's striking, and perhaps unbelievable until one experiences it. Accept, for a moment, the effect is real. But again, why and how?
The only answer I can come up with is the beauty of her voice. It has nothing to do with the words, or with numbers, or proportions, or study, or ethics, or Truth. When she's able to open herself completely, the beauty of her voice itself opens us, empties us, the barriers between realms come down, and something flows into us, which brings us peace and joy, such incredible joy we begin weeping.
That's the poem I want to write, a poem that can do that. If I were a painter, I'd want to paint an image which can do that. Is there some secret golden chord, some transformative line of poetry? Would I even recognize it if I accidentally wrote it? I have no idea. And if it worked on me, would it work on a reader?
I've already gone on too long, and I have to go feed the chickens and gather the eggs. I can hear them clucking outside my window. If you've gotten this far, thank you for your patience. I really wish I could solve this problem.
Best,
Bill
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