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An education in literary/artistic criticism and theory — being constantly asked to evaluate and re-evaluate what is considered literary art, art in general and what does it really matter in the end – has its effects on you, despite initial impressions. Curled in an abundantly cushioned chair, I read the wits of Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater, and Matthew Arnold — all calculatingly organized into theories on art’s intersection with literature. At times, such as when I am untangling a particularly unwieldy sentence, I think about how these abstractions matter outside of this page, out of this very moment of comprehension. Class becomes suddenly bordering on an existential debate, but the hand of the clock ticks its way to the end of the allotted time, and we shuffle our papers back together, push open the door and step outside to the reality as we know it, seemingly quite disjoint from the experience that had just occurred. What is this that we do on a daily basis? Is there no functional overlap at all? What do you mean you don’t live your life as if it were a silent impressionistic painting?

Over spring break, the regal affair of pinning awards to critically acclaimed movie titles happened for the 80th or so time, and it was declared that The King’s Speech would take home the top prize. Barring some moments of cinematography, choice of wallpaper, and my appreciation for Helena Bonham Carter, I declared to a friend of mine that the movie was overall as fickle as the pedestal it was placed on. Linear, completely easily predictable plots from the onset are prone to become cognitively numbing, and instead of taking the opportunity to turn expectations on its head, it followed its foreseen course like most history channel specials.  If there was a gem, it would have been the mildly endearing relationship developed between Bertie and Lionel, and the confidence and solidarity it has inspired for those with speech impediments. It was cute, and yes, maybe good for us. Yet, if the Oscars wanted to be truly, artistically reflective of our generation — the passion of the decade (which, I admit, may not be their priority) — instead of feeling nostalgic for Britain’s monarch in such a simplistic way, I think it should have turned to the chaotic, messy, psychological and humbly unanswerable turn inward that is depicted in a film like Inception or Black Swan. There are some theorists who argue that a work of art should be emotionally detached, that emotions riddle away any artistic value in a work, that it is base in some way, but I argue the opposite. I think the overwhelming nature of a piece speaks of its quality and that comes from evoking the most complex, irrational emotions that many of us cannot put to words or cause us to realize the insufficiencies of language. It’s this chaotic state of affairs that could never be moralized or logically assembled by a set of if-thens into a neat output.

And while I thought on this during my free, relatively unscheduled time off during the past week, it was then that occurred to me how a class on “Is Literature Art” had weaved its way into my evaluations on how the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had decided on excellence for 2011. It reminded me to ask myself what are my criteria for what counts as good art and then further asked where such notions came from. The bottom line is that perhaps, criticism, while being incorrigibly convoluted, has its “perks” when you least expect it.

spring

It’s that time of year again – “Spring Break.” The unfortunate truth, however, for those of us who will be stuck in this state shaped like a piece of winter outerwear is that it is so Not Spring. Sure, there’s no homework for the next nine days, but there will still be cold and probably another several inches of snow. And, what Michigan winter would be complete without a full-fledged ice storm? Granted, I haven’t heard any reports of ice on the way, but when it comes to Michigan’s winter weather, I’m incapable of being an optimist.  All this boils down to one undeniable fact – I, and I’m guessing a few other Michiganders, am/are suffering from a severe case of Cabin Fever. The only thing standing between me and running around like a madwoman aiming my hairdryer at the snowdrifts outside my door is the knowledge that if I manage to hold onto my sanity and dignity through March, the sun is bound to shine a little more and the world to grow a little greener.

In a somewhat misguided attempt to make myself forget that it’s cold and grey outside, I decided to search for some poems about Spring. While I failed in happily reconciling myself to enduring another month of Winter, I did find a couple poems on poemhunter.com that I would like to share.

This first poem by Robert Seymour Bridges perfectly describes the feeling of waiting for the transition to Spring to occur:

Spring

While yet we wait for spring, and from the dry
And blackening east that so embitters March,
Well-housed must watch grey fields and meadows parch,
And driven dust and withering snowflake fly;
Already in glimpses of the tarnish’d sky
The sun is warm and beckons to the larch,
And where the covert hazels interarch
Their tassell’d twigs, fair beds of primrose lie.
Beneath the crisp and wintry carpet hid
A million buds but stay their blossoming;
And trustful birds have built their nests amid
The shuddering boughs, and only wait to sing
Till one soft shower from the south shall bid,
And hither tempt the pilgrim steps of spring.

~Robert Seymour Bridges

Spring

In it’s first stanza, this poem by Robert Frost calls for us to be happy when it is Spring and not to anxiously look forward to the Fall. While the situation here in Michigan now is not exactly the same, perhaps these first lines can be a source of inspiration for patience in our wait for the Spring.

Spring

A Prayer in Spring

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill.

~Robert Frost

Spring

Have a wonderful Spring Break, and stay warm!

After months of wanting a plant in my room and complaining to my roommate to get me one, I finally got my wish.  His name is Francesco and he is a Wandering Jew.  For those of you who aren’t botanists or who don’t have sacred relations with plants, a Wandering Jew is a plant with long purple and green leaves that grow sporadically.  I like to say Francesco has a mind of his own because of his wild growth patterns.  He is a free man and no mother can constrain him.  He is a rebellious teenager and I just have to let him grow.

Things have really changed since he has come into my life.  First of all, I never feel completely alone anymore now that I have him in my room.  It is a comforting, yet also a weird feeling, like I am always being watched.  He is a living being, so it would make sense that I can feel his presence, right?  He is almost like a child.  I have to water him and tend to him when he is sick (by plucking off his dying leaves).  He would die without me.  He is dependent upon me and I like that feeling.

You know how people say that the elderly live longer when they have plants?  Well, maybe there is a correlation with plants and college students, too?  Maybe they are a stress reducer or a boyfriend reducer…one of the two.

Since he has come into my room he has flourished.  I think I have to repot him soon, he is outgrowing his current one.  I do not know much about plants, but I won’t tell him that.  He thinks I am the best Mom in the world.  He is my first plant child and I look forward to a long relationship with him.

It’s a beloved stereotype of Americans, the idealizing and idolizing of British English (he sounds so smart- he’s got a British accent!). And while we may recognize that this perception exists, it is often hard to see any reason to discontinue it, because it’s not really a negative stereotype, after all, we rationalize. Some Americans see posh and classy; others see presumptuous and ridiculous. But is such conflict really necessary? Is it not possible to simply observe linguistic differences, be aware of them, admire them, be open to the idea of using them interchangeably (or with discretion)? Perhaps it is intriguing to explore similarities and differences for naught but curiosity’s sake.

Sometimes non-American spellings and usages do burrow their way into my writing (perhaps from having read or heard them one time too many), but I don’t see it as putting on airs. Sometimes we’re not pretending to be who we are not, but the awareness of different conventions can be satisfying to know, and irresistible to exercise once in a while. (I prefer grey to gray for aesthetic purposes, but find turning in papers with behaviour a tad excessive.) And however ethnocentric putting British English on a pedestal (or lumping all dialects into one, for that matter) may be, one must admit it can be quite the bit of fun to occasionally pretend at being someone else. Actors can adopt an entirely different set of mannerisms and ways of speaking, often quite well, but it’s not mockery. It’s not pretentious. It’s not ignorance.

Other times, what is interesting is how much English-speaking countries assume each other to be much the same, but for different pronunciations of words. And even then, this can prove a source of surprise and amusement. (“How do you say ‘car’? Oh my gosh, really? How do you say ‘banana’? Say it again! Say it again!”) There are, naturally, usage differences in our vocabularies, and sometimes different vocabularies altogether. More than once I’ve happened upon friends struggling to identify an object because they could not agree upon a mutually understood term. (This is for you.)

Recently, as I was thumbing through one of my textbooks, I came upon a section examining linguistic differences in dialects of English spoken everywhere. While we- or perhaps just I, really- tend to think that most differences in pronunciations lie in vowels (in their roundness or flatness, in length and the position of the tongue, for instance), and perhaps in the treatment of the letter r, it raised other good points. Allophones, sounds that are distinctive to the speakers of a language or dialect and will affect meaning if changed but make no difference to another language or dialect, vary even in English, for instance. What make the sounds of spoken variants of English distinctive from one another are often difficult to pinpoint, but they are there, somewhere.

This has a been a rambling discussion on English. Thank you for following.

This is an amusing video I found on Yahoo news about a new men’s Levi’s jeans cut called the Ex-Girlfriend. The reporter in the video flippantly mocks the new fit and the men who would choose to wear them. I found it quite funny that discussion of the jeans was included in an “odd news” segment. When you consider some of the ensembles seen on high-fashion runways or the outfits worn by celebrities such as Lady GaGa or Helena Bonham Carter, super-skinny jeans are positively tame in the odd fashions department.

Skinny pants for men really aren’t a new phenomenon. In a cursory Google search of men’s fashions in the 1700s and 1800s, you can find multiple examples of “skinny” breeches. The image to the left, for example, is from 1795, and the man’s breeches look at least as tight as the “odd” Ex-Girlfriend jean. So, to lessen the “odd” factor, perhaps we should just think of the skinny jeans fit as an update on antique men’s breeches fashions.

I can’t help but wonder if the writers of this video segment have been hiding under a rock for the past several years. Skinny jeans have been cropping up in men’s fashions for quite a while. I remember seeing guys walking around my high school in skinny cuts (thus my amazement both at this being considered newsworthy and the “odd” label). Now if only the bulbous trunk hose of the Renaissance would come back into fashion, then they would really have a story . . .

A constant point of contention in the artistic and literary theory realm is the idea of subjectivity versus objectivity. “Who decides whether art is good?” is one of the most basic intellectual queries, yet it is an immortal unknown that staunchly refuses to be resolved. The most remarkable logicians and creative minds can’t agree, and their ancient debates stretch forth to our present and predictably to any time in the future, granted that humans are around to deliberate on it.

It would seem that in our post-modern age, subjectivity looms large, and perhaps, is the only way to describe reality. That is, there is no objective truth, only impressions from our unique interactions with the cold marble, with the spread of colors, emotionless in it of themselves and only forming into coherence when we are places in position to view it. Something occurs as the, we assume, objective piece interacts with our subjective consciousnesses. We dab memories on to the work, our individual life histories, philosophies, viewpoints – all are nearly indiscriminately are thrown forth on to this material object in order for sense to assemble. What is tasteful to my senses may be vulgar to yours may be commonplace and mundane to theirs. The thread of the apparent story surrounding the piece is woven perhaps, slightly differently by every viewer that stands before it. Emotions elicited are as deliberate as reflexes, and the ways in which we choose to methodically reason the aesthetic quality out are influenced by our education in artistic form and theory or our lackthereof. Our reactions to a work of art is the art itself, a Rorschach piece, that we can only be aware of occurring.

Yet, this is not to say that there are no agreements. Hence, the objectivism seems to gain some ground in that there can be standards established. What is good art? Is what defines art as good precisely the fact that it is not subjective? Lessing’s qualifications for visual art is that it ought to be at “a pregnant moment,” — that suspension and enlargement of a moment preceding that of the most extreme of human feelings. But maybe Lessing is wrong. Perhaps good art ought to be propagating maxims about morality, maybe it should be purely aesthetic, striking us visually through our senses, bypassing any reasoning apparatuses. Perhaps the only qualification should be that it is innovative and bold in the sense that we have never seen anything quite like it before. By setting some standard, some theory encompassing our more or less collective agreements, we have turned more to an objective viewpoint. The canons of art and of literature are established because we (or the critics sipping tea in their ivory towers) agree on their relatively grand worthiness.

So what’s your definition of “good” art? Do you agree with the established canon or is it simply hogswash?