Yup. It panders to the Romantic notion that what interests the audience is "getting to know the artist". I find many of the Romantics appallingly egotistical, as a result.
It's also the cause of the notion that you shouldn't enjoy artworks by bad people, the idea that approving of the artist's life is essential to enjoyment of his/her work. I recall, in my teens, some of my father's friends tut-tutting at him "allowing me" to read Pound. Now, first of all, my parents have never seen it as their job to censor my reading; secondly, the fact Pound was an odious Fascist creep doesn't stop him being a great poet; thirdly, his best work is non-political; and fourthly, I have never been so stupid as to buy anyone else's secondhand political opinions, anyway. But these people had clearly bought into the idea that the art was irrevocably 'contaminated' by the artist's politics.
If "all art is autobiographical", we should not hate Mary-Sue so much...
Ah, here we're overlapping with an interesting conversation I was having on a mailing list with various people (including commodorified) regarding and Auden quote she was reading about the artist as witness who must not perjure himself.
Different metaphors work for different people.
What I was getting at (and I can't say if it's what Fellini) meant is that art is a function that depends on the creator and his vision to exist, but which is not based, and cannot be based, on the ego of the creator - if it does that, the creator and not the creation becomes the focus, and that is being untrue to the nature of the creation, and the process fails.
That's why the mary sue always fails - the writer's ego becomes the focus of the story, and any other point to the story is lost.
Art cannot be self-conscious and still be effective.
It's also the cause of the notion that you shouldn't enjoy artworks by bad people,
I enjoy works by bad people all the time. Yet in other cases, I can't enjoy works because of the creator's thoughts or actions, so obviously the emotional censors can bypass my intellectual reading on this. I have no problem with Pound - perhaps because he's a figure of history for me now, as is Knut Hamsun - another Nazi author I admire. On the other hand, I can't bring myself to read Orson Scott Card any more, ever since I once read an offensively homophobic essay he had written. The difference? Card is alive, the matter affects my life, and it strikes too close. If I were living in 1941, my attitude to Hamsun or Pound would no doubt be different. The buffer of time gives me tolerance.
It isn't the art that's contaminated by the poltiics sometimes, it's my perceptions of it.
...but which is not based, and cannot be based, on the ego of the creator - if it does that, the creator and not the creation becomes the focus, and that is being untrue to the nature of the creation, and the process fails.
That's why the mary sue always fails - the writer's ego becomes the focus of the story, and any other point to the story is lost.
However, I think the creator's ego is a very large factor in Romanticism.
On the other hand, I can't bring myself to read Orson Scott Card any more, ever since I once read an offensively homophobic essay he had written.
I can't say I've ever head of this writer before; but what about his other work? Unless the homophobia informs the rest of his writing?
I think the creator's ego is a very large factor in Romanticism.
I don't, but I don't know which creators or which artists you are thinking about. I'm not sure why Romanticism would be different in this respect than other writings. Do you think the writing of the Romantic is more likely to be subject to the demands of the ego than other types of writing?
can't say I've ever head of this writer before; but what about his other work? Unless the homophobia informs the rest of his writing?
He's a popular American SF writer. I'd read a few of his short stories - one in particularly that I very much loved - before I read the essay. After the essay, I couldn't bear to read any of his works, so I know nothing about the content. It is probably very good and probably the homophobia doesn't show. (He's a Mormon, so his homophobia is motivated by religion. As is so often the case.) The thing is, he put me off so badly, I can't motivate myself to read his subsequent works.
I'm not sure why Romanticism would be different in this respect than other writings. Do you think the writing of the Romantic is more likely to be subject to the demands of the ego than other types of writing?
Yes. I think it was part and parcel of Romantic ideology: the cult of the "suffering artist", and the personality-cult of the artist.
I'd read a few of his short stories - one in particularly that I very much loved - before I read the essay. After the essay, I couldn't bear to read any of his works, so I know nothing about the content. It is probably very good and probably the homophobia doesn't show. (He's a Mormon, so his homophobia is motivated by religion. As is so often the case.) The thing is, he put me off so badly, I can't motivate myself to read his subsequent works.
I think this is a good reason why it's better for artists to stay in the background, and not push themselves forward as 'personalities'.
this is a good reason why it's better for artists to stay in the background, and not push themselves forward as 'personalities'.
Some artists - actors and singers, say - have to push themselves forward as personalities as part of their art. John Barrowman is a good example of this - he has an incredible talent for creating an image, for the PR side of his career. He doesn't hide in privacy but presents a vocal public face as if it were an intimate, private face. It's a facet of his talent.
With writers, it's easier to stay in the background. But I think it would be intellectually dishonest (not to mention artistically dishonest) for writers to hide their opinions. Actually, I think everyone, writers or whatever, should be free to express their opinions - and be judged accordingly. Free speech and all that. It makes for healthy, open discussions.
To be fair, Card does not push his politics (or his religion) on the public or dwell on it in his books, as far as I know. He keeps a fairly low profile. The article I read was one he wrote many years ago for a Mormon publication - not well known, and most people, most of his fans, have no idea it exists. Or existed.
Yes, and I am generalizing about all types of art, all types of creativity, including performance. For the writer, the book (or novel or poem or whatever) is the public face, the part of the individual that gets to strut around in public and enjoy the limelight. So writers have a different buffer between themselves and their public.
The buffer of time and lack of experience...I'm not older than you but after my family and my country suffered extreme from nazis I'm very alergic about nazi authors even if other said their art were beautiful.
Yes: I didn't have Nazis tramping all over my country, thank goodness. Though my father and every man I know of his generation fought in World War II in Europe, they went there, the war itself didn't come here, and we were never even bombed. My personal 'experience' of Nazis is almost entirely from books.
So yes, place has a strong effect there, as well as the passage of time. By chance and luck, homophobia is something that has affected me more personally than Nazism. (Not that they are unrelated concepts: the Nazis were homophobic, too.)
I grew up in my mother's home town, Hull, which was one of the most heavily bombed cities in the UK, and still showed it (as previously remarked, any old buildings which had escaped the Victorians were flattened, as was much of its Victorian architecture). One great-uncle was killed there, when he left a shelter to get a glass of water for his pregnant wife; and other family members on Dad's side of the family were killed in the Clydebank blitz. My paternal grandfather was permanently disabled in service, but that was because of gun-runners in Palestine. (Yes - Outremer took its toll on my family...)
But I see no reason for this to make, say, a Pound lyric written in 1912 inspired by Arnaut Daniel, out of bounds because of the poet's later politics. It's not a proselytising piece. I know I'm pretty much everything the poet would have hated, and vice versa, but hell, I'm not going to have tea with him. If a writer is proselytising in a way I dislike, yes, I'll either not read it, or read it in order to construct a counter-argument. But if they're writing something non-ideological, no problem. It's not contaminating.
We can choose to be restricted by the past or by place - or not. Putting on a self-imposed set of blinkers ("I will not allow myself to like x because of y"), deliberate self-limitation, seems to me absurd. It gives the bad guys a kind of victory: they may not have achieved full domination, but they have made you restrict your life.
It's always your choice what you read and what you don't. Please let have me mine. I've written that I'm alergic; I'm really glad for you that you're not; you're right I'm restricting myself; it's like I've heard that Wagner is forbidden in Israel and if it's true I really understand why.
it's like I've heard that Wagner is forbidden in Israel and if it's true I really understand why.
It was a taboo for a long time, but I think, thankfully, it's been broken. However understandable, it was wrong, and like all such taboos, it attributes a disproportionate amount of power to the taboo object.
On a lighter, but not unrelated note, there's the campaign by assorted religious nutters against Harry Potter, in the belief that exposure to J K Rowling fiction will turn their children to the occult and Satanism. They don't let their children read fantasy in case it contaminates them in some way.
I really can't approve of any kind of censorship, particularly government censorship; but I wouldn't want to allow hate literature, either.
As for J.K. Rowling and her fanatical opposition - they are the sorts of people that freedom of speech was invented to guard against! So absurd. So stupid.
Yup. And this kind of thing is always so patronising - assuming that the reader/listener/viewer has no ideas or mind of their own and is just a sponge for whatever the artist produces.
And with Wagner - yes, he was an odious jerk and some appalling people took up his work long after his death, but the music itself is beautiful. It is also impossible to understand why some later composers (such as Mahler) wrote as they did without knowing about their debt to him. Taking the argument to its logical conclusion (and I'm sure someone somewhere is thinking on these lines), studying the Æneid is wrong because it supports the Roman Empire, which was an imperialist, slave-owning society; the same with other Classical literature. What, too, of the great 20C Russian composers and film-makers? And many of the great Renaissance artists worked for various nasty despotic princes and belligerent Popes. They didn't have the technology that made more modern tyrants so dangerous and far-reaching, but were still brutal. It does not negate the value of the art.
I've heard that Wagner is forbidden in Israel and if it's true I really understand why.
Interesting, if true. I don't like Wagner at all, which is disappointing, because I expected to like him for his medieval backgrounds. Sadly, I just don't like his music. Nothing to do with his politics, or the propagandistic uses of his work.
I agree with all you say, but at the same time, every decision of what to read and what not to read is a decision with many factors. With so many books and so little time, I am as happy not to read, say, Dan Brown (because he's a bad stylist), or Orson Scott Card (because he's homophobic) in favour of other authors who don't present me with mixed or negative feelings. It's not as if I had a duty to read every author. It would probably be different if Card wrote subject matter I was particularly eager to read - say, something set in the 12th century! - but he's only one of many fantasy/sf writers I could be spending time with.
Pound loses brownie points on the politics, yes, but he gains on the medieval fascination, so the one thing overrides the other, and the fact that I like his style, his use of language - of languages. And he wrote sestinas. I have a thing for sestinas.
I tend to read for a purpose more than for pleasure alone: usually because I'm writing something. So I've often read books that I find inimical in style or content - for the purpose of taking them apart. I recently heard dreadful things of a Judith Tarr 'historical fantasy', so I've ordered it, because I must see how she's abusing someone I care for.
Yes, they were but as I've read their beginning has sort of gay nuances...there was the SA - they were openly gay - ok. they were murdered by the SS because of it, but those adoration for the Führer ...
Nazi history certainly a strange and convoluted and contradictory. Fascinating for that reason. Twisted ideology. Maybe supporting the notion that all homophobia is a reaction to supressed internal homosexuality? I've never believed that, but a case could be made.
I searched for books about Templars and I accidentally found a book about "men cirkles" (Männerbunde) in Germany. It seemed that the tradition of these was very deep there (with a declared love to the leader etc.).The author tried to proof that the SS was only the continuation of that and the rejection of the homosexual element had a political reason. but I didn't read the book exactly, so I can't say more about it.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 10:30 am (UTC)It's also the cause of the notion that you shouldn't enjoy artworks by bad people, the idea that approving of the artist's life is essential to enjoyment of his/her work. I recall, in my teens, some of my father's friends tut-tutting at him "allowing me" to read Pound. Now, first of all, my parents have never seen it as their job to censor my reading; secondly, the fact Pound was an odious Fascist creep doesn't stop him being a great poet; thirdly, his best work is non-political; and fourthly, I have never been so stupid as to buy anyone else's secondhand political opinions, anyway. But these people had clearly bought into the idea that the art was irrevocably 'contaminated' by the artist's politics.
If "all art is autobiographical", we should not hate Mary-Sue so much...
no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 11:02 am (UTC)Different metaphors work for different people.
What I was getting at (and I can't say if it's what Fellini) meant is that art is a function that depends on the creator and his vision to exist, but which is not based, and cannot be based, on the ego of the creator - if it does that, the creator and not the creation becomes the focus, and that is being untrue to the nature of the creation, and the process fails.
That's why the mary sue always fails - the writer's ego becomes the focus of the story, and any other point to the story is lost.
Art cannot be self-conscious and still be effective.
It's also the cause of the notion that you shouldn't enjoy artworks by bad people,
I enjoy works by bad people all the time. Yet in other cases, I can't enjoy works because of the creator's thoughts or actions, so obviously the emotional censors can bypass my intellectual reading on this. I have no problem with Pound - perhaps because he's a figure of history for me now, as is Knut Hamsun - another Nazi author I admire. On the other hand, I can't bring myself to read Orson Scott Card any more, ever since I once read an offensively homophobic essay he had written. The difference? Card is alive, the matter affects my life, and it strikes too close. If I were living in 1941, my attitude to Hamsun or Pound would no doubt be different. The buffer of time gives me tolerance.
It isn't the art that's contaminated by the poltiics sometimes, it's my perceptions of it.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 11:15 am (UTC)That's why the mary sue always fails - the writer's ego becomes the focus of the story, and any other point to the story is lost.
However, I think the creator's ego is a very large factor in Romanticism.
On the other hand, I can't bring myself to read Orson Scott Card any more, ever since I once read an offensively homophobic essay he had written.
I can't say I've ever head of this writer before; but what about his other work? Unless the homophobia informs the rest of his writing?
no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 11:24 am (UTC)I don't, but I don't know which creators or which artists you are thinking about. I'm not sure why Romanticism would be different in this respect than other writings. Do you think the writing of the Romantic is more likely to be subject to the demands of the ego than other types of writing?
can't say I've ever head of this writer before; but what about his other work? Unless the homophobia informs the rest of his writing?
He's a popular American SF writer. I'd read a few of his short stories - one in particularly that I very much loved - before I read the essay. After the essay, I couldn't bear to read any of his works, so I know nothing about the content. It is probably very good and probably the homophobia doesn't show. (He's a Mormon, so his homophobia is motivated by religion. As is so often the case.) The thing is, he put me off so badly, I can't motivate myself to read his subsequent works.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 11:59 am (UTC)Yes. I think it was part and parcel of Romantic ideology: the cult of the "suffering artist", and the personality-cult of the artist.
I'd read a few of his short stories - one in particularly that I very much loved - before I read the essay. After the essay, I couldn't bear to read any of his works, so I know nothing about the content. It is probably very good and probably the homophobia doesn't show. (He's a Mormon, so his homophobia is motivated by religion. As is so often the case.) The thing is, he put me off so badly, I can't motivate myself to read his subsequent works.
I think this is a good reason why it's better for artists to stay in the background, and not push themselves forward as 'personalities'.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 02:07 pm (UTC)Some artists - actors and singers, say - have to push themselves forward as personalities as part of their art. John Barrowman is a good example of this - he has an incredible talent for creating an image, for the PR side of his career. He doesn't hide in privacy but presents a vocal public face as if it were an intimate, private face. It's a facet of his talent.
With writers, it's easier to stay in the background. But I think it would be intellectually dishonest (not to mention artistically dishonest) for writers to hide their opinions. Actually, I think everyone, writers or whatever, should be free to express their opinions - and be judged accordingly. Free speech and all that. It makes for healthy, open discussions.
To be fair, Card does not push his politics (or his religion) on the public or dwell on it in his books, as far as I know. He keeps a fairly low profile. The article I read was one he wrote many years ago for a Mormon publication - not well known, and most people, most of his fans, have no idea it exists. Or existed.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 04:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 11:19 am (UTC)The buffer of time and lack of experience...I'm not older than you but after my family and my country suffered extreme from nazis I'm very alergic about nazi authors even if other said their art were beautiful.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 11:28 am (UTC)So yes, place has a strong effect there, as well as the passage of time. By chance and luck, homophobia is something that has affected me more personally than Nazism. (Not that they are unrelated concepts: the Nazis were homophobic, too.)
no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 11:54 am (UTC)But I see no reason for this to make, say, a Pound lyric written in 1912 inspired by Arnaut Daniel, out of bounds because of the poet's later politics. It's not a proselytising piece. I know I'm pretty much everything the poet would have hated, and vice versa, but hell, I'm not going to have tea with him. If a writer is proselytising in a way I dislike, yes, I'll either not read it, or read it in order to construct a counter-argument. But if they're writing something non-ideological, no problem. It's not contaminating.
We can choose to be restricted by the past or by place - or not. Putting on a self-imposed set of blinkers ("I will not allow myself to like x because of y"), deliberate self-limitation, seems to me absurd. It gives the bad guys a kind of victory: they may not have achieved full domination, but they have made you restrict your life.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 12:07 pm (UTC)I've written that I'm alergic; I'm really glad for you that you're not; you're right I'm restricting myself; it's like I've heard that Wagner is forbidden in Israel and if it's true I really understand why.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 12:35 pm (UTC)It was a taboo for a long time, but I think, thankfully, it's been broken. However understandable, it was wrong, and like all such taboos, it attributes a disproportionate amount of power to the taboo object.
On a lighter, but not unrelated note, there's the campaign by assorted religious nutters against Harry Potter, in the belief that exposure to J K Rowling fiction will turn their children to the occult and Satanism. They don't let their children read fantasy in case it contaminates them in some way.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 02:20 pm (UTC)As for J.K. Rowling and her fanatical opposition - they are the sorts of people that freedom of speech was invented to guard against! So absurd. So stupid.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 02:53 pm (UTC)And with Wagner - yes, he was an odious jerk and some appalling people took up his work long after his death, but the music itself is beautiful. It is also impossible to understand why some later composers (such as Mahler) wrote as they did without knowing about their debt to him. Taking the argument to its logical conclusion (and I'm sure someone somewhere is thinking on these lines), studying the Æneid is wrong because it supports the Roman Empire, which was an imperialist, slave-owning society; the same with other Classical literature. What, too, of the great 20C Russian composers and film-makers? And many of the great Renaissance artists worked for various nasty despotic princes and belligerent Popes. They didn't have the technology that made more modern tyrants so dangerous and far-reaching, but were still brutal. It does not negate the value of the art.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 02:15 pm (UTC)Interesting, if true. I don't like Wagner at all, which is disappointing, because I expected to like him for his medieval backgrounds. Sadly, I just don't like his music. Nothing to do with his politics, or the propagandistic uses of his work.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 03:02 pm (UTC)I like Wagner (sword-and-sorcery musicals!); but then I also like Mahler, who was strongly influenced by him.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 01:58 pm (UTC)Pound loses brownie points on the politics, yes, but he gains on the medieval fascination, so the one thing overrides the other, and the fact that I like his style, his use of language - of languages. And he wrote sestinas. I have a thing for sestinas.
(Hmm, note to self: write a Torchwood sestina.)
no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 03:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 03:23 pm (UTC)And do you like her?
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 11:57 am (UTC)Yes, they were but as I've read their beginning has sort of gay nuances...there was the SA - they were openly gay - ok. they were murdered by the SS because of it, but those adoration for the Führer ...
no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 02:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 03:54 pm (UTC)