All good art is didactic. In that good art moves us or it makes us think, and thus it shapes our lives. Bad art is art without influence over its intended audience.
This appears to be a form of the "transmission theory" of art--"transmission" in the sense that a work of art possesses qualities that contribute to a wider educative effect (such as to make it generally "didactic"), and which can be reformulated as:
x is 'good' artwork if and only if x has the capacity to (1)move us, (2)make us think and (3)shape our lives. x involves a transmission of precisely those qualities (1), (2) and (3)without which a work of art can only be said to be 'bad'.
Now, of course, what do you do in the case of poetry (as in the case of Kootenay writing school)that purposely strives for the purposely disjointed, opaque and polysemous. Here's a school of poetry thought that purposely plays to the qualities of 'bad' artwork.
To that Kootenay crew (who I know not of), all I would say is: Good luck with that approach. And that, art needs its curiosities and its sidelines, too. Certain kinds of art push people away, which is as much as pushing them toward looking for those things that will feed their spirits and their intellects more fully.
This is a load of bollocks! And I don't mean ordinary, common or garden bollocks, no, I mean "arty-farty" bollocks. The sort of bollocks that gets right up the nose -- sideways. It's the sort of bollocks you find floating innocuously in your porridge some sunny morning, and you're just not expecting it to be there. It's the sort of bollocks that is beyond the pale, which won't go away and is right in your face -- stuck there like a huge boil on your one and only proboscis. It's the sort of pure, unmitigated bollocks that gets the goat, not the bog-ordinary kind. This is the sort of bollocks that is -- well, as they say for short: it's complete bollocks and that's just the way it is. This is the sort of bollocks that is just "there", all up in the air and hoity-toity with it. It's just something that grates: it's something that has no rhyme or reason to it: It is bollocks, pure and simple. And mark my words: this is bollocks -- this is real bollocks -- this is truly bollocks -- this is unmitigated, unadulterated bollocks -- and none other! In fact, it's all a load of bollocks!
3 comments:
This appears to be a form of the "transmission theory" of art--"transmission" in the sense that a work of art possesses qualities that contribute to a wider educative effect (such as to make it generally "didactic"), and which can be reformulated as:
x is 'good' artwork if and only if x has the capacity to (1)move us, (2)make us think and (3)shape our lives. x involves a transmission of precisely those qualities (1), (2) and (3)without which a work of art can only be said to be 'bad'.
Now, of course, what do you do in the case of poetry (as in the case of Kootenay writing school)that purposely strives for the purposely disjointed, opaque and polysemous. Here's a school of poetry thought that purposely plays to the qualities of 'bad' artwork.
To that Kootenay crew (who I know not of), all I would say is:
Good luck with that approach. And that, art needs its curiosities and its sidelines, too. Certain kinds of art push people away, which is as much as pushing them toward looking for those things that will feed their spirits and their intellects more fully.
This is a load of bollocks! And I don't mean ordinary, common or garden bollocks, no, I mean "arty-farty" bollocks. The sort of bollocks that gets right up the nose -- sideways. It's the sort of bollocks you find floating innocuously in your porridge some sunny morning, and you're just not expecting it to be there. It's the sort of bollocks that is beyond the pale, which won't go away and is right in your face -- stuck there like a huge boil on your one and only proboscis. It's the sort of pure, unmitigated bollocks that gets the goat, not the bog-ordinary kind. This is the sort of bollocks that is -- well, as they say for short: it's complete bollocks and that's just the way it is. This is the sort of bollocks that is just "there", all up in the air and hoity-toity with it. It's just something that grates: it's something that has no rhyme or reason to it: It is bollocks, pure and simple. And mark my words: this is bollocks -- this is real bollocks -- this is truly bollocks -- this is unmitigated, unadulterated bollocks -- and none other! In fact, it's all a load of bollocks!
Post a Comment