Monthly Archives: September 2010
>A Quick Look at (McKeon’s) Structuralism
>Walter Benjamin (in “The Storyteller”) laments the loss of reminiscence represented by Modernity. He relates this form of memory to the storyteller, who has his roots in oral tradition. These days, he argues, we are attracted by the verifiability of … Continue reading
>Nietzsche’s Not-logic
>How much of life is a battle between logic and not-logic. Whatever is the opposite of logic is what Nietzsche hopes to represent in the Dionysiac: logic’s dialectical antithesis. It is the same not-logic that dominates Freud’s conception of our … Continue reading
>Oscar Wilde and "The Critic as Artist"
>Oscar Wilde’s The Critic as Artist (Excerpted in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 2nd Edition) represents an interesting synthesis of many of the ideas I have heretofore been exploring. In a strict sense, he seems to be interested … Continue reading
>Nietzsche’s Truth and Lying
>In his essay, “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense,” Nietzsche paints a picture of humanity “deeply immersed in illusions and dream-images” (Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 2nd Edition, 765). He calls into question language’s capacity to relate … Continue reading
>Schiller’s Dialectic
>Schiller’s interest in the Artist as a uniter of those things local and contemporary with those things universal and eternal seems intimately related to Hegel’s own dialectic. Schiller positions his ideal in the past, with Ancient Greek civilization, but acknowledges … Continue reading
>Hegel’s Artistic Progress
>In his Lectures on Fine Art, Hegel extends his concept of the dialectic into the realm of art and the Artist. He begins with the questions, “What is art?” and “Where does art come from?” and delineates two flawed conceptions, … Continue reading
>Lyrics, (Mis)Heard
>In a previous post, I mentioned the experience of mishearing lyrics, only later to have them corrected. At the time, I was not able to come up with an example of my own, nor did I receive much help from … Continue reading
>Dialectical Intentionality
>It might be productive to pursue a dialectical approach to the impasse we have reached in our discussions of Shakespearean intentionality in performance: a desire to know the author’s intentions, an unconscious assumption that we do, exists along with a … Continue reading
Kant and Schiller on "The Pirate Bay"
Kant says of Taste: Taste is the faculty for judging an object or a kind of representation through a satisfaction or dissatisfaction without any interest. The object of such a satisfaction is called beautiful (The Norton Anthology of Theory and … Continue reading
