Theory of Literature and Other Critical Writings by Natsume Soseki

Author:Natsume Soseki
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: LIT008000, Literary Criticism/Asian/General, LIT000000, Literary Criticism/General
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2009-01-25T16:00:00+00:00

There is more than enough in Conway’s theory to support my own. But because his purpose is to show how ideals succeed one another, he has not gone into much depth as to how transformation takes place within a single sphere (or a single ideal). I want to focus here on his proposition that once we have developed to a certain extent within a specific sphere and made the decision to consider that this level of development will be our standard, that standard will only be applicable to the successive periods within this sphere. People may start out with this position and critique everything that lies within one sphere, but they then overstep their boundaries and end up invading other spheres. In literature this kind of invasion happens all the time. The invaders do not see the crime in what they are doing and the invaded are inclined to accept their pronouncements and aspersions without resistance. The chaos that presents itself might appear worrisome, but on closer inspection we will see that there is nothing forced or unnatural about this confusion of spheres. Things are very different when it is a matter of taste. Whether the object of our aesthetic critique is a painting or a poem, there is no need for us to accept the command that we remain within a single sphere when exercising our critique. Length is the sphere in which the long and the short are measured, and quantity is the sphere in which we consider weight. It is not possible to sit in the sphere of length and consider weight, and it is a waste of time to sit in the sphere of weight and measure long and short. For this reason those who are interested in length and weight must remain in the same sphere. However, with painting and poetry, no matter what school or style, we have the freedom to weigh in from whatever sphere we choose. To say we have that freedom is to say that we can make our own critique no matter what sphere we are in. The most powerful aesthetic is the one that sits snugly at the focus of our present consciousness. And this aesthetic is one of many existing within a single sphere. For example, there is currently a school of novelists which holds that the ideal of the novel is to present a kind of truth about life. The focus of consciousness of these people (who can be found in Europe and in Japan) is dominated, in terms of taste, by this one standard, and they tend to judge every piece of writing from this angle. The strange thing is that every work they write about can indeed be sufficiently critiqued from this perspective. This is because the differences between individual artistic works are not as clear as the differences between liquids and solids, which can be understood only according to certain uniform standards. But the truth of life is only one of many aesthetic standards.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.