WEBVTT 00:01.170 --> 00:01.930 Prof: Okay. 00:01.930 --> 00:08.250 Moving then as quickly as possible into our subject matter 00:08.248 --> 00:13.208 for today, we begin a series of lectures 00:13.212 --> 00:19.532 on various aspects of twentieth-century formalism-- 00:19.530 --> 00:20.630 a big word. 00:20.630 --> 00:24.630 At the end of our run through the varieties of 00:24.626 --> 00:30.156 twentieth-century formalism, I hope it doesn't seem quite as 00:30.160 --> 00:36.680 big and that its many meanings-- yet a finite number of 00:36.679 --> 00:42.989 meanings--have been made clear to you. 00:42.990 --> 00:45.290 That is to say, what we're taking up this week, 00:45.285 --> 00:48.475 is as much really the history of criticism as literary theory. 00:48.480 --> 00:50.250 You remember in the first lecture I said there's a 00:50.245 --> 00:52.255 difference between the history of criticism and theory of 00:52.263 --> 00:54.873 literature, one difference being that the 00:54.872 --> 00:58.802 history of criticism has a great deal to do with literary 00:58.797 --> 01:03.077 evaluation: that is to say, why do we care about literature 01:03.078 --> 01:06.888 and how can we find means of saying that it's good or not 01:06.885 --> 01:07.425 good? 01:07.430 --> 01:11.420 This is an aspect of thought concerning literature that tends 01:11.415 --> 01:15.265 to fall out of literary theory but not out of the materials 01:15.269 --> 01:17.529 that we are reading this week. 01:17.530 --> 01:20.850 You can see that when Wimsatt and Beardsley talk about the 01:20.849 --> 01:22.889 "success" of the poem, 01:22.890 --> 01:25.250 they understand the whole critical enterprise, 01:25.250 --> 01:27.190 including its theoretical underpinnings-- 01:27.188 --> 01:33.058 the question of what is a poem, the question of how should we 01:33.063 --> 01:36.293 best read it-- to be still geared toward 01:36.293 --> 01:37.693 literary evaluation. 01:37.690 --> 01:41.580 That makes the subject matter that we'll be discussing this 01:41.580 --> 01:44.530 week, as I say, as much a part of the history 01:44.531 --> 01:47.551 of criticism as it is of literary theory. 01:47.550 --> 01:50.820 We're going to be reading it with a theoretical 01:50.818 --> 01:51.248 spin. 01:51.250 --> 01:53.850 That is to say, we're going to focus on the 01:53.845 --> 01:56.745 question of what a poem is and the question, 01:56.750 --> 02:00.730 "What criteria should we invoke in order to read it for 02:00.734 --> 02:02.834 the best and correctly?" 02:02.828 --> 02:06.338 But there are other ways of approaching this material. 02:06.340 --> 02:09.370 In any case, then, Wimsatt. 02:09.370 --> 02:12.100 Beardsley by the way was actually a philosopher who 02:12.104 --> 02:14.954 taught at Temple University, a good friend of his. 02:14.949 --> 02:17.769 In the book in which the essay "The Intentional 02:17.772 --> 02:21.192 Fallacy" appeared, a book called The Verbal 02:21.186 --> 02:24.706 Icon, Wimsatt collaborated with Monroe Beardsley on three 02:24.712 --> 02:27.352 essays, and this is one of them. 02:27.348 --> 02:30.598 So we try to remember to say "Wimsatt and 02:30.604 --> 02:33.794 Beardsley" even though it is Wimsatt who 02:33.786 --> 02:35.156 taught at Yale. 02:35.160 --> 02:38.470 That in itself needn't be significant except that the New 02:38.468 --> 02:40.868 Critics, the school of critics to which 02:40.865 --> 02:43.785 he belonged, have always been identified 02:43.794 --> 02:47.484 with Yale and indeed consolidated here a kind of 02:47.478 --> 02:51.468 teaching method and attitude toward literature which 02:51.473 --> 02:55.853 constituted the first wave-- the first of two waves--of 02:55.846 --> 02:59.626 involvement in literary theory which amounts to the Yale 02:59.625 --> 03:03.265 English and comparative literature departments' claims 03:03.265 --> 03:04.155 to fame. 03:04.158 --> 03:08.788 Many of those figures who belong to the New Critics did 03:08.794 --> 03:13.864 much of their important work before they arrived at Yale. 03:13.860 --> 03:18.170 Others never were at Yale, and yet at the same time it's a 03:18.174 --> 03:22.114 movement closely associated with this institution. 03:22.110 --> 03:25.870 When I arrived at Yale, Wimsatt was still teaching, 03:25.870 --> 03:30.450 Cleanth Brooks was still teaching, and so I feel a kind 03:30.449 --> 03:35.539 of personal continuity with these figures and understand, 03:35.538 --> 03:38.218 as we all will more fully later on, 03:38.220 --> 03:43.780 the way in which the style, and emphasis on the style, 03:43.780 --> 03:47.910 of close reading that evolved within the New Criticism 03:47.912 --> 03:52.592 meaningfully and importantly left its mark on much subsequent 03:52.591 --> 03:57.501 criticism and theory that hasn't in fact always acknowledged the 03:57.502 --> 04:02.262 New Criticism perhaps to the extent that it might have. 04:02.258 --> 04:06.448 Much of this should be reserved for next time when I talk about 04:06.447 --> 04:10.227 Cleanth Brooks and return to the whole subject of the New 04:10.229 --> 04:14.349 Criticism and the way in which it's viewed historically-- 04:14.348 --> 04:17.338 so much of it can be reserved for next time. 04:17.339 --> 04:19.409 But what I do want to say now is this. 04:19.410 --> 04:22.830 If it weren't for the New Critics, none of you probably 04:22.834 --> 04:26.394 would have been able to sit patiently through any of your 04:26.386 --> 04:29.046 middle or high school English classes. 04:29.050 --> 04:33.060 When Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren published a book 04:33.059 --> 04:37.549 called Understanding Poetry, first published in 1939 and 04:37.545 --> 04:41.885 then subsequently reissued again and again and again as it swept 04:41.887 --> 04:45.747 the country, suddenly schoolteachers had a 04:45.745 --> 04:51.065 way of keeping kids in the classroom for fifty minutes. 04:51.069 --> 04:54.579 Close reading, the idea that you could take a 04:54.584 --> 04:58.934 text and do things with it-- that the interpretation of a 04:58.927 --> 05:01.567 text wasn't just a matter of saying, 05:01.569 --> 05:04.009 "Oh, yes, it's about this and isn't it 05:04.007 --> 05:06.467 beautiful?"-- reciting the text, 05:06.470 --> 05:08.800 emoting over it, enthusing about it, 05:08.800 --> 05:11.620 and then looking around for something else to say-- 05:11.620 --> 05:13.950 it was no longer a question of doing that. 05:13.949 --> 05:18.409 It was a question of constructing an elaborate formal 05:18.406 --> 05:22.346 edifice to which everybody could contribute. 05:22.350 --> 05:23.830 Students got excited about it. 05:23.829 --> 05:26.879 They saw certain patterns or certain ways of elaborating 05:26.875 --> 05:29.805 patterns that the teachers were talking about and, 05:29.810 --> 05:32.590 lo and behold, the fifty minutes was over and 05:32.593 --> 05:35.063 everybody had had a pretty good time. 05:35.060 --> 05:39.570 This had never happened in an English class before. 05:39.569 --> 05:40.459 > 05:40.459 --> 05:42.049 > 05:42.050 --> 05:44.670 Seriously, you're English majors because of the New 05:44.673 --> 05:46.983 Criticism--I admit, especially if you went to 05:46.982 --> 05:47.982 private school. 05:47.980 --> 05:52.060 This way of teaching did not perhaps quite so much for a 05:52.062 --> 05:55.852 variety of reasons permeate public school literature 05:55.850 --> 05:58.030 teaching, but it was simply, 05:58.026 --> 06:00.866 as a result of Understanding Poetry, 06:00.870 --> 06:03.210 the way to go. 06:03.209 --> 06:04.699 It took time. 06:04.699 --> 06:07.019 If you had more than fifty minutes, 06:07.016 --> 06:09.386 you could actually make ample use of it. 06:09.389 --> 06:11.949 T.S. Eliot, who was in many ways associated 06:11.951 --> 06:14.941 with the New Criticism, one of its intellectual 06:14.942 --> 06:18.122 forebears, nevertheless took a somewhat dim view of it and 06:18.120 --> 06:20.910 called it "lemon squeezer criticism." 06:20.910 --> 06:24.390 What this meant is it takes time. 06:24.389 --> 06:27.249 You've got to squeeze absolutely everything out of it, 06:27.250 --> 06:31.700 and so it was ideal from the standpoint of teaching and was, 06:31.699 --> 06:34.789 it seems to me, also wonderfully galvanizing 06:34.793 --> 06:38.683 intellectually because it really did make people think: 06:38.678 --> 06:43.138 "look how intricate what I thought was simple turns out to 06:43.139 --> 06:44.219 be." 06:44.220 --> 06:48.320 The New Criticism, incontestably and without 06:48.321 --> 06:51.151 rival, created an atmosphere in which 06:51.149 --> 06:54.499 it was okay to notice that things were a little more 06:54.495 --> 06:57.445 difficult than they'd been supposed to be. 06:57.449 --> 07:01.529 This in itself was extraordinarily useful and 07:01.526 --> 07:04.626 constructive, not just for subsequent 07:04.625 --> 07:07.775 literary theory, I think, but for the way in 07:07.783 --> 07:12.133 which English teaching actually can help people think better. 07:12.129 --> 07:16.879 All of this the New Criticism had a great deal to do with-- 07:16.879 --> 07:19.649 and when I talk next time about the way in which it's been 07:19.646 --> 07:21.876 vilified for the last > 07:21.879 --> 07:25.859 forty or fifty years, naturally I will have this in 07:25.858 --> 07:27.608 the back of my mind. 07:27.610 --> 07:32.760 So in any case, where did this preoccupation 07:32.762 --> 07:36.602 with form-- because we're beginning to 07:36.601 --> 07:41.871 think about the way in which theory can preoccupy itself with 07:41.869 --> 07:44.439 form-- where does it come from? 07:44.440 --> 07:47.610 Well, needless to say, I'm about to say it goes back 07:47.608 --> 07:48.788 to the beginning. 07:48.790 --> 07:52.500 When Plato writes his Republic and devotes Book 07:52.500 --> 07:55.040 Ten, as I'm sure most of you know, 07:55.036 --> 07:58.706 to an argument in effect banishing the poets from the 07:58.708 --> 08:01.878 ideal republic, part of the argument is that 08:01.884 --> 08:03.854 poets are terrible imitators. 08:03.850 --> 08:10.000 They imitate reality as badly as they possibly can. 08:10.000 --> 08:15.230 They are three times removed from the ideal forms of objects 08:15.228 --> 08:16.378 in reality. 08:16.379 --> 08:17.569 They're a hopeless mess. 08:17.569 --> 08:18.689 They get everything wrong. 08:18.689 --> 08:22.329 They think that a stick refracted in the water is 08:22.334 --> 08:24.464 therefore a crooked stick. 08:24.459 --> 08:28.279 They are subject to every conceivable kind of illusion, 08:28.281 --> 08:31.891 not to be trusted, and Socrates calls them liars. 08:31.889 --> 08:33.129 Okay. 08:33.129 --> 08:37.739 Now when Aristotle writes his Poetics he does so-- 08:37.740 --> 08:43.050 and this is true and rewards scrutiny if one thinks carefully 08:43.053 --> 08:47.363 about the Poetics-- he does so very consciously 08:47.356 --> 08:51.286 in refutation of Plato's arguments in the Republic, 08:51.288 --> 08:57.588 and perhaps the keystone of this refutation is simply this: 08:57.586 --> 09:00.936 Plato says poets imitate badly. 09:00.940 --> 09:04.260 Aristotle says this is a category mistake because poets 09:04.255 --> 09:06.155 don't imitate reality. 09:06.158 --> 09:09.168 Poets don't imitate, says Aristotle, 09:09.172 --> 09:10.982 things as they are. 09:10.980 --> 09:15.170 They imitate things as they should be. 09:15.168 --> 09:19.318 In other words, the business of poets is to 09:19.322 --> 09:22.402 organize, to bring form to bear, 09:22.399 --> 09:25.319 on the messiness of reality and, 09:25.320 --> 09:28.600 in so doing, to construct not an alternate 09:28.602 --> 09:33.332 reality in the sense that it has nothing to do with the real 09:33.328 --> 09:34.778 world-- that is to say, 09:34.775 --> 09:36.585 it doesn't mention anything in the real world, 09:36.590 --> 09:40.280 or it somehow or other invents human beings made out of 09:40.279 --> 09:42.739 chocolate or something like that-- 09:42.740 --> 09:47.620 instead, it idealizes the elements existing in the real 09:47.620 --> 09:53.050 world such that its object is something other than reality as 09:53.046 --> 09:53.856 such. 09:53.860 --> 09:57.150 This is really the origin of formalism. 09:57.149 --> 10:02.929 Aristotle is considered the ancestor of the varying sorts of 10:02.926 --> 10:06.306 thought about form, and it's this move, 10:06.309 --> 10:09.159 this move that he makes in the Poetics, 10:09.158 --> 10:11.848 that engenders this possibility. 10:11.850 --> 10:15.630 Now turning to your sheet, in the early, 10:15.629 --> 10:18.969 early modern period the poet and courtier, 10:18.970 --> 10:21.180 Sir Philip Sidney, wrote an elegant, 10:21.178 --> 10:23.918 really wonderfully written defense of poetry, 10:23.918 --> 10:27.178 in one edition called The Apology for Poesie. 10:27.178 --> 10:31.268 In this edition he, while actually a fervent 10:31.274 --> 10:36.284 admirer of Plato, nevertheless develops this idea 10:36.280 --> 10:42.280 of Aristotle with remarkable rhetorical ingenuity and I think 10:42.284 --> 10:48.994 very impressively lays out the case that Aristotle first makes, 10:48.990 --> 10:51.050 here in the first passage on your sheet. 10:51.048 --> 10:54.678 Sidney's talking about the various kinds of discourse: 10:54.678 --> 10:57.288 divinity, hymnody, science, 10:57.287 --> 11:00.497 philosophy, history-- in other words, 11:00.500 --> 11:04.050 all the ways in which you can contribute to human betterment 11:04.047 --> 11:05.307 and human welfare. 11:05.308 --> 11:09.158 He says in the case of all but one of them, each discourse is a 11:09.163 --> 11:11.033 "serving science." 11:11.028 --> 11:14.268 That is to say, it is subservient to the 11:14.269 --> 11:18.019 natural world; its importance is that it 11:18.019 --> 11:20.149 refers to that world. 11:20.149 --> 11:24.259 The first sentence of your passage: "There is no art 11:24.256 --> 11:28.216 but one delivered to mankind that hath not the works of 11:28.219 --> 11:31.299 nature for his principal object." 11:31.298 --> 11:34.298 This by the way-- although what they serve is not exactly a work 11:34.299 --> 11:37.569 of nature-- is why even that which is 11:37.570 --> 11:42.130 incontestably better than secular poetry, 11:42.129 --> 11:46.219 in other words hymnody, and also divine knowledge or 11:46.217 --> 11:48.327 theology-- even these fields, 11:48.332 --> 11:53.122 which are the supreme fields, are also serving sciences. 11:53.120 --> 11:57.560 They are subservient to an idea that they have to express, 11:57.557 --> 12:01.527 which is the idea of God, right, and God is real. 12:01.528 --> 12:07.248 There's no sense that we're making God up in this kind of 12:07.245 --> 12:08.465 discourse. 12:08.470 --> 12:15.420 Sidney is a devoutly religious person and there's no semblance 12:15.418 --> 12:21.148 of doubt in his attitude, and yet he is saying something 12:21.152 --> 12:26.492 very special about the poet who is somewhere in between divinity 12:26.491 --> 12:30.901 and the other sorts of discourse with which poetry is 12:30.899 --> 12:34.289 traditionally in rivalry: science, 12:34.289 --> 12:36.319 philosophy and history. 12:36.320 --> 12:39.390 And he says this is what's unique about poetry. 12:39.389 --> 12:44.699 Only the poet disdaining to be tied to any such subjection 12:44.702 --> 12:47.992 [subjection, in other words, 12:47.985 --> 12:53.995 to things as they are], lifted up with the vigor of his 12:53.999 --> 12:57.799 own invention, doth grow in effect another 12:57.796 --> 12:58.736 nature.... 12:58.740 --> 13:04.170 He nothing affirms and therefore never lieth. 13:04.169 --> 13:05.969 In other words, Plato is wrong. 13:05.970 --> 13:10.200 The poet is not a liar because he's not talking about anything 13:10.195 --> 13:12.615 that's verifiable or falsifiable. 13:12.620 --> 13:17.890 He is simply talking about the parameters of the world he has 13:17.885 --> 13:19.725 brought into being. 13:19.730 --> 13:22.650 Sidney thinks of it as a kind of magic. 13:22.649 --> 13:27.239 He invokes, for example, the science of astrology. 13:27.240 --> 13:31.440 The poet, he says, ranges freely within the zodiac 13:31.442 --> 13:32.902 of his own wit. 13:32.899 --> 13:39.809 He also invokes the pseudoscience of alchemy when he 13:39.812 --> 13:46.052 says that the poet inhabits a brazen world, 13:46.048 --> 13:48.958 and of this--"brazen" means brass-- 13:48.960 --> 13:52.710 of this brazen world, he makes a golden world. 13:52.710 --> 13:55.900 In other words, poetry is transformational. 13:55.899 --> 14:00.149 In representing not things as they are but things as they 14:00.152 --> 14:02.812 should be, it transforms reality. 14:02.809 --> 14:04.249 All right. 14:04.250 --> 14:06.930 So this is an argument which in outline, 14:06.928 --> 14:12.508 once again, justifies the idea of literature as form, 14:12.509 --> 14:17.969 as that which brings form to bear on the chaos and messiness 14:17.965 --> 14:19.255 of the real. 14:19.259 --> 14:25.149 Now I don't mean to say things just stood still as Sidney said 14:25.148 --> 14:28.428 they were until you get to Kant. 14:28.428 --> 14:32.188 A great deal happens, but one aspect of Kant's famous 14:32.188 --> 14:35.438 "Copernican revolution" in 14:35.442 --> 14:39.352 the history of philosophy is his ideas about 14:39.346 --> 14:43.826 aesthetics and the beautiful and about the special faculty that 14:43.828 --> 14:47.588 he believes has to do with and mediates our aesthetic 14:47.589 --> 14:51.289 understanding of things, a faculty which he calls 14:51.285 --> 14:54.605 "the judgment"; so that in The Critique of 14:54.613 --> 14:58.723 Judgment of 1790, he outlines a philosophy of the 14:58.721 --> 15:03.351 beautiful and of the means whereby "the judgment" 15:03.347 --> 15:06.217 makes judgments of the beautiful. 15:06.220 --> 15:09.550 He does a great deal else in it, but I'm isolating this 15:09.547 --> 15:13.427 strand, which is what's relevant to what we're talking about. 15:13.428 --> 15:16.798 In many ways Kant, without knowing anything about 15:16.804 --> 15:20.674 Sidney, nevertheless follows from Sidney particularly in 15:20.672 --> 15:22.362 this, as you'll see. 15:22.360 --> 15:25.350 I'm going to look sort of with some care at these passages so 15:25.351 --> 15:28.141 all will become clear, but particularly in this: 15:28.136 --> 15:31.456 Sidney--and I didn't exactly quote the passage in which 15:31.457 --> 15:35.207 Sidney does this but I urged you to believe that he does-- 15:35.210 --> 15:39.510 Sidney actually ranks poetry somewhere between divinity and 15:39.511 --> 15:41.071 the other sciences. 15:41.070 --> 15:44.420 In other words, poetry is not the supreme thing 15:44.423 --> 15:46.103 that a person can do. 15:46.100 --> 15:49.580 Sidney believed this so much in fact that when he knew himself 15:49.582 --> 15:52.222 to be dying, having been mortally wounded in 15:52.217 --> 15:54.597 a battle, he ordered that all of his own 15:54.597 --> 15:55.587 poems be burned. 15:55.590 --> 15:59.710 From the standpoint of a devout person, he had no doubt that 15:59.706 --> 16:02.076 poetry was inferior to divinity. 16:02.080 --> 16:05.810 Now in a way that's what Kant's saying, too. 16:05.808 --> 16:10.408 In the passages you'll read, you'll see that the point is 16:10.412 --> 16:15.342 not that art and the judgment of the beautiful is the supreme 16:15.342 --> 16:18.962 thing that humanity can be engaged with. 16:18.960 --> 16:23.620 The point is only that it has a special characteristic that 16:23.621 --> 16:25.151 nothing else has. 16:25.149 --> 16:29.819 That's the point that this whole tradition is trying to 16:29.815 --> 16:30.415 make. 16:30.418 --> 16:33.298 This is the way Kant puts it, turning first to the second 16:33.303 --> 16:36.683 passage: The pleasant and the good both 16:36.679 --> 16:42.389 have a reference to the faculty of desire [The pleasant is the 16:42.394 --> 16:46.894 way in which our appetency, our sensuous faculty--which 16:46.889 --> 16:49.249 Kant calls "the understanding," 16:49.245 --> 16:51.875 by the way-- understands things. 16:51.879 --> 16:55.039 Things are either pleasant or unpleasant. 16:55.038 --> 16:58.288 The good, on the contrary, is the way in which our 16:58.292 --> 17:01.402 cognitive and moral faculty-- which Kant calls "the 17:01.395 --> 17:03.605 reason"-- understands things. 17:03.610 --> 17:06.870 Things are either to be approved of or not to be 17:06.868 --> 17:09.368 approved of, but in each case, 17:09.366 --> 17:13.046 as Kant argues, they have a reference to the 17:13.053 --> 17:16.873 faculty of desire-- I want, I don't want, 17:16.865 --> 17:21.485 I approve, I disapprove], and they bring with them the 17:21.490 --> 17:24.400 former [that is to say, the pleasant], 17:24.396 --> 17:27.426 a satisfaction pathologically conditioned; 17:27.430 --> 17:30.990 the latter a pure, practical, purposeful 17:30.990 --> 17:36.830 satisfaction which is determined not merely by the representation 17:36.834 --> 17:41.504 of the object [that is to say, by the fact that the 17:41.499 --> 17:44.069 represented object exists for me, 17:44.068 --> 17:47.018 right] but also by the represented 17:47.021 --> 17:52.481 connection of the subject with the existence of the object [in 17:52.479 --> 17:56.149 other words, by the way in which I want it 17:56.150 --> 17:58.900 or don't want it, approve of it or don't approve 17:58.902 --> 17:59.262 of it]. 17:59.259 --> 18:01.719 My subjective wishes, in other words, 18:01.720 --> 18:06.460 determine my attitude toward it, whereas what Kant is saying 18:06.464 --> 18:11.534 is that my attitude toward that which simply stands before us as 18:11.532 --> 18:14.672 what is neither pleasant nor good, 18:14.670 --> 18:21.220 but is rather something else, doesn't exist for me. 18:21.220 --> 18:24.800 It exists in and for itself. 18:24.798 --> 18:28.358 The next passage: "Taste is the faculty of 18:28.355 --> 18:32.985 the judging of an object or a method of representing it by an 18:32.992 --> 18:35.852 entirely disinterested satisfaction or 18:35.853 --> 18:39.953 dissatisfaction." In other words, 18:39.950 --> 18:42.410 yeah, I still like it or don't like it, 18:42.410 --> 18:48.350 but my liking has nothing to do either with desire or with 18:48.348 --> 18:50.738 approval-- moral, political, 18:50.740 --> 18:52.620 or however the case may be. 18:52.618 --> 18:56.538 I just like it or I just don't like it according to principles 18:56.539 --> 18:59.879 that can be understood as arising from the faculty of 18:59.883 --> 19:03.743 judgment and not from the faculty of the understanding, 19:03.740 --> 19:06.040 which is appetitive, and the faculty of reason, 19:06.039 --> 19:07.899 which is moral. 19:07.900 --> 19:13.790 So with that said, perhaps just to add to that, 19:13.788 --> 19:18.068 the fourth passage: "Beauty is the form of the 19:18.067 --> 19:22.937 purposiveness of an object so far as it is perceived in it 19:22.942 --> 19:27.222 without any representation of a purpose." 19:27.220 --> 19:30.290 You say, "Whoa, what is this?" 19:30.289 --> 19:30.869 > 19:30.869 --> 19:31.789 > 19:31.788 --> 19:35.978 Kant makes a distinction between the purposive and the 19:35.980 --> 19:37.010 purposeful. 19:37.009 --> 19:38.419 What is the distinction? 19:38.420 --> 19:42.930 The purposeful is the purpose of the object in practical 19:42.932 --> 19:43.592 terms. 19:43.589 --> 19:45.049 What can it do? 19:45.049 --> 19:46.999 What can it do for me? 19:47.000 --> 19:49.450 How does it go to work in the world? 19:49.450 --> 19:53.530 What is its function among other objects? 19:53.529 --> 19:58.539 What bearing does it have on--in particular--my life? 19:58.538 --> 20:04.878 But the purposiveness of the object is the way in which it is 20:04.877 --> 20:07.517 sufficient unto itself. 20:07.519 --> 20:11.899 It has its own purpose, which is not a purpose that has 20:11.901 --> 20:15.391 any bearing necessarily on anything else. 20:15.390 --> 20:19.790 It has, in other words, an internal coherence. 20:19.788 --> 20:25.838 It has a dynamism of parts that is strictly with reference to 20:25.842 --> 20:27.862 its own existence. 20:27.859 --> 20:29.419 It is a form. 20:29.420 --> 20:33.610 It is a form and that form, because we can see it has 20:33.609 --> 20:38.039 structure and because we can see it has organization and 20:38.041 --> 20:40.381 complexity, is purposive. 20:40.380 --> 20:44.570 That is to say, it manifests its 20:44.570 --> 20:47.140 self-sufficiency. 20:47.140 --> 20:50.790 So that's Kant's famous distinction between the 20:50.788 --> 20:54.398 purposive, which is the organization of an 20:54.404 --> 20:57.824 aesthetic object, and the purposeful, 20:57.818 --> 21:03.598 which is the organization of any object insofar as it goes to 21:03.595 --> 21:06.575 work in the world or for us. 21:06.578 --> 21:10.908 An aesthetic object can be purposeful; 21:10.910 --> 21:14.100 that is to say we can view it as purposeful. 21:14.098 --> 21:17.898 I see a naked body, which the art historians call a 21:17.897 --> 21:18.427 nude. 21:18.430 --> 21:21.310 Let's say I don't accept that it's merely a nude. 21:21.308 --> 21:24.968 I want it or I disapprove of it and, lo and behold, 21:24.971 --> 21:26.951 it's no longer aesthetic. 21:26.950 --> 21:30.810 I'll come back to that in a moment, but I hope you can see 21:30.808 --> 21:34.528 that that is a distinction between the purposive and the 21:34.534 --> 21:35.554 purposeful. 21:35.548 --> 21:40.808 Now just in order to reprise these important distinctions, 21:40.808 --> 21:46.448 I want to turn to a passage in Samuel Coleridge who is, 21:46.450 --> 21:50.140 at least on this occasion, a disciple of Kant and is, 21:50.140 --> 21:54.260 I think, usefully paraphrasing the arguments of Kant that we 21:54.262 --> 21:56.222 have just been engaged in. 21:56.220 --> 21:59.070 This is the fifth passage on your sheet: 21:59.068 --> 22:03.138 The beautiful [says Coleridge] is at once distinguished both 22:03.141 --> 22:07.141 from the agreeable which is beneath it [and notice the sort 22:07.144 --> 22:11.214 of stationing of the beautiful as Sidney stations it between 22:11.214 --> 22:14.394 what's beneath it and what's above it]-- 22:14.390 --> 22:17.890 from the agreeable which is beneath it and from the good 22:17.892 --> 22:21.882 which is above it, for both these necessarily have 22:21.876 --> 22:24.436 an interest attached to them. 22:24.440 --> 22:29.550 Both act on the will and excite a desire for the actual 22:29.550 --> 22:34.000 existence of the image or idea contemplated, 22:34.000 --> 22:38.780 while the sense of beauty rests gratified in the mere 22:38.779 --> 22:43.559 contemplation or intuition regardless whether it be a 22:43.559 --> 22:47.329 fictitious Apollo or a real Antinous. 22:47.328 --> 22:51.928 In other words, the judgment of beauty does not 22:51.930 --> 22:58.030 depend on the existence of the object for its satisfaction. 22:58.029 --> 23:01.709 Now Oscar Wilde, ever the wag and a person who 23:01.714 --> 23:06.554 generated more good literary theory in ways that didn't seem 23:06.547 --> 23:10.957 like literary theory at all, perhaps, in the entire history 23:10.961 --> 23:14.771 of thinking about the subject, says in the famous series of 23:14.770 --> 23:18.240 aphorisms which constitute his "Preface" 23:18.238 --> 23:21.138 to The Picture of Dorian Gray-- 23:21.140 --> 23:25.010 he concludes this series of aphorisms by winking at us and 23:25.009 --> 23:27.469 saying, "All art is quite 23:27.472 --> 23:28.692 useless." 23:28.690 --> 23:33.300 I hope that after reading these passages and enduring the 23:33.301 --> 23:38.331 explication of them that you've just heard you can immediately 23:38.327 --> 23:43.267 see what Wilde means by saying all art is quite useless. 23:43.269 --> 23:49.319 He's appropriating a term of opprobrium in the utilitarian 23:49.319 --> 23:51.379 tradition-- oh, my goodness, 23:51.375 --> 23:52.805 that something would be useless, 23:52.808 --> 23:57.448 right?–he's appropriating a term of opprobrium and 23:57.454 --> 24:02.024 pointing out that it is an extraordinarily unique thing 24:02.017 --> 24:06.137 about art that it's useless; in other words, 24:06.135 --> 24:11.325 that it appeals to no merely appetitive or other form of 24:11.327 --> 24:13.497 subjective interest. 24:13.500 --> 24:16.510 We don't have to have an "interest" 24:16.509 --> 24:19.479 in it in the sense of owning part of a company. 24:19.480 --> 24:24.010 We don't have to have an interest in it in order to 24:24.009 --> 24:25.459 appreciate it. 24:25.460 --> 24:29.760 In other words, we can be objective about it. 24:29.759 --> 24:34.739 We can distance ourselves from our subjective wants and needs 24:34.740 --> 24:40.470 and likes and dislikes, and we can coexist with it in a 24:40.468 --> 24:47.028 happy and constructive way that is good for both of us, 24:47.029 --> 24:52.949 because if we recognize that there are things in the world 24:52.951 --> 24:58.871 which have intrinsic value and importance and what we call 24:58.873 --> 25:02.763 beauty, and yet are not the things that 25:02.755 --> 25:08.665 we covet or wish to banish, we recognize in ourselves the 25:08.665 --> 25:12.465 capacity for disinterestedness. 25:12.470 --> 25:17.080 We recognize in ourselves a virtue which is considered to be 25:17.077 --> 25:21.527 the cornerstone of many systems of moral understanding. 25:21.528 --> 25:25.728 To realize that we're not interested in everything and 25:25.730 --> 25:30.250 merely because we're interested take a view of things, 25:30.250 --> 25:36.260 but that there are things that we don't have to have that kind 25:36.259 --> 25:40.889 of interest in and can nevertheless recognize as 25:40.888 --> 25:45.518 self-sufficient and valuable, is important. 25:45.519 --> 25:48.599 Wilde's suggestion, but I think also Kant's 25:48.598 --> 25:51.678 suggestion before him, is important for our 25:51.680 --> 25:54.100 recognition of our own value. 25:54.098 --> 25:58.248 By the same token, all this harping on the 25:58.247 --> 26:01.237 autonomy of art-- that is to say, 26:01.240 --> 26:05.220 the self-sufficiency of art, the way in which it's not 26:05.215 --> 26:08.565 dependent on anything, or as Sidney says, 26:08.571 --> 26:13.701 the way in which it's not a serving science existing merely 26:13.703 --> 26:17.423 to represent things other than itself, 26:17.420 --> 26:21.880 right?--the way in which this is possible for art is, 26:21.880 --> 26:27.100 as also our own capacity to be disinterested is, 26:27.098 --> 26:32.428 a way of acknowledging that freedom exists: 26:32.432 --> 26:38.282 that I am free, that things are free from my 26:38.276 --> 26:44.586 instrumental interest in them, so that in general what's 26:44.592 --> 26:50.272 implicit in this view of art and this view of human judgment, 26:50.269 --> 26:54.159 and what makes it so important in the history of thought, 26:54.160 --> 26:58.030 is that once again--and this is not the first time we've brought 26:58.032 --> 27:01.172 this up in these lectures and won't be the last-- 27:01.170 --> 27:06.640 it's a way of recognizing that in addition to all the other 27:06.643 --> 27:12.233 things that we are, some of them wonderful, 27:12.230 --> 27:14.980 we are also free. 27:14.980 --> 27:22.140 There is in us at least an element that is free, 27:22.144 --> 27:26.414 independent, serving nothing, 27:26.413 --> 27:28.703 autonomous. 27:28.700 --> 27:34.800 This idea of our freedom, and by implication of the 27:34.797 --> 27:41.407 freedom of other things, from our instrumental interests 27:41.406 --> 27:46.006 is what sustains the formalist tradition, 27:46.009 --> 27:51.429 and against various kinds of criticism and objection that 27:51.432 --> 27:56.182 we'll be taking up in turn as the case arises, 27:56.180 --> 28:04.030 sustains and keeps bringing back into the history of thought 28:04.034 --> 28:11.494 on these subjects the notion that form simply for its own 28:11.488 --> 28:14.878 sake-- as the notorious Aestheticism 28:14.876 --> 28:18.776 movement at the end of the nineteenth century put it-- 28:18.779 --> 28:20.159 is valuable. 28:20.160 --> 28:21.710 All right. 28:21.710 --> 28:26.340 Now John Crowe Ransom, who was never at Yale but is 28:26.343 --> 28:31.253 nevertheless one of the founders or first members of a 28:31.253 --> 28:36.263 self-identified school of figures who called themselves 28:36.258 --> 28:39.928 the New Critics, published a book called The 28:39.930 --> 28:43.010 New Criticism, and that's > 28:43.009 --> 28:45.989 where the term "the New Critics" 28:45.992 --> 28:46.942 comes from. 28:46.940 --> 28:50.220 You may have noticed in your Wimsatt essay that there is a 28:50.220 --> 28:53.560 footnote to somebody named Joel Spingarn who wrote an essay 28:53.558 --> 28:55.568 called "The New Criticism" 28:55.574 --> 28:56.384 in 1924. 28:56.380 --> 28:57.310 Not to worry. 28:57.308 --> 28:58.958 That has nothing to do with the New Criticism. 28:58.960 --> 29:01.020 That just means criticism which is recent, 29:01.016 --> 29:02.216 > 29:02.220 --> 29:04.070 a different matter altogether. 29:04.068 --> 29:08.088 By the same token, there is the work of Roland 29:08.087 --> 29:11.837 Barthes and some of his contemporaries-- 29:11.838 --> 29:15.998 Poulet, whom I mentioned, Jean Starobinski and others-- 29:16.000 --> 29:18.720 that was called in the French press La Nouvelle 29:18.717 --> 29:19.547 Critique. 29:19.548 --> 29:24.308 That, too then is an instance of the New Criticism being used 29:24.309 --> 29:29.149 as a term, but that too has nothing to do with our subject. 29:29.150 --> 29:32.000 The New Critics, the American New Critics as 29:32.000 --> 29:36.320 they are sometimes identified, were a school--and I use that 29:36.323 --> 29:40.813 term advisedly because they are self-identified as a group-- 29:40.808 --> 29:48.088 a school of people who evolved this idea of the independent 29:48.094 --> 29:50.904 status-- Ransom calls it a 29:50.896 --> 29:54.716 "discrete ontological object"-- 29:54.720 --> 30:00.370 of the work of art and the means whereby it can be 30:00.365 --> 30:06.585 appreciated as independent in all of its complexity. 30:06.588 --> 30:10.758 Our first foray into the thinking of this school will be 30:10.759 --> 30:14.319 our reading of Wimsatt and Beardsley's "The 30:14.323 --> 30:16.983 Intentional Fallacy," 30:16.977 --> 30:20.007 which I'll get to in a minute; 30:20.009 --> 30:23.849 but, simply as a reprise, take a look at the two passages 30:23.853 --> 30:28.043 from Ransom which complete what's on your sheet and which, 30:28.038 --> 30:31.208 I think you can see, create a link between the sort 30:31.211 --> 30:35.141 of thinking you've encountered in reading "The Intentional 30:35.144 --> 30:38.894 Fallacy" and the tradition that I've been trying 30:38.887 --> 30:40.027 to describe. 30:40.029 --> 30:44.169 Passage seven ought to be completely transparent to you 30:44.171 --> 30:48.311 now because it is simply a paraphrase of the passages I 30:48.313 --> 30:52.843 have given you from Kant and Coleridge: "The experience 30:52.838 --> 30:55.908 [says Ransom] called beauty is beyond the 30:55.906 --> 31:00.276 powerful ethical will precisely as it is beyond the animal 31:00.278 --> 31:01.658 passion. 31:01.660 --> 31:05.630 Indeed, these last two are competitive and 31:05.630 --> 31:07.470 coordinate." 31:07.470 --> 31:10.010 In other words, what they have in common with 31:10.009 --> 31:12.489 each other, ethical will and animal passion, 31:12.492 --> 31:15.152 is that they're both grounded in interest. 31:15.150 --> 31:15.850 Right? 31:15.848 --> 31:18.408 That's the point of Sir Kenneth Clark's word, 31:18.411 --> 31:19.631 "the nude." 31:19.633 --> 31:22.373 <> 31:22.368 --> 31:28.998 For the naked human being, as viewed both by the appetites 31:28.996 --> 31:33.126 and by moral reason, as a common term from the 31:33.134 --> 31:35.654 standpoint both of what Kant calls "the 31:35.653 --> 31:38.173 understanding" and from what Kant calls 31:38.173 --> 31:41.043 "the reason," the expression "naked 31:41.042 --> 31:45.632 body" is just fine; but if we do believe there is 31:45.633 --> 31:48.423 another category, the aesthetic, 31:48.417 --> 31:51.737 viewed by an independent faculty called "the 31:51.737 --> 31:54.777 judgment," we need another word for what 31:54.779 --> 31:57.969 we're looking at-- modern painters like Philip 31:57.965 --> 32:01.155 Pearlstein and Lucian Freud would strongly disagree, 32:01.160 --> 32:02.490 but in a way that's the point. 32:02.490 --> 32:05.120 When we're looking at a painting of a naked body 32:05.123 --> 32:06.933 we don't say, "Oh, that's a naked 32:06.928 --> 32:07.658 body." 32:07.660 --> 32:11.550 We say, "That's a nyewd," and that 32:11.548 --> 32:16.218 distinction is what, as it were, bears out the 32:16.217 --> 32:19.477 implicit way, the semiconscious way, 32:19.480 --> 32:24.150 in which all of us acknowledge there to be a category that we 32:24.147 --> 32:26.557 call the aesthetic judgment. 32:26.558 --> 32:29.308 On the other hand, a lot of people think it's all 32:29.313 --> 32:31.673 hokum, and in fact the predominant 32:31.674 --> 32:35.644 view in the twentieth century has been that there's no such 32:35.640 --> 32:40.980 thing as disinterestedness, that whatever we are looking at 32:40.984 --> 32:45.464 we have an interest in and form views of, 32:45.460 --> 32:50.300 and that this Kantian moment of dispassionate or disinterested 32:50.301 --> 32:54.671 contemplation is what the early twentieth-century critic 32:54.669 --> 32:58.239 I.A. Richards called a "phantom aesthetic 32:58.241 --> 32:59.831 state." 32:59.828 --> 33:03.098 The predominant view is of this kind of--but, 33:03.102 --> 33:06.892 just to do it justice in passing, there is a certain 33:06.894 --> 33:08.684 sense, is there not? 33:08.680 --> 33:10.680 in which we suddenly find ourselves, 33:10.680 --> 33:15.210 without meaning to and without being simply victims of any sort 33:15.209 --> 33:18.439 of cultural tyranny, standing in front of something, 33:18.444 --> 33:21.394 clasping our hands, tilting our head and feeling 33:21.392 --> 33:25.182 somehow or another different from the way we feel when we 33:25.176 --> 33:27.066 typically look at things. 33:27.068 --> 33:30.858 And that, too, is an intuitive way of saying, 33:30.858 --> 33:36.438 "Yeah, however rigorously we can define it or defend it, 33:36.440 --> 33:40.660 something like this does seem to go on in our minds at certain 33:40.661 --> 33:43.361 kinds of moments of experience." 33:43.358 --> 33:48.818 We just feel differently looking at a certain work of art 33:48.823 --> 33:54.093 or a certain landscape, let's say, than we feel looking 33:54.089 --> 33:56.919 at other sorts of things. 33:56.920 --> 33:58.830 Maybe we don't know why. 33:58.828 --> 34:01.778 Maybe we doubt that the difference is absolute in the 34:01.781 --> 34:03.941 way that Kant wants to insist it is. 34:03.940 --> 34:06.670 Nevertheless, we have in tendency feelings of 34:06.670 --> 34:10.270 this kind and we should acknowledge them because again, 34:10.268 --> 34:16.888 at least in terms of a weak understanding of these 34:16.885 --> 34:21.815 positions, it does tend to justify them. 34:21.820 --> 34:25.530 At least it explains to us why people can have had such 34:25.525 --> 34:26.275 thoughts. 34:26.280 --> 34:26.890 Okay. 34:26.889 --> 34:34.469 Wimsatt--I keep saying Wimsatt. 34:34.469 --> 34:36.809 Again it's Wimsatt and Beardsley, but I already 34:36.809 --> 34:38.029 explained how that is. 34:38.030 --> 34:42.140 Wimsatt right off the bat attacks what he calls "the 34:42.137 --> 34:45.437 Romantic understanding of literature." 34:45.440 --> 34:47.770 Now what does he mean by Romantic? 34:47.768 --> 34:50.408 It's the attitude which supposes that a 34:50.405 --> 34:53.725 "poem," and that's Wimsatt's privileged 34:53.733 --> 34:58.473 word which I'll try to explain, that a poem is an 34:58.472 --> 35:03.002 expression-- that is to say, 35:03.001 --> 35:09.431 is the expression of some passion or profound genius 35:09.434 --> 35:15.884 working its way into a form, but that the important thing is 35:15.884 --> 35:17.134 the expression. 35:17.130 --> 35:20.650 This much, by the way, Wimsatt has in common with 35:20.652 --> 35:22.862 Gadamer, because Gadamer doesn't talk 35:22.860 --> 35:26.010 much about authors either, and Gadamer is interested in 35:26.014 --> 35:28.634 what he calls meaning, the subject matter, 35:28.634 --> 35:29.694 die Sache. 35:29.690 --> 35:30.690 Right? 35:30.690 --> 35:33.920 He's not interested in your sort of expression 35:33.918 --> 35:37.518 of that meaning or my expression of that meaning. 35:37.518 --> 35:41.038 He's interested in the way in which a reader can come to terms 35:41.036 --> 35:43.166 with a meaning conveyed by a text, 35:43.170 --> 35:45.170 and that much, as I say, despite the 35:45.170 --> 35:47.970 profoundly different nature of their projects, 35:47.969 --> 35:51.059 Wimsatt and Gadamer have in common. 35:51.059 --> 35:56.919 So a poem is not an expression but an independent object with a 35:56.920 --> 36:01.730 self-contained meaning, and if this meaning is not 36:01.726 --> 36:07.046 self-evident to the attentive reader then we don't judge the 36:07.054 --> 36:08.684 poem a success. 36:08.679 --> 36:11.209 This is where evaluation comes in. 36:11.210 --> 36:17.400 The success or failure of a poem depends on the realization 36:17.402 --> 36:18.792 of meaning. 36:18.789 --> 36:22.309 It doesn't depend on our going to the archive, 36:22.309 --> 36:25.889 finding out what the author said in his letters about it, 36:25.889 --> 36:27.989 finding out what he told his friends, 36:27.989 --> 36:29.509 or what he told the newspapers. 36:29.510 --> 36:31.800 It doesn't involve any of that. 36:31.800 --> 36:37.040 If the meaning is not clear in the poem, we judge the poem a 36:37.041 --> 36:37.931 failure. 36:37.929 --> 36:42.359 We don't refer--we have no reason to refer, 36:42.360 --> 36:46.680 if we respect the autonomy of the poem as such, 36:46.679 --> 36:52.519 we don't refer--we don't appeal to an authorial intention. 36:52.518 --> 36:56.498 Hence, on page 811, the left-hand column, 36:56.498 --> 37:00.798 about a third of the way down: "… 37:00.797 --> 37:05.087 [T]he design or intention of the author is neither available 37:05.085 --> 37:09.655 nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work of 37:09.664 --> 37:16.244 literary art…" It follows from this that even 37:16.235 --> 37:19.815 a short poem, even a short lyric poem--and 37:19.815 --> 37:22.615 here you could see Wimsatt "following" 37:22.623 --> 37:24.793 Foucault, though obviously not following 37:24.789 --> 37:27.269 but anticipating Foucault, and again they have nothing to 37:27.273 --> 37:30.773 do with each other, but there is this overlap--even 37:30.771 --> 37:34.651 a short poem doesn't really have an author. 37:34.650 --> 37:41.660 It has a "speaker," a figure speaking in the poem, 37:41.659 --> 37:44.469 that needs to be understood dramatically, 37:44.469 --> 37:48.799 that is to say as though the poem were one of Browning's or 37:48.804 --> 37:52.844 T.S. Eliot's dramatic monologues--in other words, 37:52.840 --> 37:58.410 so that the speaker of any poem on Wimsatt's view is a speaker 37:58.405 --> 38:01.685 endowed with a certain character, 38:01.690 --> 38:05.080 a certain viewpoint, a certain argument to be put 38:05.081 --> 38:07.861 forward, and our concern about the 38:07.855 --> 38:12.565 speaker has to be a concern within the poem about the way in 38:12.565 --> 38:15.675 which this character is elaborated, 38:15.679 --> 38:19.109 and not reinforced, somehow, by biographical 38:19.105 --> 38:23.565 reference to that which is not the speaker but the author 38:23.565 --> 38:27.545 standing back there somewhere behind the poem. 38:27.550 --> 38:34.150 Now why focus on the "poem"? 38:34.150 --> 38:37.040 Notice that we never hear about literature. 38:37.039 --> 38:40.249 We never even hear about "poetry." 38:40.250 --> 38:45.670 The object of attention for an analysis of this kind is the 38:45.666 --> 38:46.316 poem. 38:46.320 --> 38:50.540 Well, the poem is, as John Donne puts it, 38:50.541 --> 38:53.921 a little world made cunningly. 38:53.920 --> 38:55.950 It's a microcosm. 38:55.949 --> 38:59.509 It is a distillation or quintessence. 38:59.510 --> 39:04.360 It is a model in other words for the way in which literature 39:04.364 --> 39:07.414 can be understood as world-making-- 39:07.409 --> 39:11.409 not a representation, again, of things as they are 39:11.411 --> 39:16.661 but of things as they should be; whereby "things as they 39:16.657 --> 39:20.707 should be" is not necessarily an ideal but 39:20.710 --> 39:25.380 rather that which is formal, that which is organized, 39:25.376 --> 39:28.836 and that which has a coherence and makes sense 39:28.838 --> 39:31.838 self-sufficiently and within itself. 39:31.840 --> 39:34.820 That's why the poem, the lyric poem, 39:34.815 --> 39:39.995 is privileged among the forms of literary discourse in the New 39:40.000 --> 39:41.190 Criticism. 39:41.190 --> 39:43.900 All literature is by implication a "poem," 39:43.896 --> 39:45.166 > 39:45.170 --> 39:51.100 but the poem is the privileged site of analysis whereby this 39:51.099 --> 39:55.919 broader statement can be made to seem reasonable, 39:55.922 --> 39:59.442 hence the emphasis on the poem. 39:59.440 --> 40:03.630 The absence of the Romantic word "poetry" 40:03.626 --> 40:06.386 is therefore not insignificant. 40:06.389 --> 40:09.099 Poetry is that which just sort of spills out of me. 40:09.099 --> 40:13.309 It's the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. 40:13.309 --> 40:14.239 (Never mind that.) 40:14.239 --> 40:17.669 The New Criticism isn't interested in spontaneous 40:17.670 --> 40:20.030 overflows of powerful feelings. 40:20.030 --> 40:23.110 Wimsatt has his little joke about drinking a pint of beer, 40:23.106 --> 40:23.966 taking a walk. 40:23.969 --> 40:28.959 So the New Criticism just isn't interested in those sorts of 40:28.963 --> 40:30.913 spontaneous overflow. 40:30.909 --> 40:32.259 Sorry. 40:32.260 --> 40:32.860 > 40:32.860 --> 40:33.880 I won't go there. 40:33.880 --> 40:34.490 > 40:34.489 --> 40:40.229 But in any case, he goes on. 40:40.230 --> 40:43.000 He goes on to say, "All right. 40:43.000 --> 40:46.370 If we're focused on the work of art in and of itself, 40:46.369 --> 40:49.779 on the poem, we obviously in thinking about 40:49.784 --> 40:54.184 what it means need to come to terms with three kinds of 40:54.175 --> 40:55.715 evidence." 40:55.719 --> 40:58.399 That is to say, some things have a bearing on 40:58.402 --> 41:00.722 what it means and some things don't. 41:00.719 --> 41:03.659 What does have a bearing is language-- 41:03.659 --> 41:07.199 that is to say, words in the public domain 41:07.201 --> 41:12.641 which all of us share and which we can study in order to come to 41:12.643 --> 41:16.533 terms with the exact meaning of the poem. 41:16.530 --> 41:19.310 A certain word--this is, of course, what kept you in 41:19.306 --> 41:22.736 your high school classes for so long--a certain word has five or 41:22.739 --> 41:24.209 six different meanings. 41:24.210 --> 41:27.630 The New Criticism delights in showing how all five or six of 41:27.630 --> 41:30.880 those meanings do have some bearing on the meaning of the 41:30.878 --> 41:31.398 poem. 41:31.400 --> 41:33.270 That's all legitimate evidence. 41:33.268 --> 41:37.528 That is what one uses to build up the structure of the 41:37.529 --> 41:39.859 interpretation of the poem. 41:39.860 --> 41:43.980 What is not relevant is what I've mentioned already: 41:43.976 --> 41:48.576 what the author said about the poem in letters to friends, 41:48.579 --> 41:50.839 to newspapers and so on. 41:50.840 --> 41:52.660 That has no relevance. 41:52.659 --> 41:56.369 Then Wimsatt acknowledges that there's a sort of messy third 41:56.373 --> 41:59.903 category of evidence which has to do with language and is 41:59.900 --> 42:03.810 therefore legitimate to a point, but also has to do with the 42:03.809 --> 42:06.149 author's idiosyncrasies-- that is to say, 42:06.152 --> 42:08.902 the way that author in particular used language, 42:08.900 --> 42:12.170 certain coterie words, or simply a private 42:12.173 --> 42:15.053 misunderstanding of certain words. 42:15.050 --> 42:19.240 You've got to know when you're reading Whitman what he means by 42:19.235 --> 42:20.785 "camerado." 42:20.789 --> 42:22.189 It's not exactly > 42:22.190 --> 42:25.030 what the rest of us typically mean when we--well, 42:25.030 --> 42:27.340 we don't use that word exactly, but it's 42:27.340 --> 42:28.760 > 42:28.760 --> 42:30.360 > 42:30.360 --> 42:33.600 what we typically mean when we speak of comrades or 42:33.601 --> 42:34.511 comradeship. 42:34.510 --> 42:37.750 In other words, the word is loaded in ways 42:37.748 --> 42:39.348 that-- Wimsatt would probably 42:39.351 --> 42:41.751 acknowledge-- need to be taken into account 42:41.748 --> 42:44.938 if we're going to understand what Whitman is up to. 42:44.940 --> 42:49.090 Now this is very tricky, and he spends the rest of his 42:49.085 --> 42:53.465 essay talking about the murky boundaries between types of 42:53.465 --> 42:56.235 evidence, type of evidence number two 42:56.242 --> 43:00.172 which is out of play and type of evidence number three which may 43:00.168 --> 43:03.908 be in play but has to be dealt with in a gingerly and careful 43:03.909 --> 43:04.469 way. 43:04.469 --> 43:08.529 But I'm more interested, actually, 43:08.530 --> 43:13.860 in a footnote which arises from this argument about the 43:13.858 --> 43:19.968 idiosyncratic nature of language as a particular author may use 43:19.974 --> 43:24.284 it because the footnote says, you know what? 43:24.280 --> 43:28.020 That's just one consideration we bring to bear on the function 43:28.018 --> 43:29.488 of language in a poem. 43:29.489 --> 43:33.349 This footnote, number eleven at the bottom of 43:33.346 --> 43:37.656 page 814 over to 815, is just about as devastating 43:37.655 --> 43:41.275 and counterintuitive a pronouncement as is made 43:41.282 --> 43:47.202 anywhere in our entire syllabus, the most earth-shattering 43:47.202 --> 43:54.732 pronouncement that anybody could ever possibly make in the New 43:54.726 --> 43:56.326 Criticism. 43:56.329 --> 43:59.139 Well, look at this footnote: And the history of words 43:59.143 --> 44:03.193 after a poem is written may contribute meanings which if 44:03.186 --> 44:07.096 relevant to the original pattern should not be ruled out by a 44:07.099 --> 44:08.989 scruple about intention. 44:08.989 --> 44:10.649 That is bold. 44:10.650 --> 44:15.580 The great creator raised his plastic arm, right? 44:15.579 --> 44:19.779 Everybody knows Akenside didn't mean polymers, 44:19.782 --> 44:24.552 but now we're all into cyberborgs and we take all of 44:24.547 --> 44:26.787 this very seriously. 44:26.789 --> 44:30.089 In a way it's a tribute to the great creator and also an 44:30.085 --> 44:33.795 acknowledgement of the fact that the great creator lives in the 44:33.800 --> 44:34.940 Eternal Moment. 44:34.940 --> 44:36.860 He's not subject to history. 44:36.860 --> 44:40.570 The great creator knew in the eighteenth century that some day 44:40.570 --> 44:42.760 plastic would mean polymer, right? 44:42.760 --> 44:47.180 Obviously that's one of the divine attributes. 44:47.179 --> 44:51.359 Therefore, if the great creator chooses to raise his prosthetic 44:51.360 --> 44:53.810 limb, that is simply a way of 44:53.806 --> 44:57.866 understanding what it is like to be everything, 44:57.869 --> 45:01.479 omnipotent and omniscient in the Eternal Moment. 45:01.480 --> 45:04.830 In other words, if you take Wimsatt's eleventh 45:04.831 --> 45:08.741 footnote seriously, that is a perfectly legitimate 45:08.737 --> 45:13.427 way not to ironically undermine Akenside's line but actually to 45:13.425 --> 45:18.035 reinforce it and to give it a kind of formal richness which it 45:18.036 --> 45:20.226 does not otherwise have. 45:20.230 --> 45:24.260 I realize that I'm out of time, and so I'll begin the next 45:24.262 --> 45:28.362 lecture by talking about a poem of Yeats called "Lapis 45:28.364 --> 45:33.034 Lazuli" written in 1935, in which he talks about the way 45:33.034 --> 45:37.354 in which people who build up things that have been destroyed 45:37.347 --> 45:39.537 are always "gay." 45:39.539 --> 45:44.029 And of course, if we invoke intention, 45:44.025 --> 45:51.055 Yeats doesn't mean that they're always gay in our sense. 45:51.059 --> 45:54.359 He is using the English translation of the German 45:54.362 --> 45:58.492 word froehlich from Nietzsche's The Gay Science. 45:58.489 --> 46:02.449 Yeats is an astute and careful reader of Nietzsche and 46:02.451 --> 46:06.761 in some ways is elaborating on what Nietzsche says in that book 46:06.760 --> 46:09.610 in his poem "Lapis Lazuli." 46:09.610 --> 46:12.640 At the beginning of the next lecture we will do the same 46:12.643 --> 46:14.523 thing with the word "gay" 46:14.518 --> 46:17.438 that we've just done with the word "plastic" 46:17.442 --> 46:20.642 and then we will go ahead and consider the essay of Cleanth 46:20.641 --> 46:23.621 Brooks and other aspects of the New Criticism. 46:23.619 --> 46:29.999