Thoughts after today’s class

What a fascinating discussion of naming, alegibility, otherness, textuality, Gothic monsters, manipulation, and incest. Ah, Pierre.

We talked a good deal today about two “arts”–writing and music. Last time, we talked about another art–visual art and portraiture. I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts about what is going on here in terms of the relationship between literary arts, visual arts, and music. Do different arts convey different kinds of information or feeling?

I also wonder if one art form is better at conveying/representing/wallowing in ambiguity? As we talked about today, there’s something about Isabel’s guitar that enables her to convey the “mystery” of her “history.” What about literary arts? Painting?

And forget about what Melville thinks. Which art form do you think celebrates ambiguity best without trying to straighten out life’s gossamer threads?

What reading novels will do to you, by Melville

“By infallible presentiment he saw, that not always doth life’s beginning gloom conclude in gladness; that wedding-bells peal not ever in the last scene of life’s fifth act; that while the countless tribes of common novels laboriously spin vails of mystery, only to complacently clear them up at last; and while the countless tribe of common dramas do but repeat the same; yet the profounder emanations of the human mind, intended to illustrate all that can be humanly known of human life; these never unravel their own intricacies, and have no proper endings; but in imperfect, unanticipated, and disappointing sequels (as mutilated stumps), hurry to abrupt intermergings with the eternal tides of time and fate.

So Pierre renounced all thought of ever having Isabel’s dark-lantern illuminated to him. Her light was lidded, and the lid was locked.”

–page 141