Definition of literature and art by Nabokov I hope this is…
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Definition of literature and art by Nabokov
I hope this is OK to post here!
I just re-read “The Metamorphosis” (since a good reader is a re-reader according to Nabokov), and afterwards I immediately went to Nabokov’s “Lectures on Literature” to get his analysis of it. And there I found this section in his analysis of Kafka, and I found it very intriguing: “Beauty plus pity—that is the closest we can get to a definition of art. Where there is beauty there is pity for the simple reason that beauty must die: beauty always dies, the manner dies with the matter, the world dies with the individual.”
What do you make of this? Do you agree? I know there’s no definition of art (literature in this case, and especially the concept of beauty!), and there cannot be. But it’s something I’ve been thinking about now with the rise of AI, and me having spent much time in nature, seeing bird’s nests and gravel roads as forms of art. There’s a Japanese phrase about the bittersweet feeling of things passing: *mono no aware.* This reminded me of that.
Here is the longer paragraph if you’re interested:
“Of course, no matter how keenly, how admirably, a story, a piece of music, a picture is discussed and analyzed, there will be minds that remain blank and spines that remain unkindled. "To take upon us the mystery of things"—what King Lear so wistfully says for himself and for Cordelia—this is also my suggestion for everyone who takes art seriously. A poor man is robbed of his overcoat (Gogol's "The Greatcoat," or more correctly "The Carrick"); another poor fellow is turned into a beetle (Kafka's "The Metamorphosis)—so what? There is no rational answer to "so what." We can take the story apart, we can find out how the bits fit, how one part of the pattern responds to the other; but you have to have in you some cell, some gene, some germ that will vibrate in answer to sensations that you can neither define, nor dismiss. Beauty plus pity—that is the closest we can get to a definition of art. Where there is beauty there is pity for the simple reason that beauty must die: beauty always dies, the manner dies with the matter, the world dies with the individual. If Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" strikes anyone as something more than an entomological fantasy, then I congratulate him on having joined the ranks of good and great readers.”
#entertainment
source
I hope this is OK to post here!
I just re-read “The Metamorphosis” (since a good reader is a re-reader according to Nabokov), and afterwards I immediately went to Nabokov’s “Lectures on Literature” to get his analysis of it. And there I found this section in his analysis of Kafka, and I found it very intriguing: “Beauty plus pity—that is the closest we can get to a definition of art. Where there is beauty there is pity for the simple reason that beauty must die: beauty always dies, the manner dies with the matter, the world dies with the individual.”
What do you make of this? Do you agree? I know there’s no definition of art (literature in this case, and especially the concept of beauty!), and there cannot be. But it’s something I’ve been thinking about now with the rise of AI, and me having spent much time in nature, seeing bird’s nests and gravel roads as forms of art. There’s a Japanese phrase about the bittersweet feeling of things passing: *mono no aware.* This reminded me of that.
Here is the longer paragraph if you’re interested:
“Of course, no matter how keenly, how admirably, a story, a piece of music, a picture is discussed and analyzed, there will be minds that remain blank and spines that remain unkindled. "To take upon us the mystery of things"—what King Lear so wistfully says for himself and for Cordelia—this is also my suggestion for everyone who takes art seriously. A poor man is robbed of his overcoat (Gogol's "The Greatcoat," or more correctly "The Carrick"); another poor fellow is turned into a beetle (Kafka's "The Metamorphosis)—so what? There is no rational answer to "so what." We can take the story apart, we can find out how the bits fit, how one part of the pattern responds to the other; but you have to have in you some cell, some gene, some germ that will vibrate in answer to sensations that you can neither define, nor dismiss. Beauty plus pity—that is the closest we can get to a definition of art. Where there is beauty there is pity for the simple reason that beauty must die: beauty always dies, the manner dies with the matter, the world dies with the individual. If Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" strikes anyone as something more than an entomological fantasy, then I congratulate him on having joined the ranks of good and great readers.”
#entertainment
source
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