Art principles in literature

by Francis P. Donnelly

Mr. Hackett has been led astray by not distinguishing the disinterested emotions of beauty from the selfish emotions of appetite. He calls beauty, “disinterested satisfaction,” and in that word “disinterested” he has a fact about beauty, a fact solving his problems, a fact which has been admitted by every one who has studied the subject, and a fact which is capable of experimental demonstration at any moment. Professor Phelps of Yale once called esthetic emotions a spinal thrill; Mr. Mencken would call them “hormones or intestinal flora”; and Mr. Hackett declares that “the true sources of esthetic satisfaction and dissatisfaction are deep in our emotional and visceral life.” The one essential quality of disinterestedness, found in esthetic satisfaction, shows the absurdity of all such statements. Bodily emotions are all the outcome of appetites, and appetites are never disinterested but always self-seeking by their very nature. They are actuated by good; they tend to an end, an end which they do not and cannot seek disinterestedly. Even the act of the highest disinterested love may be akin to the sense of beauty, but it is not as wholly disinterested because that unselfish love is still seeking good, and good as such does not come within the purview of beauty at all. It is impossible to be disinterested towards good or evil.

Mr. Hackett speaks of beauty being a “sensuous satisfaction.” Here again there is a confusion between beauty of art and other beauty. Art appeals to the senses because art presents its beauty in concrete embodiments. To that extent the satisfaction of beauty arises from sensible objects, but the feeling of beauty transcends mere sensation. “Art is long.” “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” The satisfaction of appetite is passing; the satisfaction of beauty abides. Mr. Hackett does well to seek the springs of beauty in personality. Personality is an abiding principle of intellectual beings. The enduring joy of beauty argues to an abiding principle which bears the dynamic charge of that joy. Beauty supposes a soul.

“Beauty is a light that may follow any reality whatever and give us the power to release our emotions happily in the presence of that reality.” So states Mr. Hackett, and he is right, if he gives the correct meaning to “emotions.” Light or luster has been recognized from all time as an objective element of beauty, which has been defined as the light of truth. Mr. Hackett paraphrases a definition which has been incorrectly attributed to Plato. Kleutgen has defined beauty as the perfection of anything resplendently manifested.

Let us hope that Mr. Hackett will remove “visceral” from among the qualities of beauty and preclude critics from adding a fiftieth explanation of Aristotle’s catharsis to the forty-nine varieties already set forth. Wearers of Murphy buttons or those who have lost or may lose sections of the intestinal tract should be assured in an amended edition of Mr. Hackett’s esthetics that their sense of beauty has not been abbreviated or impaired. Sane philosophy is the prime requisite of true criticism.

PART SECOND
ART IN THE TEACHING OF LITERATURE

IX
LOOKING FORWARD IN LITERATURE

The teacher of literature today is looking backward when he should be looking forward. Greek literature, Latin literature and, to a large extent, English literature are not orientated; they do not face the rising sun. It was not so in the Greek schools of Greek literature. Gorgias and Isocrates taught literature for the morrow, and for practical and immediately practical purposes. In the Roman schools it was so from first to last. Recall Cicero’s studies under Greek rhetoricians and Cicero’s own preachment in the Archias speech. “Shame on those who bury themselves so deep in literature that they harvest nothing for the good of all and bring nothing to light for our eyes to look upon.” Recall Quintilian’s Institutes of Oratory, and all the intervening schools of Rome. Rome had no vocational schools for road-building, but Rome did have schools of grammar, poetry, rhetoric and philosophy where it trained leaders with vision and with the power to act. The brains of Rome trained in literature guided barbarian hands to lay down the roads over which Christianity traveled and civilization came down to us.

Literature looked forward in every period of the world’s schooling. Ausonius and Isidore, Alcuin and Petrarch, Boileau and Pope, England and France, and even Germany until about the middle of the nineteenth century and America until a little later, kept the literatures of Greece and Rome orientated to the future by teaching them as arts, by making composition of literature the goal of the teaching of literature.

Science is ever growing old; history is always being rewritten; literature is ever young. We know more about Homer’s history than Longinus knew, but we do not taste the delight of his poetry any better than Longinus tasted it. “Handing on the torch of learning” is a trite phrase, but it is literally verified in the true teaching of literature. Each age adds to the advance of science and information, but art is long. Literature and art do not belong to the past. Literally and without figure of speech they are the past living in the present. They are the flaming torch, kindled in the past, never dimming and never to dim.

Write a history of artists; do not write a history of art. “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” The information of science changes every moment; the appreciation of art once gained is enduring. The Encyclopedia Britannica has rewritten all its science and history; it reprints its appreciations of Sophocles by Campbell and of Demosthenes by Jebb and even of Johnson by Macaulay. Where the cause is the same, the effect is the same, and so the beauty of Homer’s rosy-fingered dawn awakens still the same appreciation.