The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog
Continuing on Sontag’s essays “On Style” (1965) and “The Death of Tragedy” (1963).
Mark, Wes, Seth and Dylan keep talking about the appropriate distance to retain (or not) to a work of art, which is supposed to be relevant to moral action in the world. We also spell out how this is relevant to our recent episodes on tragedy.
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End song: “Mela” by Julie Slick, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #115.
On Sontag’s essays “Against Interpretation” (1964), “On Style” (1965), and “The Death of Tragedy” (1963).
What is it to understand a work of art? Sontag objects to critics’ need to decode art into its “meaning” or “content,” divorcing it from how this content is embodied. She argues that the content vs. form distinction isn’t tenable; that the style of a work is an essential part of experiencing it. Sontag thinks we’re too analytical, too divorced from our instincts, and a direct encounter with art is essential to enliven us.
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On Sontag’s essays “Against Interpretation” (1964), “On Style” (1965), and “The Death of Tragedy” (1963).
What is it to understand a work of art? Sontag objects to critics’ need to decode or translate literature into it’s “meaning” or “content,” divorcing it in the process from how this content is embodied. She argues that this content vs. form distinction isn’t tenable; that the style of a work is an essential part of experiencing it. Like Nietzsche, Sontag thinks we’re too analytical, too divorced from our instincts, and a direct encounter with art is essential to enliven us.
End song: “Mela” by Julie Slick, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #115.
Continuing on the Poetics from around 335 BCE, on the structure of plot (every element must be essential!), the moral status of the heroes, Homeric poetry, the difference between tragedy and history, and how Aristotle’s formula may or may not apply to modern media.
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End song: “Structure of a Tragedy” by Mark Lint. Read about it.
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These notes from 335 BCE are still used in screenwriting classes. Aristotle presents a formula for what will move us, derived from Sophocles’s tragedies.
What is art? The text describes it as memesis (imitation), and tragedy imitates human action in a way that shows us what it is to be human. Aristotle has lots of advice about how to structure a plot optimized to our sensibilities. Join Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth to see if you think he’s right.
Don’t wait for part two; get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition now. Please support PEL!
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These notes from 335 BCE are still used in screenwriting classes. Aristotle presents a formula for what will move us, derived from Sophocles’s tragedies.
What is art? A. describes it as memesis (imitation), and tragedy imitates human action in a way that shows us what it is to be human. A. has lots of advice about how to structure a plot optimized to our sensibilities. Join Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth to see if you think he’s right.
End song: “Structure of a Tragedy” by Mark Lint (2020).
Continuing on Cavell’s essay “The Avoidance of Love: A Reading of King Lear” (1969), shifting away from Lear in particular to a more general discussion of tragedy and Cavell’s psychological insights.
Begin with Part One or get the ad-free, unbroken Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!
End song: “Out of Your Hands” by Gretchen’s Wheel, i.e., Lindsay Murray, as interviewed for Nakedly Examined Music #81.
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On Cavell’s essay “The Avoidance of Love: A Reading of King Lear” (1969).
Can money buy you love? What is tragedy? With guest Erin O’Luanaigh.
To get the most out of this, check out some performance of King Lear or just read the plot summary.
Don’t wait for part two; get the full Citizen Edition now. Please support PEL!
On Cavell’s essay “The Avoidance of Love: A Reading of King Lear” (1969).
Can money buy you love? What is tragedy? With guest Erin O’Luanaigh.
End song: “Out of Your Hands” by Gretchen’s Wheel, per Nakedly Examined Music #81.
Continuing on “The Death of the Author” by Roland Barthes (1967) and “What Is an Author?” by Michel Foucault (1969), and finally getting to “Against Theory” by Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaels (1982).
What could it mean to say that a text, once written, speaks itself? We get into Foucault’s critique of the cult of the author and the reader-centric types of analysis he proposes in its place. Plus, Knapp and Michaels’s poem written by natural forces on a rock. Crazy stuff!
Hear part 1, or get the Citizen Edition and supporters’ part 3.
End song: “The Auteur” by David J (2018). Listen to Mark’s interview with him in Nakedly Examined Music #73.
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A bonus discussion between Mark and Wes for supporters! We give some philosophy of language context for the issues of meaning brought up in ep 189. Plus, some discussion of the critic James Wood, and analyzing T.S. Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”
On four essays about how to interpret artworks: “The Intentional Fallacy” by W. K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley (1946), “The Death of the Author” by Roland Barthes (1967), “What Is an Author?” by Michel Foucault (1969), and “Against Theory” by Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaels (1982). When you’re trying to figure out what, say, a poem means, isn’t the best way to do that to just ask the author? Most of these guys say no, and that’s supposed to reveal something about the nature of meaning.
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Some audio tidbits to hint at the analytic glories in the second half of our discussion, getting deeper into the psychoanalytic/existential interpretations of the film. Get the discussion at patreon.com/partiallyexaminedlife or with a PEL Citizenship.
On Jacques Lacan’s “Seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter'” (1956), Jacques Derrida’s “The Purveyor of Truth” (1975), and other essays in the collection The Purloined Poe: Lacan, Derrida, and Psychoanalytic Reading. How should philosophers approach literature? Lacan read Edgar Allen Poe’s story about a sleuth who outthinks a devious Minister as an illustration of his model of the psyche, and why we persist in self-destructive patterns. Derrida thought this reading not only imposed a bunch of psychobabble onto the story, but demonstrated that Lacan just didn’t know how to read a text.
On Jacques Lacan’s “Seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter'” (1956), Jacques Derrida’s “The Purveyor of Truth” (1975), and other essays in the collection The Purloined Poe: Lacan, Derrida, and Psychoanalytic Reading. How should philosophers approach literature? Lacan read Edgar Allen Poe’s story about a sleuth who outthinks a devious Minister as an illustration of his model of the psyche, and why we persist in self-destructive patterns. Derrida thought this reading not only imposed a bunch of psychobabble onto the story, but demonstrated that Lacan just didn’t know how to read a text.
