Art principles in literature

Art principles in literature

In the Art of Interesting (Kenedy, 1920) the writer began a discussion of the principles of art and of their application to writing and speaking. In this work the discussion is carried further and is not restricted to the one feature of arousing and fixing attention, especially in oratory, which was the chief topic of the Art of Interesting. The following chapters represent the reactions of the writer to literature both as composed today and as taught in our schools. Any active mind, bewildered by the ceaseless experimenting in literature and education, and not satisfied with a passive acceptance of even excellent critics, is necessarily forced back upon first principles. Such a mind will not yield to the despair of skepticism, that there are no first principles, nor to the despair of agnosticism, that there may be such principles but we cannot know them, nor yet to the despair of pragmatism, that we must wait and see whether the human race ages from now will give us assurance that there really are principles of art because the last man has seen that these principles have been found to work up to the moment prior to which he joined Tutankhamen. [vi] Art, just as morals and pure science, differs entirely from the natural sciences, which are generalizations based upon acquired information and must change as long as the information upon which they are based can be modified and enlarged. But where, as in art or pure science, principles are based on final truths, the principles have also a finality and can only be rejected if their basis can be changed or modified. Aristotles principles have something of that finality. Aristotle had for his study a body of literature that has for centuries met with the approval of the best taste in every age and of every critic. Aristotles biology or physics are not final, but his ethics, his logic, his esthetics are in measurable distance of finality except where some additions have been made to the materials upon which he based his analysis. In religion, because of revelation, in music because of discoveries in instrumentation, and perhaps in other arts, time has added to the original store, but in literature there are few additions to the fields which lay before Aristotle, and subsequent ages have not developed any keener analytical powers than those of Aristotle. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 64443
Author: Donnelly, Francis P. (Francis Patrick)
Release Date: Feb 1, 2021
Format: eBook
Language: English