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The Artist of the Beautirul
Voice of poetry - Owen
My Assignment is to interpret Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Artist of the Beautiful using Michael Oakeshott's "The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind" theories. I didn't do my presentation on Oakeshott, and I didn't get to read it indepth, so it's been hard. Reading Hawthorne helped making the reading for Oakeshotte easier, actually.
Voice of practcal activity - Robert Danforth / Peter Hovenden
voice of science - Owen in his search for butterflies
voice of philosophy, reflects on all voices without contributing. (Anna?)
492 conversation is dominated by stronger voices (like owen dominated by robert and peter)
self is activity - it imagines (makes and recognizes images)
not-self is images, outside the self, and every image has a specific characteristic
practical activity is imagination / activity through habit, not choice - filling the world with images of pleasure (or convenience)
499 every image is the reflection of a desiring self engage in constructing its world and continuing to reconstruct it in such a manner as to afford it pleasure
503 Language of practical life is conducted in a set of recognizable symbols, so common that they are fixed and precise, learnt by imitation. They convey images, not create images (poetry uses these images to create more unfamiliar symbols. They're symbols, but still unfamiliar nonetheless)
505 scientia came to be understood, not as an array of marvellous discoveries, nor as a settled doctrine about the world, but as a universe of discouse, a way of imagining and moving about images, an activity, an inquiry not specified by its current achievements but by the way in which it was conducted.
science stopped being a didactic voice, something which teaches, but it started being a voice to converse in, yet a voice with its own fixed images and symbols, so with its confidence it began to dominate, like practical activity, the conversation.
506 science's purpose isn't necessarily to make a world (a better place or whatever) but to rationalize the world so it's comprised of more easily understood images / symbols. Scientia is what happens when we surrender to this impulse for rational understanding (this is like Owen when he goes off on his walks in nature running after butterflies - he WANTS to understand the butterflies, dammit, come back here)
507 - in practical activitiy, each self seeks its own pleasure
like Peter Hovenden and Robert Danforth whose practical activity lead to economic success, and thus to pleasure. Economic success tends to be considered the fruit of practical labour. It does not guarantee any kind of essential, intrinsic happiness, but nonetheless, the aim is *pleasure*, not *happiness*.
508 The voice of science, then, is not essentially didactic. the range of its utterance is both narrower and more precise.
Owen Warland and Peter Hovenden are both scientists in their own way. Peter is more practical minded and uses his science of the minute towards economic ends, although he does show a great respect for the concept of Time, yet only so far as Time serves the purpose of economy (practical activity). As Oakshotte would put it, Peter's image of the watch and of Time is temporary, it's always moving and it's an endless process (510).
Owen, however, sees his science of the minute as an art and uses the principles towards the activity of poetry - the activity of contemplating upon an image and recreating it no matter how temporary it turns out to be. Owen's image is seemingly permanent, yet it isn't necessarily, it is merely an end in itself.
511 As Oakshotte writes, contemplation used to be the highest and best thing to do, since it was a "purely receptive experience". Scientific inquiry was preparation for it, and practical activity was a distract. The problem was that only the elite with a lot of money and no need to work could do this. Since back then the elite (aristocracts) were highly respected, it made sense that their values were respected. This elite which prized contemplation is no longer considered respectable and today we frown on rich people who don't do anything important with their money. (That's why we make fun of celebrities who like to party a lot.)
Owen, when he came into his inheritance, didn't have to work, and didn't have to be distracted by "practical engagements" (although he did party a lot, too) and thus was able to dedicate himself to his scientific investigation and thus, to his activity of image-making (contemplation).
512 Contemplation... is activity and it is image-making - exactly what Owen does with his mechanical butterfly. Owen is not simply chasing after butterflies - he is still doing something, even though those of practical activity don't see its value, because chasing butterflies to understand their mechanics has no economic value. Nobody buys the principles of a butterfly's mechanics.
514 But since in contemplation there is neither research for what does not appear nor desire for what is not present, it has often beeen mistake for inactivity.
This is Owen chasing butterflies.
516 ...poetry appears when imaginin is contemplative imagining .. that is, when images are not recognized either as "fact" or as "not fact"... but are made, remade, observed, turned about, played with, meditated upon and delighted in, when they are composed into larger patterns which are themselves only more complex images and not conclusions.
This is Owen MAKING a butterfly.
528 The poet does not recognize and record natural or conventioanl correspondencies, or use them to 'explore reality'; he does not invoke equivalencies, he makes images.
This is quintessentially Owen.
533 What is the function of poetry to the social order?
Some: it's a distraction
Others: it's a teaching method (this is a common method of justifying poetry since Sidney wrote his Defense of Poesy).
Owen and other artists: It just is. It is its own voice in the conversation of mankind which is currently dominated by science and practical activity. it is therefore neither surbordinate nor superior to these voices. the problem with this, pf course, is that in order to participate in the conversation, it must be understood (535), and not everybody understands poetry.
My Assignment is to interpret Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Artist of the Beautiful using Michael Oakeshott's "The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind" theories. I didn't do my presentation on Oakeshott, and I didn't get to read it indepth, so it's been hard. Reading Hawthorne helped making the reading for Oakeshotte easier, actually.
Voice of practcal activity - Robert Danforth / Peter Hovenden
voice of science - Owen in his search for butterflies
voice of philosophy, reflects on all voices without contributing. (Anna?)
492 conversation is dominated by stronger voices (like owen dominated by robert and peter)
self is activity - it imagines (makes and recognizes images)
not-self is images, outside the self, and every image has a specific characteristic
practical activity is imagination / activity through habit, not choice - filling the world with images of pleasure (or convenience)
499 every image is the reflection of a desiring self engage in constructing its world and continuing to reconstruct it in such a manner as to afford it pleasure
503 Language of practical life is conducted in a set of recognizable symbols, so common that they are fixed and precise, learnt by imitation. They convey images, not create images (poetry uses these images to create more unfamiliar symbols. They're symbols, but still unfamiliar nonetheless)
505 scientia came to be understood, not as an array of marvellous discoveries, nor as a settled doctrine about the world, but as a universe of discouse, a way of imagining and moving about images, an activity, an inquiry not specified by its current achievements but by the way in which it was conducted.
science stopped being a didactic voice, something which teaches, but it started being a voice to converse in, yet a voice with its own fixed images and symbols, so with its confidence it began to dominate, like practical activity, the conversation.
506 science's purpose isn't necessarily to make a world (a better place or whatever) but to rationalize the world so it's comprised of more easily understood images / symbols. Scientia is what happens when we surrender to this impulse for rational understanding (this is like Owen when he goes off on his walks in nature running after butterflies - he WANTS to understand the butterflies, dammit, come back here)
507 - in practical activitiy, each self seeks its own pleasure
like Peter Hovenden and Robert Danforth whose practical activity lead to economic success, and thus to pleasure. Economic success tends to be considered the fruit of practical labour. It does not guarantee any kind of essential, intrinsic happiness, but nonetheless, the aim is *pleasure*, not *happiness*.
508 The voice of science, then, is not essentially didactic. the range of its utterance is both narrower and more precise.
Owen Warland and Peter Hovenden are both scientists in their own way. Peter is more practical minded and uses his science of the minute towards economic ends, although he does show a great respect for the concept of Time, yet only so far as Time serves the purpose of economy (practical activity). As Oakshotte would put it, Peter's image of the watch and of Time is temporary, it's always moving and it's an endless process (510).
Owen, however, sees his science of the minute as an art and uses the principles towards the activity of poetry - the activity of contemplating upon an image and recreating it no matter how temporary it turns out to be. Owen's image is seemingly permanent, yet it isn't necessarily, it is merely an end in itself.
511 As Oakshotte writes, contemplation used to be the highest and best thing to do, since it was a "purely receptive experience". Scientific inquiry was preparation for it, and practical activity was a distract. The problem was that only the elite with a lot of money and no need to work could do this. Since back then the elite (aristocracts) were highly respected, it made sense that their values were respected. This elite which prized contemplation is no longer considered respectable and today we frown on rich people who don't do anything important with their money. (That's why we make fun of celebrities who like to party a lot.)
Owen, when he came into his inheritance, didn't have to work, and didn't have to be distracted by "practical engagements" (although he did party a lot, too) and thus was able to dedicate himself to his scientific investigation and thus, to his activity of image-making (contemplation).
512 Contemplation... is activity and it is image-making - exactly what Owen does with his mechanical butterfly. Owen is not simply chasing after butterflies - he is still doing something, even though those of practical activity don't see its value, because chasing butterflies to understand their mechanics has no economic value. Nobody buys the principles of a butterfly's mechanics.
514 But since in contemplation there is neither research for what does not appear nor desire for what is not present, it has often beeen mistake for inactivity.
This is Owen chasing butterflies.
516 ...poetry appears when imaginin is contemplative imagining .. that is, when images are not recognized either as "fact" or as "not fact"... but are made, remade, observed, turned about, played with, meditated upon and delighted in, when they are composed into larger patterns which are themselves only more complex images and not conclusions.
This is Owen MAKING a butterfly.
528 The poet does not recognize and record natural or conventioanl correspondencies, or use them to 'explore reality'; he does not invoke equivalencies, he makes images.
This is quintessentially Owen.
533 What is the function of poetry to the social order?
Some: it's a distraction
Others: it's a teaching method (this is a common method of justifying poetry since Sidney wrote his Defense of Poesy).
Owen and other artists: It just is. It is its own voice in the conversation of mankind which is currently dominated by science and practical activity. it is therefore neither surbordinate nor superior to these voices. the problem with this, pf course, is that in order to participate in the conversation, it must be understood (535), and not everybody understands poetry.