atypicalset -- 亦云?

Thursday, June 02, 2005

Enjoyment and Articulation

"Share the excitement" -- this is what all researchers like to do, and actually do by presenting their motivation, reasoning and findings.

The same applies to art and humanities, the subjects of feelings rather than reasonings. I was quite surprised at this simple revealation as I read a collection of short essays on aesthetics by Zhu Guangqian. Feelings that cannot be articulated are internal, those can would become universal, as he pointed out using examples of poems from the Song dynasty. This is not to jeporadize art and literature in our overly rational minds, but to justify the amount of work it needs to stand up, defend, and advocate for what we love.

Put away the grumblings when people don't understand our enjoyments of a music piece, save the energy complaining about the indifference we reiceive after screaming at a refreshing literary reading. Try to reason and articulate their merits, and see what can happen.