This morning I was felled by an attack of vertigo and spent most of the day in bed. It was weird: I was up tending to a sick kid at 3:30 and I was perfectly fine. The alarm went off at 6:20 and I tried to get up for a 7:00 meeting. It was immediately evident that I wasn't going anywhere. I am mostly better and am freshly grateful for the concatenation of small miracles that makes possible my usual good health. Once I was a little better I finished Lear. I also had lots of time to think, and one of the things on my mind was Melanie's comment about beauty. She asked if I would describe Shakespeare as beautiful. What makes a work of literature beautiful? I have a formula for your consideration.
Phi is for phrasing. From the time I was small I have always loved a wordsmith, always felt a little shiver of pleasure at a thoughtfully constructed sentence. (It doesn't have to be clever phrasing, just memorable -- like Lear's "Never never never never never" today. Love that train of trochees.) But phrasing isn't enough. I often enjoy David Foster Wallace's writing, but I'd never call it beautiful. The more important part of beautiful literature, I think, is that it brings a moment of recognition, a glimpse of an enduring truth that is both familiar and unfamiliar.
The υ is for the unfamiliarity factor, the blending of known and unknown. There's a range of ratios that works, but it's important for me that both be present. Too much unknown and it feels too alien to be beautiful; too familiar and it seems trite. The τ is for truth. To be beautiful, a work needs to tell you about something that matters. This weekend I read Sign of the Seahorse to Stella. It scans beautifully; there are some clever turns of phrase. But the wanderings of saltwater trout don't offer much in the eternal truth department.
And I'm going to part company with Keats here: I disagree that truth is beauty. The world, I think, is awash in ugly truth. I've got that gamma in there as an exponent because what makes truth beautiful is seeing it through the lens of goodness. Maybe it's human goodness; maybe it's divine goodness. Naked truth can be monstrous, though. I haven't seen Hotel Rwanda, but I doubt I'd call it beautiful.
So that's my parenthetical term. The thing about beauty, though, is that you have to be in the right place at the right time to see it. The μ is for mysterious readiness. You can read Keats in a cynical mood and think "Shut UP, pal." You can see beauty in Calvin and Hobbes if you're feeling receptive. Sometimes it's about state of mind; sometimes it's about life circumstances. I was especially responsive to the bits of Lear that talk about frailty and death today, given the malfunction of my vestibular system.
This is my favorite Shakespeare quote, from Merchant of Venice: Such harmony is in immortal souls, / But whilst this muddy vesture of decay / Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. It ticks all of those boxes: there's so much food for thought in the phrase "muddy vesture of decay." It puts me in mind of "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" It reminds me that there are better things beyond us that we cannot see. I came across it in late December one year, as I was reflecting on the year that was passing away and the year that lay ahead. There is a longing in that last line -- we cannot hear it -- that speaks to my heart year after year.
This is a post in which I could tinker and edit and feel dissatisfied for a long time. But I am going to take my slightly wobbly self to bed, in hopes that a little extra rest will be good for the parts of my muddy vesture of decay that manage my sense of balance. Please tell me what you think -- I'm curious about your thoughts, and your favorite Shakespeare quotes, and the literature that you find beautiful yourself.
Hmmm... what an amazing post. don't worry about the editing, don't. I think my husband would/will (?) love that formula. I, being the purely humanities person that I am, still struggle some with them.
Interesting discussion for a supposedly knowledgeable, but not really truly, literature phd. Sigh... I haven't really read Shakespeare, but I love poetry and, even more, I love love love the visual arts, particularly painting and music. But of course you're talking about words. That's a tough one. (song lyrics are word, though!)
Hotel Rwanda is not beautiful overall, but, many many years after I've seen it, there is something beautiful and true in it, yes, the kindness of that man saving those people. Beauty in the midst of horror.
I will have to keep on thinking about beauty and literature, and words. Great questions!
Posted by: L -- Mama(e) in Translation | January 25, 2015 at 09:27 PM
Oh very good. I really like your formula: phrasing, unfamiliarity, truth, goodness, receptivity. Yes.
I wonder if part of what stumped me was precisely that last one: receptivity. When asked which is the best? What is the most beautiful thing you've ever read? Then suddenly I feel put into a corner and less receptive to the charms of many works I otherwise love. For me that question itself limits the potential answers because the *most beautiful* would have to be a piece of literature which is especially perfect in all its parts. I read it not as the most beautiful phrase or line but as the most beautiful literary work.
So while Shakespeare has moments of exquisite phrasing, undoubtedly, and moments of soaring flight and moments of mystery and moments of delicious unfamiliarity, all of his plays also have moments that are more pedestrian, lines that fall flat or that I'm not particularly receptive to at a particular moment. Whereas a lyric poem, on the other hand, is short enough that it can strike you just so at a moment in time, all the parts, every phrase, every word, perfectly aligned and the straining toward revelation of divine beauty and goodness and truth all coming together like an exquisite explosion, a firework and a diamond and a rose all rolled into one.
I don't know maybe when you've come to be an expert in Shakespeare, completely immersed in the plays-- I'm vaguely recalling but can't quite recollect an interview, I think it was with Sir Patrick Stewart, maybe, or maybe not, some other actor whose been doing Shakespeare for his whole life since childhood, something he said about knowing the plays that well.... well, maybe when you are so familiar you can hold the entire play in your mind in the same way that I can hold an entire lyric poem, and see how it all works together as one harmonious perfection, maybe then I'd be able to pick one of his plays as the most beautiful thing I've ever read.
Posted by: Melanie | January 25, 2015 at 09:33 PM
I like this equation.
Posted by: Bettyduffy | January 26, 2015 at 10:32 AM