Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: The Long Goodbye

From: Michael Robison ( miker_zspider@yahoo.com)
Date: 22 Feb 2007


Mike wrote:

And as a minor matter I certainly wouldn't turn to Oscar Wilde for advice on morality of any sort let alone the uses or morality in literature.

********** Haha. What was his comment? Something about books being neither moral nor immoral? I can see two reasons for this. First, since art is open to multiple interpretations, its meaning is sufficiently ambiguous to preclude an objective moral or immoral character. Second, since art does not act itself, it can't be moral or immoral because morality involves action.

Now I don't view either of these reasons as being the most silly thing I've ever heard, but neither do I find them entirely satisfying. As far as the first reason, it is true that art is to an extent open to personal interpretation, but I disagree with the reader-response theory that a book means whatever a reader wants it to. It's a small step from the idea that a book can mean anything to it meaning nothing. With meaningful interpretation strapped with at least some kind of limitation, it's not unreasonable to assume that the range of interpretation may all lay within either a moral or immoral zone. As far as the second reason limiting moral nature to actions, I would note that words express ideas and ideas have consequences which are pretty damned close to actions.
 

miker

 

 
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