<p> <i>Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli </i> by Ronald Firbank and <i>Between the Acts</i> by Virginia Woolf both liberate the text from the expected form to engage emotional awareness and instigate reform of societal standards. Employing Mikhail Bakhtin&rsquo;s theories of the carnivalesque and grotesque realism as a means to create this perspective is unconventional; nevertheless, Firbank, predominantly misunderstood, and Woolf, more regarded but largely misinterpreted, both address sexuality and religion to parody what they believe to be the retrogression of civilization by narrating christenings, pageants, and other forms of carnival. Both novels forefront nonconformity, and the conspicuous influence of debasement is identified as a form of salient renewal. Christopher Ames, Melba-Cuddy Keane, and Alice Fox have already expressed remarkable insight into Woolf; unfortunately not a single scholar has approached Firbank&rsquo;s text in this manner, and this essay discusses the value of both authors in the aspect of Bakhtin&rsquo;s theories.</p>

Plato’s attitude on Art has always been hardly debated among scholars, and in recent times the interest on ancient Aesthetics in general and Plato’s attitude in particular has been even increased in the philosophical debate. The problem with Plato’s position is twofold. On the one hand he expresses hard criticism against poetry and he even banishes the poets from the ideal state he envisages in the Republic. That has been usually regarded as an illiberal, totalitarian position. On the other hand, the criticisms he makes of poetry seem to present inconsistencies among the Platonic corpus and they could prima facie appear to the modern reader odd, paternalistic or moralistic. Throughout my work I suggest to adopt a new approach, based both on historical and theoretical grounds, according to which it will be possible to resolve the problems that Plato’s objections to poetry give rise to. The historical and cultural context will be the focus of the first chapter. It consists of the following points. On the one hand I will first focus on different features that characterize Greek poetry, and on the other I will emphasize the pre-literacy of Plato’s contemporaries. I will also highlight how the ethical and political role, along with the educational function, made poetry the privileged source of information and education, and the ultimate reference for everyone in the Athens of the fifth B.C. In the second section of the first chapter I will analyze Plato’s teleologism, which I regard to be a fundamental entity in his stance on art. Such a notion, although not as much emphasized by scholars, plays a pivotal role in Plato’s arguments on poetry, I contend. This is especially evident in the Republic, where Plato’s criticism regards the flaws of poetry in teaching (Resp. II and III) first, and secondly as the main source of knowledge (X). In the third and last section of chapter one, I will face the complex issue of the alleged existence of the concept of beauty in antiquity. In this occasion I argue in favour of the existence of such an entity, both among average Greeks and for Plato, even though in different ways and degrees of awareness. After having provided the historical and theoretical frame of my approach, I will then move to textual examination of the Platonis Opera. In the second and third chapter I will analyse the so-called ‘early dialogues’, in order to single out the recurrent features of Plato’s stance on poetry. In fact, one of the main goals of my study is to retrace an overall, consistent view on art in general and poetry in particular among the Platonic corpus. While the second chapter is mainly focused on the Apology and the Protagoras, a special emphasis deserves the Ion, which is the object of the third chapter. I argue indeed that for the first time in this early dialogue we find a clear theoretical expression of a key-concept of Plato’s stance on art. In fact, Plato bases his criticism toward the eponymous rhapsode pointing out that the rhapsode on the one hand lacks the knowledge of the things he (demands to be able to) talk(s) about. On the other hand, the rhapsode lacks the knowledge of what poetry, as well as his trade, is. Such a ‘twofold ignorance’, as we will see, it is a recurring pattern in Socrates’ pupil. While the fourth chapter is mainly devoted to the analysis and comment of the Symposium, the fifth, sixth and seventh chapter present the detailed examination of the Book II, III and X of the Republic. They are respectively devoted to the analysis and criticism of the ‘middle dialogues’, the Republic and the ‘late dialogues’. Because of its capital importance for the purpose of my argument, I will analyze Plato’s criticism in the Republic in details and I will face different approaches to the subject. Afterwards I will confront them with my own theory in order to show that adopting my approach the apparent discrepancies regarding Plato’s aesthetics within the Republic itself as well as in others Platonic dialogues disappear. (And, on the contrary, this does not happen if the reader accepts the mainstream interpretation on the subject at issue). In essence: I propose to take Plato’s criticism of poetry not as an aesthetic attitude, but rather as a justified concern about the pursuit of truth through poetry, as if it were the main source of teaching, moral value, knowledge and information in the ancient Greek society. That is the core of my argument. The eighth chapter analyses the ‘late dialogues’, in particular The Laws, given the abundant of relevant passages on the matter. Finally, the ninth and last chapter faces Popper’s notorious judgement of Plato as totalitarian scholar. In this section of the study I will contend that Popper’s notorious reading of Plato’s political system is fallacious. Further, I will reveal that Plato and Popper’s stance on mass media essentially correspond. It is my understanding that such a fundamental passage will give the ultimate proof of the rightness of my revolutionary reading of the vexata quaestio of the ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry in Plato. Finally, the outcome of my investigations will show that Plato does not banish poetry because he is attacking it as a dangerous, free, “fine” Art. On the contrary, I propose to take his attack as the only way to release poetry from its educational and political context and to baptize it into the realm of Fine Art.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Comparative Literature / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

<p>Sammanfattning</p><p>I denna uppsats valde jag att göra en undersökning med syftet att beskriva och förstå varför lärare i förskolan och skolan anser att man ska jobba med estetik. Vidare ville jag också beskriva och förstå vad lärarna i förskolan och skolan anser att barnen ska lära sig och utveckla genom estetiken, och även hur detta bör gå till, dvs. vilka metoder de använder för att nå målen.</p><p>Som undersökningsmetod använde jag mig av kvalitativ halvstrukturerad forskningsintervju och jag intervjuade fyra lärare med olika lång erfarenhet inom området.</p><p>Genom arbetet med detta examensarbete (genom läsandet av litteratur och mina intervjuer) har jag bland annat kommit fram till att estetisk didaktik handlar om att barnen är delaktiga och får inflytande i sitt eget lärande och sociala utveckling. Estetiken öppnar många dörrar för barnen och de får lära sig att det finns flera olika sätt att lära och ta till sig kunskaper på. I estetiskt lärande är också ofta den lärande processen viktigare än målet, alltså på vilket sätt man får kunskaper. Genom temaarbeten som utgår ifrån barnens egna idéer ges barnen möjligheten att jobba med, stimulera och utveckla alla sina sinnen. När du läser någonting i en bok kan du läsa det och sedan glömma bort det. Estetiskt lärande ger däremot kunskaper som sitter kvar i hela kroppen och glöms inte lika lätt bort.</p><p>Nyckelord: Estetik, didaktik, temaarbete, skapande, sinneskunskap</p>

This dissertation concerns itself with the period of the 1920's and 1930's in French intellectual history. Three prominent figures have been chosen from French culture of this period--Nobel Prize-winning author Roger Martin du Gard, cubist painter George Braque, and Christian existentialist Gabriel Marcel--to illustrate the thesis that this era witnessed a major breakdown in the "romantic style." This latter term is employed to describe the prevailing culture of the West dating from the eighteenth century. It is the view of this study that beyond the catastrophic wars and destruction that afflicted the West during this time, there was an underlying crisis taking place in this "romanticism" that caused as much, as was caused by, the events. Hence, the theme of this dissertation is cultural despair and illness. The subjects are used to portray this illness in the state it had reached by the 1920's and 1930's. It is concluded that basic inherent weaknesses that were latent to romanticism came to the surface in the twentieth century because that era was marked by a culmination of historical crises which exposed the hidden cultural one. The study deals with all the general tendencies of romanticism in a critical manner. The intention is to point out the dangers of some of these tendencies, and in what manner they were dealt with by the three subjects, whose approaches to romanticism were varied.

No description available.

Percy Grainger collected English folk song only for a short period between 1905 and 1909 as part of the revival of interest in all things English among antiquarians, folklorists, and nationalists. Grainger’s publication of his transcriptions and analysis in the Journal of the Folk Song Society in 1908 is considered one of the most insightful and groundbreaking examinations of English folk song of its time, far removed from the dilettante activities of many other collectors. His article was, however, harshly criticized by the Editorial Committee of the Journal, and Grainger subsequently never again published any significant transcriptions of English folk music. Grainger’s English folk song transcriptions have received their fair share of attention from ethnomusicologists. Thus far, however, no one has examined the connections between this aspect of his musical activities and his modernist philosophy of music. I contend that Grainger’s article contains the seeds of what would eventually become his mature, though never fully realized, musical aesthetic, and that it was this aesthetic that allowed him to examine English folk song in a manner never before imagined by other collectors. This dissertation follows the thread of his aesthetic throughout his numerous musical interests in order to demonstrate the potency of his philosophy as manifest in his examination of folk song in the Journal. To this end, I bring to bear a wide range of critical methodologies, including those of ethnomusicology, aesthetics, and critical theory. Grainger never spelled out with any clarity the fundamental tenets of his aesthetic, but I believe that such an aesthetic can be reconstructed through a broad examination of his writings and his music. Grainger shares his role in this dissertation with many other characters including Benjamin Britten, Evald Tang Kristensen, Cecil Sharp, Bela Bartok, Ferruccio Busoni, and even Jacques Derrida, often even ceding his place in the spotlight to them. This is, however, a crucial occurrence, for as my examination demonstrates, this fully realized version of his aesthetic means that Grainger emerges as a far more important and revolutionary thinker in the history of music than he has thus far been considered.

Whether classified as realist, modernist, or postmodernist, the fiction of Alice Munro combines a strong mimetic impulse with a recognition of the limitations of mimesis. This dissertation examines the ethical dimensions of the balance between mimesis and the recognition of its limits. Chapter one provides an overview of Munro scholarship and brings particular attention to the manner in which this balance between mimesis and metafictional self-reflexivity has been analyzed since the earliest days of Munro criticism. Chapter two draws on the Munro scholarship of Naomi Morgenstern, Robert McGill, and Robert Thacker to argue that Munro’s fiction is connected, though not reducible to, her experience of reality. This connection, however imperfect, gives her aesthetics its ethical weight, particularly when the subject of her writing is the human Other. Munro’s combination of a sense of alterity with a powerful feeling of reality reflects a desire to understand and represent the Other without compromising the Other’s radical alterity. The tension that arises from this desire can find a resolution in an aesthetics of love akin to eros as described by Emmanuel Levinas and refigured by Luce Irigaray: a representation, inscribed in each story’s form, of the possibility of a subject-to-subject relationship that preserves difference and ends in mutual fecundation. Chapter three compares the ethical vision in “The Ottawa Valley,” which ends on a moment of continuing, uncompromised alterity, with the feeling of love and catharsis produced in “The Moons of Jupiter.” Chapter four reads “Material” as an oblique gesture at the possibility that literature can open a relationship to the Other that is a kind love. Chapter five examines “Deep-Holes” as an attempt to reconcile the ethical tensions inherent in writing by representing a collaborative mode of meaning-making linked to love and fecundity. This dissertation also, however, follows Derek Attridge and Munro herself in observing some distinction between the self-Other dynamic as a face-to-face relation and this dynamic as a problem of literary representation, even if the two cannot be neatly separated. / Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2012-12-04 20:14:50.513

No description available.

The immense value of the arts has long been recognized by diverse cultures and such recognition has mostly guaranteed their inclusion in educational and school curricula the world over. The arts are considered valuable for numerous reasons, but their inclusion depends on particular interpretations of their merits that may sometimes have failed to realise their full or real potential. Although some ways of valuing the arts date back to antiquity, debates about the value of arts certainly deserve no less consideration in the modern context. Plato was sceptical about the moral value of the arts and regarded them as of dubious educational significance. He thought the arts were more a matter of rhetoric than reason. However, taking a more positive view of the moral power of the arts, Aristotle defended both the arts and rhetoric as potentially contributory to personal formation and the development of moral virtue. At all events, if the arts are to remain educationally defensible, it is arguable that educational theorists and policy makers need to demonstrate their capacity for: (i) objective aesthetic judgement; and (ii) the communication of knowledge and/or truth. Both of these are contentious, as artistic and aesthetic value judgements have often been said to be subjective or personal. In this context, the distinction between judging something as good (which requires reasons) or simply liking it (which does not) is crucial. Here, establishing the objective rational character of the arts seems to be a precondition of demonstrating their potential for knowledge or truth. Arguably, however, there are different respects in which arts may be said to contribute to the development of understanding and appreciation in human agents of themselves, of their relationships with others and of the world, e.g.: (i) aesthetic (sensory) appreciation; (ii) development of imagination; (iii) understanding of aspects of human psychology; (iv) education of the emotions; (v) and moral understanding. In this essay, various philosophical defences of the ‘intrinsic’ (personally formative) educational value of the arts will be drawn from the literature of philosophy and education. Following discussions of ancient arguments for and against the arts, the thesis will discuss at some length defences of the educational value of the arts offered by the American great books tradition, British literary and cultural critics and more recent educational philosophers and theorists. In the final ‘conceptual’ chapter of the thesis, two contemporary works of cinema are discussed to reinforce the key arguments of the thesis. However, having explored the nature and potential of the arts and arts education from a philosophical perspective, this study then seeks to enquire into recent Scottish educational policy developments with reference to the role of arts in arts education and in education more generally through: (i) the exploration of policy documents and official guidelines; and (ii) the voices of interviewees and other research participants involved in Scottish policy making. The thesis will conclude from this enquiry that the educational value and significance of the arts is not adequately appreciated in contemporary Scottish (and perhaps other) educational policy and practice. The study concludes by advocating a return to Aristotle’s conception of the arts as contributory to phronesis (the practical wisdom of virtue), rather than techne (the technical knowledge of skill). Narrow specialisation in forms of training are liable to leave people uninitiated into the wisdom and moral power of the arts –benefits that should ideally be available to all. From the perspective of this thesis, only a broad educational approach that encompasses thorough arts education will result in well-rounded, emotionally intelligent and truly educated human beings.