Evolit: Week 9--Abstract Writing?

What struck me the most when reading Whitman was...well, this is going to be hard to describe.

Have you ever experienced something, like a feeling, or a brief moment, or something that really had an important psychological effect on you...and then tried to write it down in the same kind of beautiful way that you experiencd it?

It never really comes across as satisfyingly similar to the sensation you experienced. Or at least, it doesn't when I write it.

Whitman used a lot of images and metaphors and scenarios that seemed basic, universal, almost generic in their quality. I get the sense that not all fo you felt this way about Whitman, and I didn't think he did this all the time, but there were definitely moments were I felt like he was creating cliche. Funny thing is, those cliches seemed to sum up things about life and the world in ways that I've always wanted to be able to sum things up, but never could. Whitman has a quality of being able to explain and descibe complex emotions in simple series of words that don't seem as though they should be sufficient to stir us.

I believe that there is such a thing as abstract writing, but I think that words open the door to interpretation a little more unavoidably... possibly because most of us think more clearly in words than in pictures. I think that if you throw interpretation aside, poetry can easily be as abstract or non-representational as some art. All you have to do is take in in for the way it sounds or the way the images make you feel rather than try to understand what the author means by them. A poem that used only nonsense words to create sounds might be a good way to teach us to look at a poem without interpreting it and to simply get a feeling out of it.

However, I don't think that poetry, writing, or even art has the ability to be exempt from interpretation. I think our minds simply work that way. Art began as symbols. Pictures came before letters as a means of communication. Look at 17th and 18th century art and you will  see common symbols and themes that were placed in the paintings specifically to mean or represent a certain thing. I think we still look for those.

I have a poetry class that spends the entire class period each day interpreting one or two poems. I don't think that this is a bad thing though. By communicating our interpretations to one another we are learning the many different ways of reading a piece of poetry. We are gaining more free will.

Of course, Whitman seems to be an exception. He doesn't insist on analysis... but in order for us to see that... we have to interpret his poem.

Reactions to his writing

Whitman and I are from the same part of this country and some of the scenes which he describes I can relate to ... These things he describes are those which I have experienced my entire life. Although so beautiful and meaningful to me, they are images which I would not be able to put to words with such elegance so as to get others to see the beauty in that which I see. I suddenly appreciate Whitman's ability to do this ... merlin

The more I read Whitman, the more I have to agree with the idea of his writing being presented as a stream of conciousness. Every idea he states is connected with a later idea. It is both hard to follow and easy to understand ... enewbern

When I read Whitman, I do not feel connected to him as an author and I do not feel emotions when I read Leaves of Grass (except my frustration for not understanding). Therefore, I feel as though Whitman has accomplished the idea of writing in a non-representational fashion ... Anisha Chirmule 

Thinking about what Whitman has on his mind

we talked about why Whitman would write a book telling people, in essence, to stop wasting their time reading about other people's experiences, and to go have their own experiences instead. It seems hypocritical. I think Whitman probably meant it as a "do as I say, not as I do" message ... epeck01

Whitman may be giving us another option to choose from our ways of seeing the world and we can decide to take it into account or not. So, I believe that he is following the art that Sontag is describing. He is trying not to be original in his writing, that way we do not need to find some interpretations and we can let his poetry take over us and show us something completely new ... amirbey

Whitman is claiming to have found beauty and truth in all of us.  He is celebrating not only himself, but the entire human race.  In his writing, he is holding up a mirror to ourselves and asking us to look long and hard.  The discomfort many readers experience is reason to push back at Whitman.  He is asking us to be less conformative, filtered, and guarded; he wants to remove our shame ... jrlewis

Living with Whitman?

Living with Walt Whitman would have been like a night mare ... although he sounds like he is embracing everything and everyone in this world and celebrating them, I think he is just outright declaring his indifference. He tries to give everything the same value and put it on the same level, but to me it feels like he just doesn't "give a damn"! ... skhemka

I was the only one who said that I wouldn't mind living with Whitman. When most people found him eccentric, annoying, and a little too hippie like, I saw him as a unique human being who was passionate about life and willing to share his passion with everyone around him ... Whitman's writing allowed me to take a brief break from my chaos and appreciate my world around me ... fquadri

Whitman and evolution

I think I understand why we are reading Whitman: not only is his work itself a great example of a transitional and important piece of the history of American poetry, but there are also similar themes in both Darwin's work and this book of Whitman's ... Evelyn said that she found "Song of Myself" to be strange because there were moments when Whitman seemed brilliant, but the rest of the poem feels like too much (even useless). An evolutionary process creates some brilliant things which will go on existing, but it also creates things that are "useless" in that they do not persist. Whitman and this process, then, are similar ... I guess my main problem with this comparison is that I don't think that Whitman wrote what he did at random ... selias

Walt Whitman may, himself, be an evolutionary process; just like Evolution, Whitman is boring at times and exciting at times, he tries out new things (his writing style was so new that it was/is difficult to understand), and he creates something like "Leaves of Grass" that is on the border of having no meaning, until it is assigned (by humans, of course) ... I believe that recognizing that there is no clear meaning is, itself, very meaningful, and that it contributes to our own evolutionary process ... Jackie Marano

One analogy that came up was if Whitman represents evolution and you don't want to live with Whitman it states that you don't want to live with evolution ... So, am I scared of living with evolution? Yes, I have my fear of not knowing what is to come; scared of the random process that affects my life and the people around me. Whitman can go live with someone else, right now I don't need discomfort at my back, , and I don't want to think about what is to come, try to figure out the meaning behind the randomness. And yet with this class I have to think about the unknown, have to question myself, have to explore, and maybe with this exploration I can conquer my fear and begin to live with Whitman as he tries to show me how the world works through is eyes ... mcurrie

Whitman and interpretation

Perhaps then, Sontag meant to warn us against motivated and conscious interpretation as opposed to subconscious and unmotivated interpretation ... I want to know how to read Whitman-how can I avoid trying to analyze, but still get something out of his poetry? ... I also understand what Sontag means when she states that we are almost trained to interpret and analyze to the point where we lose the work of art. Against interpretation reminds me of reactions in organic chemistry and the detail with which we need to understand all of these reactions ... by the time we have memorized all these details, we end up forgetting what the reaction was supposed to be used for the in the first place! ... ibarkas

This reminded me of a Mark Twain quote that it is a sin to put a moral in a story. Basically, Twain seems to be suggesting the alternative way of viewing art and stories as generative rather than disclosing when it comes to meaning. If we’re always searching for something of deeper significance, we might miss the beauty of the often-opaque mysteries that we are constantly immersed in ... sustainablephilosopher

While I still believe I have difficulty in wrapping my mind around abstract profoundness, I am grateful to this course for forcing me to confront my unease. The need to confront meaning within the undefined has forced me to evolve my own way of thinking, my own analytical story. ... rmehta

And on ... to more getting comfortable with abstract profoundness

In Prof Grobstein's discussion group last week, I was the only one who said that I wouldn't mind living with Whitman. When most people found him eccentric, annoying, and a little too hippie like, I saw him as a unique human being who was passionate about life and willing to share his passion with everyone around him, at least through writing. I don't think he's an idealist or foundationalist who sees the world head towards a kind of perfection. I believe he's an appreciative citizen of the world who looks at his natural and man made environment at that time, and finds beauty in everything and everyone, even himself.

Most people don't take the time to smell the flowers, or appreciate the world around them, or even appreciate themselves, especially in this day of age when everyone seems to be busy or stressed out to some extent. For me, Whitman's writing allowed me to take a brief break from my chaos and appreciate my world around me. I won't be talking to trees or camping out at Walden Pond but I can look around me and enjoy the simple things in life such as sunlight, fresh clothes out of the laundry, and my ability to write this in the first place. Everyone should celebrate themselves and the earth at least for a brief moment.

One of the most striking ideas that I took from class on Thursday was that we are all evolutionary processes creating things that have no meaning until we either attribute to or find meaning in them. For example, we create dreams in our sleep that may or may not have meaning to us while we are sleeping, and may or may not seem significant to us when we awake. Another example perhaps would be abstract art, which is a creation that may or may not have meaning or “intention” on the part of its author – it invites us, the viewers, to find meaning in the creation, or not, as we please. There’s not necessarily a univocal, fixed, given meaning either in our creations, our selves, or life broadly speaking that is waiting there to be discovered – we invent and alter meanings on the fly, filling in the open space for interpretation differently for each living participant or viewer.

As Kate pointed out, we are trained in English classes to analyze everything in order to further understand human culture. However, as Paul noted, perhaps meaning comes only after an evolutionary process – we are trained to interpret the world in various ways. Some things are either not interpretable or have no meaning underneath them lying in wait to be found out, to account or explain for them. A story just might mean nothing at all, as Paul’s English teacher taught him in middle school – it has whatever meaning you give it. This reminded me of a Mark Twain quote that it is a sin to put a moral in a story. Basically, Twain seems to be suggesting the alternative way of viewing art and stories as generative rather than disclosing when it comes to meaning. If we’re always searching for something of deeper significance, we might miss the beauty of the often-opaque mysteries that we are constantly immersed in.

The more I read Whitman, the more I have to agree with the idea of his writing being presented as a stream of conciousness. Every idea he states is connected with a later idea. It is both hard to follow and easy to understand. Although what that means I am not entirely sure. Whitman connects one idea with another so smoothly that it is difficult to differentiate the beginning of one thing and the start of a new one, but it also seems to follow a logical order as well. I enjoy reading him, but I have to really concentrate to absorb the entirity of a paragraph without having to go back and reread it several times, which is usually what I have to do everytime I read prose and poetry anyway. I have thus far enjoyed reading Leaves of Grass and hope that Whitman continues to take me on a meandering journey through his thoughts.

Must writing or artin general be representational? The simple answer is yes.  Theactual definition of being nonrepresentational is “not resembling or portraying anyobject in physical nature”.  It isobvious that writing that is just describing or artwork that is trying tocapture what the artist sees is representational.  But when people write about or draw things that don’t andcan’t exist the question is, do they represent something?  Even if an artist creates something thatis nothing like reality, everything that artist imagines is based in thereality that the artist perceives. So even if it is not a conscious effort, their seemingly brand newcreation is just based off one or a combination of things the have seen.  I don’t see how one could think it waspossible to come up with any vision of something not based in reality.  The brain picks up input from all ofthe senses and that representational information is then decoded, therefore anythought comes from what is based in reality.

Until most recently, Dennett, Darwin, Sontag, Fyerabend and Whitmann have meant little more [to me] than nice words written during varying centuries, decades and years and for a variety of purposes, some of which have had some inspirational impact on humankind - perhaps. But all that changed for me after Prof. Grobstein’s discussion about the differences between abstract art and realistic art. Having that visual as my guide for understanding the evolutionary process makes my appreciation of the authors listed above that much more meaningful. That analogy helped me to understand the ‘meaning attributor’ part of our humanness; humans certainly have this innate need to make sense/meaning. Art, like science, like literature, and like philosophy mean nothing until and/or unless our brain attributes meaning and significance to it. Each of us ascribed meaning to the works of the authors above and to the realistic and abstract art – no two were alike. My brain and your brain ascribed meaning to everything with no influence from each other. Everyone and everything is an evolutionary process.

I agree with the above statement of: "...he just doesn't seem to 'give a damn'". In class on Thursday, I juxtaposed my feelings of reading the text with the feeling I get when mindlessly people watching in Penn Station- both conjured feelings of absolute whatever. I mean, its not to say that his work is not important to the literary community but I am not really seeing how this fits in with the evolutionary pattern.

Is it similar to the pictures that were presented in class on Tuesday, where it went from fully constructed to just the fundamental units of the tree? Is this the breakdown of this novel as well- where there is constantly a mix between these prose and poetry type passages. Is it meant to represent something bigger? The constant immersion of different stages of evolutionary literary techniques? Is my brain to unsophisticated to deconstruct and construct what is going on in a reasonable manner? Probably.

There are two questions that I want to answer to in this blog which were asked in Thursday's class with Prof. Grobstein. First was whether you would want to live with Walt Whitman? I would like to say "no". Living with Walt Whitman would have been like a night mare. It is because while reading Leaves of Grass (all 12 of them) I realized that although he sounds like he is embracing everything and everyone in this world and celebrating them, I think he is just outright declaring his indifference. He tries to give everything the same value and put it on the same level, but to me it feels like he just doesn't "give a damn"! Everything is the same to him, whether he lives or dies, whether earth revolves, whether good prevails or evil, it’s all the same to him. He sounds extremely indifferent and passionless. He seems to be hide that under his words which make people think he is filled with some innate optimism not natural to the rest of us. Therefore, I think I would never want to live with him.

Second, would be the question of meaning which is - are humans capable of ascribing meaning to things? My answer to this would be a definite yes. Humans, more specifically, their minds are capable of ascribing meaning to things. (Meaning not only in the sense interpretation or goal.) I mean that only human impressions or ideas through perceiving attach meaning to anything in this world. Everything that we as humans know, know because of our minds and everything that is related to the mind has meaning. So, even abstract art which man thinks has no meaning, has a meaning attached to it just by being a product of the mind. I am sure there are so many things out there but since human minds haven't reached them yet they do not have any meaning.

      In Prof. Grobstein's section on Thursday, we talked about how Walt Whitman may, himself, be an evolutionary process; just like Evolution, Whitman is boring at times and exciting at times, he tries out new things (his writing style was so new that it was/is difficult to understand), and he creates something  like "Leaves of Grass" that is on the border of having no meaning, until it is assigned (by humans, of course).

     But I think that all people and things perceivable to us are fragile in this way. We are all on the verge of having no meaning, but what saves us is our compulsion to establish it, to keep things interesting. Maybe we can't help but assign or search for meaning in things, and maybe Evolution favored this. I think our need for 'meaning' directly affects our actions (learning, constructing, working, eating, traveling, cultural/religious practices, socializing, etc...). And such actions are a source of something new, something different that can be 'worked on' by Evolution.

      So then what is the role of someone like Whitman, who writes in such a way that meaning is hard for us to assign? Is this like a stop sign on the road of Evolution? I would argue that it isn't. I believe that recognizing that there is no clear meaning is, itself, very meaningful, and that it contributes to our own evolutionary process. The idea of being a process is understandably disturbing, but maybe the Evolutionary process is nothing more than the sum of many interacting sub-evolutionary processes. And if form defines function, as is a common 'rule' of science, well then Evolution is just as understandably dependent on us, these sub-processes, to be a functioning process. I also don't think that Evolution revolves around humans alone, but as some of the more sophisticated 'processes' out there, I think we certainly carry our weight. Maybe this why Whitman 'celebrated' himself?      

One analogy that came up was if Whitman represents evolution and you don't want to live with Whitman it states that you don't want to live with evolution.  Well do I want to live with evolution?  Well if it is Whitman then no, because I would get so annoyed with the man's ramblings and randomness that he might be kicked out in a few days.  But what if the question was are you afraid of evolution, and that's why you don't want to live with "Whitman?"  No is the first answer that crosses my mind, but at the moment I'm not exactly sure.  If I knew everything there is to know about evolution, would I be happy with the result, would I be happy with knowing there might not be destiny that there is nothing in control?  Maybe that does make me a little uneasy because it is nice to have the comfort of knowing what is to come, it is nice to have comfort.  People say they know how an animal will act, and people say that they know how the world will change, but they are only guesses. So, am I scared of living with evolution?  Yes, I have my fear of not knowing what is to come; scared of the random process that affects my life and the people around me.  Whitman can go live with someone else, right now I don't need discomfort at my back, and I don't want to think about what is to come, try to figure out the meaning behind the randomness.  And yet with this class I have to think about the unknown, have to question myself, have to explore, and maybe with this exploration I can conquer my fear and begin to live with Whitman as he tries to show me how the world works through is eyes.  I guess I'm just going back and forth.

Seriously interesting set of issues (to me at least).  Are there parallels in writing to the suggested sequence in art?  Can writing be "non-representational"?  Yep, I think so.  Or, more accurately, writing (like painting) can be representational to a greater or lesser degree, abstract to a greater or lesser degree.  Here's the sequence. 

For more along these lines, see Realism to impressionism to abstraction and back again, in words.