Subject: Re: Moviegoer and despair
From: R. Jeffrey Grace (rjgrace@POBOX.COM)
Date: Thu Nov 11 1999 - 20:40:48 EST
Hi Ken,
At 06:03 PM 11/11/99 -0500, Ken Armstrong wrote:
> This is probably just a case of being cranky in Ohio, but a couple of
>questions:
>
> > Regarding the issue at hand, I would say that the worst form of despair is
> > the kind that exists in the aesthetic stage. Those who live in that realm
> > (or visit from time to time, as we all do) are aware of despair, I think,
> > but remain uwilling or unable to probe it.
>
> I don't understand the term "aesthetic despair" here. Someone who is in
>despair (having no hope) would not enjoy the aesthetics of his or her
>despair, but we who are reading a work of literature about someone in
>despair rightfully should want to understand the aesthetics of the despair
>presented. Right?
I think the phrase "aesthetic despair" can be roughly translated as
"despair in the sensual realm". I think SK defined the aesthetic realm as
the realm of the senses, or the material realm, which is in contrast to the
ethical realm, or the spiritual realm, the realm of the
eternal. Literature would be an aesthetic work which could point to, but
not really express, the ethical or eternal realm.
> Binx has moved beyond that
> > with his search, thus becoming able to recognize the despair that
> > threatens him and those around him, even if he can't specifically name it.
> > This realization, in turn, comes with its own sense of despair, but surely
> > not as hopeless as the previous kind.
>
> I've got to think that once it is not hopeless, it is not despair. Not
>meaning to be picayune, so just let me know if you think this is off track.
I agree with you. I think SK would too, for the difference he made between
dread and despair doesn't make sense otherwise. I think SK understood
dread as being that awakening within someone to the fact that the aesthetic
or physical realm contained no end for the desire we have for the
eternal. Despair is what someone lives in when one has, when faced with
the dreadful realization, turns back to the aesthetic realm to sate a
desire that will never be sated. That dread is where our chance comes to
choose the eternal as our concern. It is in dread that we have hope.
<remainder cut>
I hope that is of some use!
-------
R. Jeffrey Grace
rjgrace@pobox.com
http://www.pobox.com/~rjgrace
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