English 5522 - Literary Theory and Criticism
Beauty - Intrinsic Or Extrinsic?
Beauty - the Beauty that Plotinus offers us, as transcendent and pure - seems to be an elusive concept. Although his thoughts are not unlike Plato's own, I found myself having to read and reread the first few sections of his "Eighth Tractate" in order to understand his proposition.
The idea of beauty in important to our discussion in this course, because we gauge a literary work's success or failure on its level of beauty - I think. On the other hand, do we not also consider a work successful when it appeals to us in a certain way? Or are these two reasons synonymous?
To answer this question, I should try to understand how Plotinus defines beauty. If beauty is an innate concept within every being with reasoning faculties, then it becomes as elusive as the concepts of time and space. If, on the other hand, beauty is conceivable by intellect as something extrinsic from us, then there may be hope to grapple with its function in the appreciation of art and literature.
Plotinus says in the first sentence that if you can see beauty in its undiluted form, then you can see the Creator of that beauty. But whence does this beauty come? Plotinus says that art has beauty but not because it is art. There is nothing within art that makes it beautiful. Instead, the beauty is in the Form of the art. This Form is found, according to Plotinus, "not in the material," but in the designer (Plotinus 174). How? It is because the designer participates in the Form.
All of this is difficult for me to sift through. I don't know that I agree or fully understand this.
So, the answer to the main question seems to be that yes, beauty is innate within the Intellect of the person who participates in the Form of a thing. However, I'm still not sure I know what beauty is.
We are told that the beauty in art (via the Form within the designer) is a lesser beauty than the Idea of Beauty. The principle here is the Platonic notion of cause and effect. But even so, what does this have to do with theory and criticism? Am I missing something obvious here?
Also, much of what is being discussed in this text sounds like the American Transcendentalism of the 19th Century. For instance, in stanza 3, Plotinus says, "all is transparent.&qout; If that doesn't smack of the Emersonian eyeball, then nothing does.
There is nothing in the text that speaks of literature. Art as sculpture and nature are the major focuses here. How do I apply this to a theory of literature? I suppose I ought to find the beautiful aspect of a literary work, and realize that my enjoyment comes because there is something from the text that speaks of an Idea that the author and myself both relate to. This Idea becomes the catalyst for both of us to leave the material world and to partake of an intelligible world. Then, as is the goal of any transcendentalist, we become one.