English 5522 - Literary Theory and Criticism
Is Beauty a Construct of the Mind?
In an attempt to offer my thoughts regarding Sartre in a logical order, I will begin with a comment on one of the recurring themes in his texts. His existential notion that existence is prior to essence is a clear idea in his treatise on writing here. According to Sartre, all human beings on earth 'exist,' yet they may not necessarily have 'essence.'
With that understood, we are able to understand his conclusion to the question, "Why write?" The simple answer, stripped of all elaboration is this: We write (according to Sartre) so that we can have essence. What does this mean exactly? Great question. But to start, it might help to consider something in Sartre's opening remarks. "[I]t is through human reality that 'there is' being, [. . . and] man is the means by which things are manifested" (1336). This is true, not only in regard to literature (man making is presence known my manifesting an object of art), but also in the fact that if man isn't present to witness a particular tree, renders the power of the tree useless as an object. Man is essential in the validity of the tree. In Sartre's words, "the relations which are established before my eyes among the trees, the foliages, the earth, and the grass would not exist at all" had it not been for me (1343).
If this is not what Sartre intended when he said, "[w]ith each of our acts, the world reveals to us a new face," he should have. If I am misreading him, I dare say I am the genius and he is the fool. In any case, man must contribute something (in this case in literature) in order to have essence. Sartre says, "I feel myself essential in relation to my creation" (1337). This phrase does more for us than to simply rhyme. It establishes Sartre's attitude toward the subject of art and the object itself. This essence, incidentally, seems to me similar to Iser's notion of the interaction between the text and the reader. In Sartre's version, however, the interaction is realized between the text and the author.
Sartre makes it clear that the text never becomes an object for the author. The idea is that no matter what the artist does, he can always do more. He is in control and can shape his work until hell freezes over. For the reader, on the other hand, Sartre can offer the object (never actualized in his mind, nevertheless, given to the recipient). Sartre can then conclude that the author "does not create [. . .] for himself" (1338).
My question deals with Sartre's comments on the reader's experience. He says that the reader can "pretend" that the author has put certain things together in an orderly manner, when in reality, the author had no such intention. But does Sartre apply this unintentional order to nature as well? In other words, is he implying that the nature of foliage and the color of the sky are beautiful only because we have constructed them to be so? He says that in the natural world, "the tree and the sky harmonize only by chance" (1344). But how can there be beauty in chaos? The only way I can reconcile the two is to say that we construct order. If foliage were less ornate, would we interpret it as beautiful still? Hmm.