Smells Like Lautréamont’s Spirit

Type :

Research papers

Pages :

5 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

09/13/2007

Category :

Arts & media

Sub category :

Arts and art history

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Summary :

Introduction
Understanding the drastic change in art perception
Poetry and other forms of art as vehicles for pure rationality
Women's infiltration of male dominated rock 'n' roll
The language used by Riot Grrrls
Lautréamont's character
Conclusion

Abstract

In 1790, Immanuel Kant published an essay that read as complicated as the art he sought to promote. "Critique of Judgment" serves as the ultimate philosophy of aesthetics, proclaiming "Genius is the talent (or natural gift) which gives rule to art" (Kant 150). Kant's judgments define "true" art as solely deriving from intellect. Not only does his notion of art as reserved for brilliant minds exclude most people in general, but also rejects the value of emotion. Instead, people are encouraged to survive strictly on logic and ignore politics. Such disparity between mind and body, reason and emotion, isolates humanity from the very nature which makes us human. Kant even goes a step further to categorize art though gender: men compose the intellectual genius and women, the emotional barbaric. However, over two-hundred years later, the Avante-Garde movement unleashed the definitive rebuttal against its highly aesthetic predecessors-extreme emotion. An innovator of the Avante-Garde, lautréamont employs the concept of negation to wage a war against aestheticism in art. In Les Chants de Maldoror, his exercise in shock value subtly implores us to feel anger at the tolerance of injustice that aestheticism encouraged. Were his tactics successful in spreading anger and other emotion as both a reaction to and inspiration for art?