It certainly is! And the reason you may have found my meaning unclear is that, in fact, my use of "noumenal" was a grotesque 3 am malapropism for "numinous." *facepalms, headdesks, pours dirt on forehead* My point was that at a certain stage of the reader's experience, art can seem to directly embody the hope for a radically better and wider kind of existence -- can seem like a gateway to it, or at least a tangible guarantee of its existence. This, of course, is part of its original erotic charge. And a theory of the erotic power of art should take into account both this initial enchantment and the later disenchantment.
I love, love, love, your discussion of the repeated failures of the work of art, and its persistence in spite of those failures -- and am enchanted at the image of art working away at our DNA in the back room. I don't have an adequate response to that now, so I'll just note it gratefully.
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branchandroot
Re:
Date: 2004-02-02 01:44 am (UTC)It certainly is! And the reason you may have found my meaning unclear is that, in fact, my use of "noumenal" was a grotesque 3 am malapropism for "numinous." *facepalms, headdesks, pours dirt on forehead* My point was that at a certain stage of the reader's experience, art can seem to directly embody the hope for a radically better and wider kind of existence -- can seem like a gateway to it, or at least a tangible guarantee of its existence. This, of course, is part of its original erotic charge. And a theory of the erotic power of art should take into account both this initial enchantment and the later disenchantment.
I love, love, love, your discussion of the repeated failures of the work of art, and its persistence in spite of those failures -- and am enchanted at the image of art working away at our DNA in the back room. I don't have an adequate response to that now, so I'll just note it gratefully.