[lit-ideas] Opera: The Art of Dying
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2009 19:28:59 EDT
In a message dated 4/17/2009 4:31:05 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx writes:
Or in Santayana's notion of pleasure as prime to
aesthetics
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Just meditating on this.
Of course I'm studying opera right now. And like all in my family, we like
an opera with _blood_. We don't count 'opera buffa' (Cosi fan tutte, etc.)
as 'opera'. There has to be blood.
Oddly, this was the regulation once. E.g. I was reading most plots were
altered from the original tragical ending (I'm thinking of the plays by
Voltaire on which many operas were based) to the 'conventional' 'fine lieto',
happy ending.
There is indeed a book, "Opera, the art of dying" which I should check.
Dying is indeed not an art: _opera_ is the art of dying.
Anyway. I do have a book I used once for a seminar on "Pleasure and
Aesthetics", CUP, ed. by a German lady. At the time I was convinced, like E.
Yost
seems to be, that aisthesis and pleasure are concomitant.
But then most people like to be _outraged_ by art. (A rosary submerged in
urine, for example).
With examples of 'art' like that, I gave up, and lost all interest in
_art_. Aisthesis, though, is a broader notion and involves _sensation_ in
general, which can be pleasurable (hedone, for the Greek) or not (loope -- or
'loopy', as Urmson pronounces it).
Santayana -- interesting. I'm _very_ familiar with the ambience of Harvard
that _gave_ Santayana.
Cheers,
JL
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