Dear All,
I do not doubt that authenticity, as D.H.
Tracy and Matthew Roth suggest, could be usefully applied to evaluation of poetry,
but the concept seems in danger of being at least superficially linked with “sincerity,”
which as we know was a bête noire of VN’s, presumably because it downplayed
the role of the conscious effort of the creative artist in assimilating the
sophisticated and far from simple language of art. And that’s where VN’s
words about “Pale Fire” the poem being “the hardest stuff [he]
ever had to compose” (Vintage Intl’s SO, p. 55) become especially
relevant. VN thought he must trace this “vulgar absurdity” (that
art is simple and sincere) to its source. “A schoolmarm in Ohio? A
progressive ass in New York?” (Vintage Intl’s SO, p. 33). Actually,
Matthew Arnold argued that criticism (granted, not art) must be “sincere,
simple, flexible, ardent, ever widening its knowledge” (his essay,
originally a lecture, “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time”
(1864) in Poetry and Criticism of Matthew Arnold, Riverside Editions, p.
258). I guess if we wanted to define the “sincerity” in Arnold’s
sense, it would fall somewhere in between authenticity and another concept of
Arnold’s, disinterestedness.
Apropos of Peter Dale’s informative
comments on VN’s otherworldly logic, it’s interesting to remember
that Samuel Beckett expressed similar ideas. Cf.:
In conversations
with Harvey the crucial antinomy becomes that of “being” and “form”,
with Beckett insisting that a true expression of being in this world would
entail the elimination of form (form considered as order). The task thus
becomes one of breaking up the formal order of language, which makes up our
thoughts and memories in its own image, to see what remains. (Justin Beplate, “Beckett
remembering himself”, TLS, April 19, 2006)
By Beckett’s own admission, usually nothing
remains, silence. Even though James Knowlson does not mention Wittgenstein in his
1996 biography of Beckett, other have noticed certain affinities between Wittgenstein’s
philosophy and Beckett’s views on art (Adriaan
van der Weel & Ruud Hisgen). However, Beckett’s
views were eminently posyustoronniye (“thisworldly”).
Finally and somewhat belatedly, to Carolyn:
I’m a grad student, not a professor. But I’m glad you found my
article useful.
Best regards,
Sergey Karpukhin