The Romantic Manifesto
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The Romantic Manifesto Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
Brilliant, but Flawed Work
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I found the book a brilliantly conceived, but ultimately flawed exploration of a philosophy of art. While I enjoyed the book, I suspect Ms. Rand was too overclouded by her own philosophical predispositions to realize the limitations of her assertions - and they are assertions, quite bald in their judgments, as many here have said.
A couple will serve:
Given her problem with art that is "foggy" in its conclusions or metaphysical genesis she is wrongfully led, I believe, to conclude that music, for one, cannot convey anything "concrete" from its experience, only an emotional response "by whom in the name of what, it is for each individual listener to supply." This is false. By way of personal example - bear with me - a journal entry from years ago: On first hearing Beethoven's Ninth, I was moved to write a paean to universal humanity - and in that piece, I talked of "starred canopies, such a profusion of white stars piercing the black canvas of impenetrable night...to belong to that canvas, those heavens..." I only later, much later, came to read the text of Schiller's Ode to Joy. Coincidence? Perhaps. Or perhaps Beethoven's genius in eliciting the concrete, the metaphorical rush of images and scenes, which accompanies all great music.
More, music isn't alone here. If music requires an auditor "by whom in the name of what, it is for each individual listener to supply," then so does all else, with the possible exception of the visual, figurative arts. Art is an engagement, not a drug; a line in a book: "...the black paint, dripping down the sodden planks" is an invite, not a prescription. It requires the individual mind reading to create the concrete form of the scene. As such, it is relational, alive. As with music.
Ms. Rand appears to give no credence to experiments in technique that are very much born out of modern life; she either dismisses them as sheer frippery or woeful ineptitude at best, or some "immoral" metaphysic at worst, even if ably applied. For example, she describes the advent of the "narrator" in the stage play as a "breach of dramatic principle...an encroachment by incompetence," and not an innovation worthy of the form. I cannot agree. The advent of meta-technique, such as the Narrator, skillfully employed, can make artifice more real than reality; impulse, inner life, phenomena more keenly observed. And by her own stand, this is the essence of art - to concretize the abstract in order to provide a realized, personal meaning.
Just a couple, and there are many others.
Still, the above said, I think it's an important book, with tremendous value. For anyone who would make art, or enjoy it; or who would gain by one thinker's look at the relation of art to a guiding moral philosophy, this is a worthy work. I'd also recommend, with others, Jacques Barzun's Classic, Romantic and Modern, as well as John Gardner's controversial On Moral Fiction.
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