Haiat ya Nairang-e-nazar?
By Muhammad Hasan Askari
Mysterious man! Tell me, whom do you love the most? Your father, mother, sister, or brother?
I have neither father, nor mother, nor sister, nor brother.
Your friends?
You have used a word whose meaning I have not understood to this day.
Your country?
I do not even know in what latitude it is situated.
Wealth?
I hate it as much as you hate God.
Then what do you love, extraordinary stranger?
I love the clouds... those passing clouds... look over there... those marvelous clouds!
Beyond its aesthetic value, this poem by Baudelaire serves as a document in the social and moral history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, or the industrial era. Similarly, in the history of art and literature, while this poem may not encompass every movement or every artist of the era, it captures the spirit of our times to a very large extent. All the spiritual despairs, compulsions, and incapacities of the modern man, along with all his longings and desires, echo within this poem.
This poem is the voice of his defeat—and indeed, the defeat of this entire system of life. Yet, alongside these negative elements, the poem also reveals traces of human—or at least the artist's—spiritual endeavors and his struggle against death. Whatever affirmation of life is possible for the artist of the industrial era is present here. If he cannot have life in its entirety, he will settle for a fraction of it. Ultimately, he refuses to let go of life until the very end. Although my focus in this essay is to discuss the flaws in the perspectives of artists from the past century, I cannot concede that their creations are heralds of death or morally decadent. It is possible that art may announce death, or reflect a disgust for the life of an individual or a nation, or even a desire for death. However, art can never, in any way, be a quest for death.
Art, in itself, is a search for life—a quest for a new balance, a new harmony. It is possible that the artist may not fully achieve this new balance; after all, he must contend with many forces that lie beyond the power of a single individual. But he can certainly point toward this new balance in ways that might assist other seekers. All art is inherently healthy, because even when it speaks of illness, it cannot deny health. Even if life has died within the artist, the creation of an artwork, or even the dream of creating one, acts as a divine command of resurrection (Qum bi-izni - Rise by My leave). Of course, some artworks can be considered relatively healthier than others. Therefore, in critiquing the literature of the past century, I will never imply that this literature is harmful to humanity or regressive, as many political volunteers often claim.
A caveat is also necessary here: in my essay, no word carries the meaning assigned to it by Marxists, as these people are in the habit of using words in their narrowest and most restrictive senses. Their terminology is so steeped in materialism that it reeks of rusty copper coins. This is precisely why I have even stopped reading Communist newspapers; after all, for a mere two annas, one can buy a magazine filled with naked pictures instead. When discussing human beings, at least in literature and literary criticism, we need words that are brimming with human life, not with economic metaphysics.
Returning to Baudelaire's poem, we encounter an entirely new kind of artist—the artist of the industrial era. This artist is separated from his predecessors not merely by time or environment, but by the fact that he is born with a new and entirely different spirit. Longing, despair, sorrow, the sense of life's transience, skepticism, and rebellion against religion are not new phenomena.
To say nothing of Epicurus and other Greek philosophers, a prophet like Jeremiah cursed the day he was born, and Habakkuk even taunted God, asking if His eyes were so pure that He could not even bear to look upon evil and injustice. Thus, the expression of grief and sorrow, or acts of rebellion, are not what distinguish this new artist from others. These afflictions have always been attached to human life, and man has always lamented them. As far as rebelling against established beliefs or systems of life is concerned, sometimes the new artist is not a rebel at all. In such moments, negation grows so profoundly within him that the very institutions, laws, and traditions against which he might need to rebel cease to exist for him. He would only bother to deny the existence of God if he first believed in his own existence. He can make himself so indifferent to his surroundings that all of existence becomes a mere shroud of fog to him, one that only occasionally gleams here and there. For such a person, rebel is too limited a term. The word may describe a few moments of his life, but it does not encompass its entirety.
The fundamental difference of the new artist is this: previous artists were satisfied with all the devotions, affections, and moral ties of their time. Even if they sometimes found them painful, they at least gave them enough importance to fiercely rebel against them, to make necessary amendments to them, or to present a new vision of them. The new artist, however, is disgusted by all these moral ties—not just one or two, but all of them. He is so disgusted that, let alone being satisfied with amending or renewing them, he does not even want anything to do with their destruction. His only desire is to close his eyes to them and become completely indifferent. (It is another matter that complete indifference is impossible, because moral ties are not only a part of reality, but are themselves the greatest reality).
The second characteristic of the new artist is that he does not reflect upon his affairs as a member of society, or as a human being living among many other human beings, but rather as if he himself were an entire universe. In that moment, he does not even want to allow the thought of others' existence to enter his mind. Nor does he consider it necessary to think about how his attitude will relate to the attitudes of others, or what kind of action and reaction will occur between them. He considers himself entirely autonomous in deciding his own affairs for himself, and he is unwilling to take any kind of responsibility for anyone other than himself. He is not stubborn about asserting his right to self-determination; he simply does not want to convince anyone of anything. The very word convince is not found in his dictionary.
He would only care about convincing them if he actually valued their existence. Similarly, the word rights does not accurately represent him, as it is a political and collective concept. He exists in a world whose chemical laws are entirely different and operate on their own terms. (Here, I have used the word affairs in a very broad sense, encompassing everything from the concepts of good and evil to sleeping with hotel maids). I do not need a progressive agitator to remind me; I am well aware that this theory regarding the individual, while perhaps not entirely wrong, is certainly insufficient.
The individual may well be a separate universe, but this universe constantly collides with other such universes. The new artists are not oblivious to this collision. The profound intensity with which they grasp the resulting complications, and the tragic form this awareness assumes, is something Marx and Engels were never destined to experience. After all, those two were merely pamphleteers. Even literary reformers like Irving Babbitt would be left spitting blood if they allowed this realization to course through their veins for just ten minutes. It costs nothing to sit at Harvard and pontificate on the philosophy of good and evil.
Now, consider all the things that Baudelaire is incapable of loving. First, he does not believe in God. However, it must be remembered that he launched scathing attacks on the materialism, rationalism, and secularism of the industrial age. When he says he hates God, he is referring to the God and religion of capitalist society, which that society has exploited for its own ends. After religion comes the nation, which he also loathes. To him, this nation is a bizarre land where ordinary bread is passed off as cake, and where people are ready to murder one another for a single crumb. Furthermore, he has no concept of the love of a mother, father, sibling, or friend. The love of money has poisoned the very wellsprings of life, and he can no longer draw the elixir from them that once flowed freely. As for wealth, why would he ever love it—especially wealth acquired through deceit? Yet, money has so tightly gripped society that any ideal other than the lust for wealth appears meaningless, even dangerous. The artist, in particular, has become a grotesque savage in the eyes of this society (as well as in the eyes of the Marxists)—a looming threat to the social order.
As Baudelaire puts it, if a poet were to demand one day that he needs two or three bourgeois to keep in his stable, people would be left utterly slack-jawed in shock, anger, and terror. However, if a bourgeois were to demand the poet’s flesh on a skewer, no one would be surprised; it would be considered a perfectly ordinary request. (Come to think of it, the progressives wouldn't hesitate to eat the poet raw, either). What is more, even the poet's own mother curses him, lamenting why this wretched creature was ever born from her womb (this, too, is from a poem by Baudelaire). Another fundamental human connection is that of sex or love, but the worship of money has poisoned this realm for the artist as well. Baudelaire dreams that a mob of utterly filthy, demonic men surrounds and mocks him, while his beloved clings to them, her arms wrapped around their necks. Just to spite him, she kisses them and intimately mingles with them. Another example of the modern artist's romantic relations is found in Corbière, who, after a long wait, finally spots his beloved on the street one day. I imagine this beloved was, at best, a waitress serving food at some hotel. Corbière joyfully begins to follow her. However, he is in such a tattered, wretched state that she turns around, smiles, and places a couple of pennies in his hand.
There was a time when love was considered the ultimate culmination of life. But in the eyes of Laforgue, women are wild beasts who tame their males and moan with them—and all this merely for three minutes of pleasure! That is why he congratulates himself for not becoming a slave to his primal instincts like the rest. Instead, he constantly fought them, and to this day, he has never embraced a woman, nor ever kissed one.
In short, the condition of the modern artist is such that:
Zi har chi rang-e-ta'alluq pazeerad aazad ast
[He is free from whatever takes the color of attachment]
However, this state is driven neither by lofty courage nor by ascetic detachment, nor does this freedom grant him any spiritual growth. The artist is compelled to sever himself from every human connection and every moral tie, because money-worshipping values have corrupted the very manifestations of these fundamental relationships—namely, our social institutions. Everywhere he looks, he finds everything standing in direct opposition to goodness, truth, and beauty... and these are the artist's true deities. His revulsion toward these circumstances reaches such an extreme that he is forced to alienate himself from the very things that constitute his subject matter, the very wellsprings of his art. That is to say, he cannot accept the values regarding human and moral relationships that are prevalent and celebrated in society, yet he lacks the power to make society accept his own values. Therefore, he views everything with suspicion; he flees from anything that can be definitively labeled as good or bad, true or false.
Another dilemma is that, despite his love for his own values, he is not so callous or unimaginative as to automatically assume they are inherently superior and supreme. Therefore, he tries his utmost to escape the entanglements of moral dilemmas and values, hoping to avoid answering questions about the truth or falsehood, or the goodness or badness, of anything—perhaps because he cannot even be satisfied with his own answers. It is quite possible that many people view this skepticism and uncertainty as moral decay. But if modern artists lack the herd-like self-assurance of sheep, there is at least one person who does not regret this in the slightest.
The spiritual crises and profound alienation of these artists are undeniable, but this gives rise to a purely artistic problem. It is one thing to abandon moral standards—so be it—but without some standard, whether conscious or unconscious, how is the creation of a work of art even possible? There must be some sort of connection, some kind of relationship, between the parts of an artwork and its whole, as well as between the artwork and the person experiencing it. Consequently, a standard for these relationships is absolutely essential. This problem could easily be framed not just as psychological, but even as biological. For now, however, looking at it from the artist's perspective, we must consider it a monumental artistic problem.
This problem was resolved with the emergence of the Art for Art's Sake movement. Here, too, I will vehemently deny that this theory is morally decadent. I have already demonstrated how ordinary moral relationships had become impossible for the artist. This theory does not represent a complete withdrawal from morality; rather, it is an attempt to discover a new morality for art and the artist. Whether this morality is incomplete or flawed is a separate matter. Goodness and truth are concepts that can be debated. They can be articulated quite successfully in rational terms. Furthermore, society plays a significant role in establishing the standards of goodness and truth, and every individual must confront the material manifestations of these standards on a daily basis.
These concepts are largely collective, and their validity depends heavily on social acceptance. However, debate and scrutiny, convincing others, or conceding to them—all these things seem absurd and meaningless, perhaps even immoral, to the new artists. Therefore, compelled by their artistic dilemma, they had to turn to the third pillar of the moral trinity: beauty. Beauty is a relatively more individualistic concept; it is connected more to sensory experience than to the intellect. Consequently, its reality can be proclaimed with greater confidence and certainty, leaving little room for debate.
For the artist, all other moral relationships have died. Beauty is the last straw they must clutch at; they have no other choice. Granted, beauty too could have an established standard accepted by an entire nation or society. However, these artists suspect every established norm of being false. Therefore, they are unwilling to help establish anything new, nor do they accept such a responsibility. They do not believe in absolute values; rather, they are strong proponents of the relativity of values. Consequently, they do not offer any permanent standard of beauty themselves. Baudelaire loves the passing clouds—meaning that for these artists, beauty does not possess a fixed form, but is ever-changing. It is a beauty that is not an eternal or everlasting concept, but one based on a fleeting impression.
Thus, the ultimate standard of art became purely aesthetic. Verbally, these artists certainly continued to claim that beauty and truth are one and the same, but beneath these words lay a different kind of anxiety. When the Greeks described beauty, truth, and goodness as a single unity, they placed just as much emphasis on the other elements as they did on beauty. Just as the balance and harmony of formal relations could constitute truth, the concept of truth or the moment of its realization could, in itself, be beautiful. However, the new artists have been desperate to somehow rid themselves of the concepts of truth and goodness, seeking to make beauty entirely independent of them. They believe that in this covetous society, these concepts can no longer remain pure and unadulterated.
When these artists champion the slogan that beauty and truth are one, their underlying desire is to somehow evade the responsibility of contemplating truth and goodness or establishing their standards. Consequently, despite this slogan, their endeavor has been to reduce art to a collection of aesthetically pleasing formal relations, wherein moral and non-aesthetic elements hold no significance. The intention is to grant art such an objective status that moral standards simply cannot be applied to it—just as we cannot judge a tree or a stone as morally good or evil, but merely acknowledge its existence.
Ultimately, absolute and total objectivity in art is psychologically and biologically impossible—unless human beings undergo a complete chemical transformation, or an artwork is birthed from the artist's womb like a child. Nevertheless, alongside the individualism and subjectivity of these artists, there is also a visible tendency to make the artwork as objective as possible—an object founded entirely on aesthetic and formal considerations, and freed, as much as possible, from moral standards.
Mallarmé introduces the theory of pure poetry. Verlaine declares that a poem must, first and foremost, possess music; everything else is mere literature. In painting, Impressionism emerges, which refuses to view life in its totality, remaining content instead with a fleeting impression—thus, technique becomes everything. In the novel, Flaubert champions the autonomy of art and the supremacy of style, elevating art almost to the status of a religion that demands monastic sacrifices and ascetic discipline. For him, the subject matter holds no importance; the style of expression is everything.
Alongside these figures are the Naturalists, who, though not devotees of art for its own sake, wish to study human beings with the same rigid objectivity as a scientist dissecting animals on a laboratory table. Obviously, a scientist's discoveries do not fall under the purview of moral standards. Therefore, by imposing scientific objectivity onto art, the true endeavor of the Naturalists—even if unconscious—was to somehow evade moral dilemmas and moral judgments.
In short, the crux of all the theoretical discourse of this era is that artists, exhausted by moral struggles and despairing of success, wanted to separate the concept of beauty from the concepts of goodness and truth, as they could see no other path for honest artistic creation. However, because goodness and truth are such vital concepts that one cannot simply turn a blind eye to them, these artists continued to reassure themselves by claiming that beauty inherently encompasses these other concepts as well.
It is possible that separating these concepts from one another, or considering beauty to be supreme and autonomous, might not be overly detrimental to artists in an era and a nation where society enjoys complete harmony. In a society where the concepts of goodness and truth are clear and firmly rooted in people's hearts, where the artist's bond with the public is strong and continuously provides him with renewed vitality, and where the values of his nation run in his blood—in such circumstances, an intellectual dogma regarding beauty cannot cripple his art. This is because artistic creation is largely an unconscious act. However, when an artist does not live in such a society; when harmony is out of the question and one class is locked in conflict with another; when no universally accepted and validated way of life remains; when the artist has lost all connection with the public and is forced to rely solely on his own spiritual fortitude; when he is exhausted by moral warfare and terrified of moral judgments—in such an era, placing one's faith in the autonomy of beauty and the freedom of art is akin to setting out to navigate the Pacific Ocean on a mere wooden plank.
But let us not forget that the artist is taking all these risks for the sake of a higher morality and a higher truth. When Baudelaire asks, To accuse, to oppose, and to demand justice... is this not all in bad taste? he is certainly declaring the autonomy of art and the artist. However, his primary concern is to somehow protect himself from the pollution of industrial morality. These artists may not possess a clear conception of this higher morality, but they firmly believe that if they can escape the prevailing moral codes, they might just catch a glimpse of a higher one. I admit this is a highly negative impulse, but once bitten, twice shy. Having constantly experienced the falsehoods of their era, they have grown afraid not only of others but of themselves. This, in itself, is a profound moral principle—one that only a few artists know how to practice.
Now, let us examine another tendency among modern artists. According to the theories I mentioned earlier, a completed work of art, in terms of its impact, became an objective and aesthetic entity, transcending morality. But this gave rise to the problem of subject matter. Whether the subject matter holds any intrinsic value or not, a work of art must inevitably have a subject—especially in literature. Setting aside moral opinions or ideas, the moment we deal with emotions or feelings, we once again enter the realm of moral standards. Consequently, artists began to shy away not only from ideas but from emotions as well. They had already begun to view their own emotions with suspicion, questioning whether these feelings were even worth experiencing.
Without a moral framework, not only the human mind and soul, but even the five senses begin to fail. Thus, the twentieth-century artist genuinely feels that his emotions and sensations have died. (I believe the Second World War has not yet brought about any fundamental change in this regard, and the artist's dilemmas remain unresolved.) T.S. Eliot’s following four lines encapsulate the expression of this death, along with its causes and consequences:
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?
I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:
How should I use them for your closer contact?
While it is true that English poetry after the 1930s exhibits a great abundance—even an overflow—of sensations, Eliot has exposed the reality of this as well:
Excite the membrane, when the sense
Has cooled, with pungent sauces,
Thus, these artists face the constant threat of their emotions dying out completely. The artist remains skeptical about the value of whatever emotions do survive. Just as he refuses to accept the values of others, he hesitates to impose his own emotions upon them. He goes so far as to refuse responsibility for his own feelings. This is a major reason behind the heavy emphasis placed on objectivity. There is another aspect to this evasion of emotion: the artist is so fundamentally at odds with his environment regarding values that he considers himself distinct from others, if not entirely superior to them. In fact, he actively strives to keep himself separate and different. This desire can take on such a manic form that Baudelaire, for instance, would publicly claim to boil and eat children. The artist wishes to share absolutely no resemblance with the vulgar masses. If others possess emotions, he must have none at all. Like the gods, he must remain elevated and detached from such things, entirely unaffected. And even if he is affected, or if he does harbor emotions, he must ensure they are never revealed to others. This is the defining characteristic of Baudelaire’s Dandy.
Two solutions were devised to counter this anxiety surrounding emotions. The first was to discover new and obscure emotions—feelings no one had ever experienced before—and present them as enigmas, ensuring that the vulgar masses could never even suspect these emotions related to them. This was the approach taken by Verlaine and Mallarmé. On the other hand, an attempt was made to somehow eliminate subject and meaning altogether. Consequently, the theory emerged that poetry, much like music, should be free from external associations. When listening to different musical notes, we do not pause to consider whether a sound belongs to a partridge or a quail. We perceive them purely as sound, deriving pleasure from their rhythm and the aesthetic arrangement of the notes. This exact quality should exist in poetry as well. While reading a poem, our minds should not drift toward its meaning; rather, the sound itself should provide complete aesthetic satisfaction.
Flaubert spearheaded the attempt to liberate fiction and prose from meaning. In his view, the era in which great literature could be produced was long gone. Our age is so vulgar, filthy, and deformed that it can have no possible affinity with beauty. However, since the modern writer can have no other subject but his own era, his only recourse is to use the power of his art and prose style to mask the filth and ugliness of his subject matter, or at the very least, neutralize its effect. In such a scenario, the subject matter loses all intrinsic importance. Style becomes everything. Is it not possible, then, to create a work of art entirely without a subject, relying solely on style? Flaubert’s fear of his own emotions is truly remarkable to observe. On the one hand, he spent his entire life claiming that the novels he was writing were nothing but depictions of the middle class—a fundamentally worthless subject. He believed that if he could only find a subject of his own choosing, he would finally achieve something truly great. On the other hand, he harbored a lifelong yearning to write a novel about nothing—a novel devoid of subject matter, sustained entirely by the sheer force of its style. In short, this era presents us with the astonishing spectacle of artists attempting to create without any underlying material.
This attempt is fundamentally meaningless, especially in literature. In music or painting, it is still somewhat possible to confine an artwork strictly within the bounds of aesthetics, because sounds, lines, and colors possess a certain independent, objective existence. Lines can be arranged in such a way that, even if they do not constitute a great masterpiece, the arrangement itself provides us with aesthetic satisfaction, leaving us with no further questions. Words, however, are not free and independent in the way that lines or sounds are. Words are not pure sound, nor are they natural phenomena; rather, they are human inventions created for a specific purpose. Words are symbols; they direct our minds toward a particular concept and a specific meaning. To make words pure, we would have to ignore their very purpose, and then no distinction would remain between words and mere sounds. In other words, literature would merge into music and vanish. Therefore, as far as literature is concerned, if it is to maintain its existence, it cannot rid itself of subject matter and meaning. Without meaning, a piece of literature is a mere illusion.
While this was practically impossible anyway, it was ultimately decided that the essential element in an artwork is its style or technique. Consequently, artists began to worship form. This obsession reached such extremes that Paul Valéry eventually declared that the ultimate goal of an artist's struggle is the search for a method. Once that method is found, it does not matter if the artist never actually creates an artwork. Today, the artist seeks neither emotions nor subjects nor anything else—only form. This is his sole obsession. If asked to define form, he will list purely aesthetic qualities, arguing that formal beauty requires harmony between the parts and the whole. Yet, when he speaks of form, it is impossible to know just how many different things he is implying, as if form has become a substitute for the entire artwork itself.
In his eyes, form has become the ultimate talisman; if he attains it, he believes he has attained everything—emotions, imagination, and subject matter alike. The irony is that the artist will never admit to including so many elements within his concept of form; instead, he will stubbornly cling to a purely aesthetic definition. He pursues this purely aesthetic ideal with the same intensity and fervor that mystics exhibit in their yearning for union with God. In truth, the quest for form has become a kind of mysticism itself, containing all the ecstasies and agonies of genuine mysticism.
However, if we consider this not theoretically but practically, can this concept of form—the idea that form is merely a set of formal relationships providing aesthetic satisfaction—ever truly be realistic? This is especially questionable in literature. In a piece of music, one can certainly create a beautiful form by arranging sounds. But in a five-hundred-page novel, how could you possibly establish a cohesive relationship between sounds? How could you create a pattern that exhibits a sense of organic growth and remains captivating from beginning to end? Even if, against all odds, such a feat were accomplished, would you call that artwork literature or music?
A major constraint in literature is that you cannot strip words of their meaning. Therefore, in literature, you must organize two different types of arrangements and create two distinct patterns: first, the arrangement of words based on sound, and second, the arrangement based on meaning. Consequently, a literary work will possess two forms: one physical and the other semantic. As I mentioned earlier, a sequence of arranged sounds cannot be sustained over five hundred pages, but a semantic form can easily bear that weight. Thus, in a literary work, the physical form must inevitably rely on the semantic form. However, the concept of meaning cannot exist without the concept of values. To structure meaning, the standards of beauty and ugliness alone will not suffice; the concepts of good and evil, truth and falsehood must also inevitably come into play. Ultimately, the artist is forced to confront the very thing he tried to escape. Whether he likes it or not, the yoke of morality will remain firmly placed upon his neck.
Consider an amusing example of this. Recently, some painters claimed that they wanted to liberate colors from all associations, just as sounds are free and pure in music. Consequently, this school of art creates paintings by drawing a square or a rectangle, dividing it into various smaller and larger grids, and filling one grid with yellow, another with blue, and another with white. The interpretation of such a painting would then be explained like this: the color yellow, for instance, represents heaven or pure joy, while red represents hell or absolute agony, and so on. It is exactly as the poet says:
Urne na paye thay ke giraftar hum hue
[We had not even taken flight before we were captured]
Indeed, morality is such a formidable snare, placed so close to the nest, that escaping it is simply impossible. Morality is all the more essential for the perfection of form because, in nature, every form serves a purpose. The shape of every object is bound by biological laws and exists in harmony with them. Therefore, in a work of art, a semantic form is impossible without an underlying moral concept. Although James Joyce is often accused of aestheticism and detachment from life, he expressed this truth with great audacity. Joyce’s artist, Stephen, views art as the manifestation of the concept of beauty. He wishes to create art himself but has not yet succeeded, likely because he does not yet possess a true concept of beauty. At the end of the novel, Stephen declares that he is going to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. This means that, first and foremost, he is searching for a concept of goodness and truth, through which he hopes to attain the concept of beauty. Beauty, too, is born from the conscience, and one cannot even dream of beauty while turning away from the conscience. Ezra Pound went so far as to claim that form is not necessary for art at all. For instance, he denies the existence of form in Homer's work—at least in the sense that the word form was defined in the nineteenth century.
Whether form is essential for art or not, a purely aesthetic form is utterly meaningless in literature. It is a mirage devoid of any reality. Attaining it is about as likely as encountering a fairy. The way the quest for form tormented Flaubert serves as a cautionary tale. However, there is one highly intimidating trait in an artist—at least for the Progressives and other enemies of art—and that is the fact that you cannot raise a single objection against an artist that he is not already acutely aware of.
Flaubert repeatedly stated that the greatness of major writers does not rest on art or style; sometimes, they write quite poorly. Yet, despite this—or perhaps because of it—their greatness remains undiminished. However, even after acknowledging this, he insists that for second-rate writers like himself, there is no alternative but to rely on art and style. Consequently, in his obsession with art, he subjected himself to such intense pain and agony that he would cry out in torment. At times, he complains that the monster of style is consuming both his body and soul. At other times, he screams, Art, art, a poisonous illusion, a nameless phantom that glitters to seduce us and leads us to our ruin!
Flaubert knew perfectly well that what he needed to generate energy and creative power within himself was not style, but a new conception of life and a new standard of morality. Waiting for his ideal subject essentially meant that he was in search of a new system of values. He had, of course, witnessed the spectacle of the genesis of life in St. Anthony, a vision that proved profoundly exhilarating and spiritually uplifting. However, he spent his entire life searching for a way to accept the path that life had actually taken and to harmonize himself with it—a formula he never found. He did catch a fleeting glimpse of this harmony in A Simple Soul, but his spirit never found lasting peace, and he remained forever in pursuit of a new meaning. Yet, for the reasons I outlined at the beginning of this essay, he could never muster the courage to admit this to himself. He was searching for a new morality, but he kept convincing himself that what he needed was art. This very weakness was the root of all his spiritual torment.
This is, more or less, the condition of other artists as well. Under the guise of form, they are actually searching for meaning. Life in the industrial age is shapeless and formless. The organic connection between its parts and the whole has been severed. Life, and the elements that constitute it, no longer have a defined purpose. Consequently, their significance is steadily fading. As long as life retained purpose, meaning, harmony, and form, the artist did not have to consciously strive for these elements. Today, however, when these qualities have vanished and the artist lacks the power to restore them to society, he inevitably turns to art, seeking a substitute for them all.
Because a work of art achieves the harmony and form that is so desperately sought in life, the artist begins to view the artwork as a reality distinct from life, and he refuses to impose life's values upon art. Since his environment provides him with neither a standard of values nor a fixed mold for living, he turns to aesthetics for the principles of artistic creation and the arrangement of its components. For instance, earlier novelists had a ready-made form at their disposal: a man falls in love with a woman, obstacles arise in their path, but eventually, these hurdles are overcome, the two marry, and they live happily ever after.
Today, however, no such mold for life exists; every individual's life either takes on a completely new shape or remains as formless as everyone else's. In older novels, our interest in the hero concluded with the end of the book, as we assumed that nothing extraordinary would happen afterward. We presumed the hero would spend the rest of his days just as ordinary people do. But modern novels and short stories end in such a way that the hero discovers a new path in life and sets out upon it. Even if that does not happen, the kinds of events that have characterized the hero's life thus far could very well continue long after the novel concludes. Consequently, there is no final destination in such a hero's life—only an endless journey. This implies that you can end a modern novel wherever you please, and if you wish, you could easily write a second or third installment.
Thus, life does not dictate where to begin or where to end. It offers no meaningful form. Therefore, for the sake of your artwork, you are forced to seek out an aesthetic form, which is impossible to achieve in its absolute purity. Consequently, the artist is compelled to discover that meaningful form on his own; at this point, the search for form transforms into a search for morality. Contemporary art is not merely a substitute for life; it is an active quest for life and its underlying meaning. While this can be said of art in general, it is particularly true of modern art. In this capacity, modern art holds tremendous significance, because other avenues for exploring life have proven largely ineffective, leaving the responsibility of finding meaning for humanity squarely on the shoulders of artists.
It would be a grave mistake to assume that artists have remained oblivious to this entire process. Self-ignorance is not a trait characteristic of an artist. While the desire to detach themselves from morality certainly existed in their hearts, they could never truly escape it. People often complained that Flaubert had become completely indifferent to politics. In response, he stated that his actual predicament was being far too entangled in politics. Similarly, following France's defeat in 1870, he remarked that had people read his book Sentimental Education, the tragedy would never have occurred. It was not just Flaubert; all these artists were deeply preoccupied with politics and morality, perhaps even against their own will. Baudelaire captured the exact condition of these artists in a single sentence when he said that democracy runs in human blood like the bacteria of syphilis—how can anyone possibly escape it? Every novel by Flaubert and Joyce contains some underlying moral concept, which is precisely what endows their work with artistic harmony and formal beauty. While in Joyce's work this moral concept remains somewhat behind the scenes, in Flaubert's work, the entire development of the novel is driven by the force of this concept, which is what gives the narrative its momentum.
Finally, let us briefly examine the relationship between psychology and form. The emergence of modern psychology gave artists hope that it might help them break free from morality. To be fair, modern psychology can indeed liberate us from morality; if we view human beings merely as playthings of psychological complexes or primal instincts, they can no longer be held responsible for their actions. And when a person is no longer autonomous, the question of moral standards simply does not arise. However, psychology destroys form just as it destroys morality, because it renders the already shapeless life of the industrial age even more formless.
According to psychology, a human being is a continuous process that goes on uninterrupted until death. This process has many branches, such as thinking, feeling, and so on. Since psychology exists beyond the realm of ethics, this process inherently lacks a purpose. Furthermore, every single moment of this process is entirely distinct and unique from the rest. Therefore, you cannot arrange these moments into any coherent pattern. There is no underlying rhythm to this process. If this process is your subject matter—a subject devoid of both rhythm and form—and you refuse to seek the aid of ethics, then tell me, how can your work of art possibly achieve form?
Absolute impressionism is simply impossible in literature; or, if it is possible, it can only exist if there is absolutely no trace of form or structure. You are compelled to carve out a specific fragment from this continuous process, but where should this fragment begin, and where should it end? Neither aesthetics nor psychology can assist you here. The moment you choose a specific starting point and a specific ending point, the question of preferring one thing over another—the question of values and moral standards—immediately arises. Let alone art, pure psychology cannot be effective in any sphere of life without the integration of ethics. Without ethics, psychology is meaningless. Those who lose sight of this reality and fail to exercise caution end up falling prey to industrial ethics, despite their claims of neutrality.
For instance, a psychologist might argue that Baudelaire lacked willpower, whereas Ford possessed it in abundance. Why? Because Baudelaire failed to make money, while Ford amassed millions. Yet, only a poet’s heart truly comprehends the immense willpower required for poetry. It brings to mind the verse from the Holy Quran, which states that had this Book been sent down upon a mountain, it would have shattered into pieces. What standing does Mr. Ford have in comparison? In any case, if a bourgeois were to demand to make mincemeat of the poet, many psychologists would not object. Even if one manages to evade industrial ethics, it is impossible to function without relying on some form of ethics or another.
The Surrealists attempted to present a purely psychological art—one that was entirely unconscious and unbound by ethics. Yet, in order to infuse their creations with meaning, even they found themselves in need of Marxism.
In short, whether it is aesthetics or psychology, nothing can absolve the artist of moral responsibility. While the artist's task is undoubtedly the creation of beauty, they cannot attain this beauty by severing ties with goodness and truth. By fabricating the myth of form, artists made countless attempts to escape ethics, but after wandering in circles, they inevitably had to return to the very place from which they began.
In this essay, I have discussed a specific tendency among contemporary artists, merely pointing out that their attempts to detach themselves from ethics ultimately failed. This tendency is more theoretical than practical. In fact, the profound analysis of the era's moral condition and the intense yearning for the establishment of a new ethical order found in the works of these very artists are unparalleled in politics, philosophy, or any other field. If they hesitate to express explicit moral opinions or ideas, it is a testament to their honesty and devotion to truth. Otherwise, without making any prophetic claims and despite acknowledging their own helplessness, they have transformed the lives of sensitive individuals of their time in a manner that amounts to a monumental revolution. Is it not enough that they never resorted to hypocrisy, not even for a moment, and never lied about themselves?
Consider this single line by Baudelaire: Hypocrite reader, my brother, my likeness! The revolutionary ethics concealed within this one line is entirely absent in the teachings of the greatest moral instructors. What artists have accomplished over the past century is not a source of shame for literature and art; rather, their creations have provided a new testament to the truth, power, and significance of art. Artists have demonstrated that while others can be bought with money, status, or the allure of colorful ideals, the artist—so long as they remain a true artist—is beyond purchase. This is because, for the artist, the ultimate reality lies in their nerves, and nerves do not lie. Therefore, the slogan art for art's sake is, in itself, a moral reality and a staunch ally of ethics. Whenever a political or moral tragedy occurs, I find myself saying with profound sorrow, If only people read Baudelaire!
By Muhammad Hasan Askari
Mysterious man! Tell me, whom do you love the most? Your father, mother, sister, or brother?
I have neither father, nor mother, nor sister, nor brother.
Your friends?
You have used a word whose meaning I have not understood to this day.
Your country?
I do not even know in what latitude it is situated.
Wealth?
I hate it as much as you hate God.
Then what do you love, extraordinary stranger?
I love the clouds... those passing clouds... look over there... those marvelous clouds!
Beyond its aesthetic value, this poem by Baudelaire serves as a document in the social and moral history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, or the industrial era. Similarly, in the history of art and literature, while this poem may not encompass every movement or every artist of the era, it captures the spirit of our times to a very large extent. All the spiritual despairs, compulsions, and incapacities of the modern man, along with all his longings and desires, echo within this poem.
This poem is the voice of his defeat—and indeed, the defeat of this entire system of life. Yet, alongside these negative elements, the poem also reveals traces of human—or at least the artist's—spiritual endeavors and his struggle against death. Whatever affirmation of life is possible for the artist of the industrial era is present here. If he cannot have life in its entirety, he will settle for a fraction of it. Ultimately, he refuses to let go of life until the very end. Although my focus in this essay is to discuss the flaws in the perspectives of artists from the past century, I cannot concede that their creations are heralds of death or morally decadent. It is possible that art may announce death, or reflect a disgust for the life of an individual or a nation, or even a desire for death. However, art can never, in any way, be a quest for death.
Art, in itself, is a search for life—a quest for a new balance, a new harmony. It is possible that the artist may not fully achieve this new balance; after all, he must contend with many forces that lie beyond the power of a single individual. But he can certainly point toward this new balance in ways that might assist other seekers. All art is inherently healthy, because even when it speaks of illness, it cannot deny health. Even if life has died within the artist, the creation of an artwork, or even the dream of creating one, acts as a divine command of resurrection (Qum bi-izni - Rise by My leave). Of course, some artworks can be considered relatively healthier than others. Therefore, in critiquing the literature of the past century, I will never imply that this literature is harmful to humanity or regressive, as many political volunteers often claim.
A caveat is also necessary here: in my essay, no word carries the meaning assigned to it by Marxists, as these people are in the habit of using words in their narrowest and most restrictive senses. Their terminology is so steeped in materialism that it reeks of rusty copper coins. This is precisely why I have even stopped reading Communist newspapers; after all, for a mere two annas, one can buy a magazine filled with naked pictures instead. When discussing human beings, at least in literature and literary criticism, we need words that are brimming with human life, not with economic metaphysics.
Returning to Baudelaire's poem, we encounter an entirely new kind of artist—the artist of the industrial era. This artist is separated from his predecessors not merely by time or environment, but by the fact that he is born with a new and entirely different spirit. Longing, despair, sorrow, the sense of life's transience, skepticism, and rebellion against religion are not new phenomena.
To say nothing of Epicurus and other Greek philosophers, a prophet like Jeremiah cursed the day he was born, and Habakkuk even taunted God, asking if His eyes were so pure that He could not even bear to look upon evil and injustice. Thus, the expression of grief and sorrow, or acts of rebellion, are not what distinguish this new artist from others. These afflictions have always been attached to human life, and man has always lamented them. As far as rebelling against established beliefs or systems of life is concerned, sometimes the new artist is not a rebel at all. In such moments, negation grows so profoundly within him that the very institutions, laws, and traditions against which he might need to rebel cease to exist for him. He would only bother to deny the existence of God if he first believed in his own existence. He can make himself so indifferent to his surroundings that all of existence becomes a mere shroud of fog to him, one that only occasionally gleams here and there. For such a person, rebel is too limited a term. The word may describe a few moments of his life, but it does not encompass its entirety.
The fundamental difference of the new artist is this: previous artists were satisfied with all the devotions, affections, and moral ties of their time. Even if they sometimes found them painful, they at least gave them enough importance to fiercely rebel against them, to make necessary amendments to them, or to present a new vision of them. The new artist, however, is disgusted by all these moral ties—not just one or two, but all of them. He is so disgusted that, let alone being satisfied with amending or renewing them, he does not even want anything to do with their destruction. His only desire is to close his eyes to them and become completely indifferent. (It is another matter that complete indifference is impossible, because moral ties are not only a part of reality, but are themselves the greatest reality).
The second characteristic of the new artist is that he does not reflect upon his affairs as a member of society, or as a human being living among many other human beings, but rather as if he himself were an entire universe. In that moment, he does not even want to allow the thought of others' existence to enter his mind. Nor does he consider it necessary to think about how his attitude will relate to the attitudes of others, or what kind of action and reaction will occur between them. He considers himself entirely autonomous in deciding his own affairs for himself, and he is unwilling to take any kind of responsibility for anyone other than himself. He is not stubborn about asserting his right to self-determination; he simply does not want to convince anyone of anything. The very word convince is not found in his dictionary.
He would only care about convincing them if he actually valued their existence. Similarly, the word rights does not accurately represent him, as it is a political and collective concept. He exists in a world whose chemical laws are entirely different and operate on their own terms. (Here, I have used the word affairs in a very broad sense, encompassing everything from the concepts of good and evil to sleeping with hotel maids). I do not need a progressive agitator to remind me; I am well aware that this theory regarding the individual, while perhaps not entirely wrong, is certainly insufficient.
The individual may well be a separate universe, but this universe constantly collides with other such universes. The new artists are not oblivious to this collision. The profound intensity with which they grasp the resulting complications, and the tragic form this awareness assumes, is something Marx and Engels were never destined to experience. After all, those two were merely pamphleteers. Even literary reformers like Irving Babbitt would be left spitting blood if they allowed this realization to course through their veins for just ten minutes. It costs nothing to sit at Harvard and pontificate on the philosophy of good and evil.
Now, consider all the things that Baudelaire is incapable of loving. First, he does not believe in God. However, it must be remembered that he launched scathing attacks on the materialism, rationalism, and secularism of the industrial age. When he says he hates God, he is referring to the God and religion of capitalist society, which that society has exploited for its own ends. After religion comes the nation, which he also loathes. To him, this nation is a bizarre land where ordinary bread is passed off as cake, and where people are ready to murder one another for a single crumb. Furthermore, he has no concept of the love of a mother, father, sibling, or friend. The love of money has poisoned the very wellsprings of life, and he can no longer draw the elixir from them that once flowed freely. As for wealth, why would he ever love it—especially wealth acquired through deceit? Yet, money has so tightly gripped society that any ideal other than the lust for wealth appears meaningless, even dangerous. The artist, in particular, has become a grotesque savage in the eyes of this society (as well as in the eyes of the Marxists)—a looming threat to the social order.
As Baudelaire puts it, if a poet were to demand one day that he needs two or three bourgeois to keep in his stable, people would be left utterly slack-jawed in shock, anger, and terror. However, if a bourgeois were to demand the poet’s flesh on a skewer, no one would be surprised; it would be considered a perfectly ordinary request. (Come to think of it, the progressives wouldn't hesitate to eat the poet raw, either). What is more, even the poet's own mother curses him, lamenting why this wretched creature was ever born from her womb (this, too, is from a poem by Baudelaire). Another fundamental human connection is that of sex or love, but the worship of money has poisoned this realm for the artist as well. Baudelaire dreams that a mob of utterly filthy, demonic men surrounds and mocks him, while his beloved clings to them, her arms wrapped around their necks. Just to spite him, she kisses them and intimately mingles with them. Another example of the modern artist's romantic relations is found in Corbière, who, after a long wait, finally spots his beloved on the street one day. I imagine this beloved was, at best, a waitress serving food at some hotel. Corbière joyfully begins to follow her. However, he is in such a tattered, wretched state that she turns around, smiles, and places a couple of pennies in his hand.
There was a time when love was considered the ultimate culmination of life. But in the eyes of Laforgue, women are wild beasts who tame their males and moan with them—and all this merely for three minutes of pleasure! That is why he congratulates himself for not becoming a slave to his primal instincts like the rest. Instead, he constantly fought them, and to this day, he has never embraced a woman, nor ever kissed one.
In short, the condition of the modern artist is such that:
Zi har chi rang-e-ta'alluq pazeerad aazad ast
[He is free from whatever takes the color of attachment]
However, this state is driven neither by lofty courage nor by ascetic detachment, nor does this freedom grant him any spiritual growth. The artist is compelled to sever himself from every human connection and every moral tie, because money-worshipping values have corrupted the very manifestations of these fundamental relationships—namely, our social institutions. Everywhere he looks, he finds everything standing in direct opposition to goodness, truth, and beauty... and these are the artist's true deities. His revulsion toward these circumstances reaches such an extreme that he is forced to alienate himself from the very things that constitute his subject matter, the very wellsprings of his art. That is to say, he cannot accept the values regarding human and moral relationships that are prevalent and celebrated in society, yet he lacks the power to make society accept his own values. Therefore, he views everything with suspicion; he flees from anything that can be definitively labeled as good or bad, true or false.
Another dilemma is that, despite his love for his own values, he is not so callous or unimaginative as to automatically assume they are inherently superior and supreme. Therefore, he tries his utmost to escape the entanglements of moral dilemmas and values, hoping to avoid answering questions about the truth or falsehood, or the goodness or badness, of anything—perhaps because he cannot even be satisfied with his own answers. It is quite possible that many people view this skepticism and uncertainty as moral decay. But if modern artists lack the herd-like self-assurance of sheep, there is at least one person who does not regret this in the slightest.
The spiritual crises and profound alienation of these artists are undeniable, but this gives rise to a purely artistic problem. It is one thing to abandon moral standards—so be it—but without some standard, whether conscious or unconscious, how is the creation of a work of art even possible? There must be some sort of connection, some kind of relationship, between the parts of an artwork and its whole, as well as between the artwork and the person experiencing it. Consequently, a standard for these relationships is absolutely essential. This problem could easily be framed not just as psychological, but even as biological. For now, however, looking at it from the artist's perspective, we must consider it a monumental artistic problem.
This problem was resolved with the emergence of the Art for Art's Sake movement. Here, too, I will vehemently deny that this theory is morally decadent. I have already demonstrated how ordinary moral relationships had become impossible for the artist. This theory does not represent a complete withdrawal from morality; rather, it is an attempt to discover a new morality for art and the artist. Whether this morality is incomplete or flawed is a separate matter. Goodness and truth are concepts that can be debated. They can be articulated quite successfully in rational terms. Furthermore, society plays a significant role in establishing the standards of goodness and truth, and every individual must confront the material manifestations of these standards on a daily basis.
These concepts are largely collective, and their validity depends heavily on social acceptance. However, debate and scrutiny, convincing others, or conceding to them—all these things seem absurd and meaningless, perhaps even immoral, to the new artists. Therefore, compelled by their artistic dilemma, they had to turn to the third pillar of the moral trinity: beauty. Beauty is a relatively more individualistic concept; it is connected more to sensory experience than to the intellect. Consequently, its reality can be proclaimed with greater confidence and certainty, leaving little room for debate.
For the artist, all other moral relationships have died. Beauty is the last straw they must clutch at; they have no other choice. Granted, beauty too could have an established standard accepted by an entire nation or society. However, these artists suspect every established norm of being false. Therefore, they are unwilling to help establish anything new, nor do they accept such a responsibility. They do not believe in absolute values; rather, they are strong proponents of the relativity of values. Consequently, they do not offer any permanent standard of beauty themselves. Baudelaire loves the passing clouds—meaning that for these artists, beauty does not possess a fixed form, but is ever-changing. It is a beauty that is not an eternal or everlasting concept, but one based on a fleeting impression.
Thus, the ultimate standard of art became purely aesthetic. Verbally, these artists certainly continued to claim that beauty and truth are one and the same, but beneath these words lay a different kind of anxiety. When the Greeks described beauty, truth, and goodness as a single unity, they placed just as much emphasis on the other elements as they did on beauty. Just as the balance and harmony of formal relations could constitute truth, the concept of truth or the moment of its realization could, in itself, be beautiful. However, the new artists have been desperate to somehow rid themselves of the concepts of truth and goodness, seeking to make beauty entirely independent of them. They believe that in this covetous society, these concepts can no longer remain pure and unadulterated.
When these artists champion the slogan that beauty and truth are one, their underlying desire is to somehow evade the responsibility of contemplating truth and goodness or establishing their standards. Consequently, despite this slogan, their endeavor has been to reduce art to a collection of aesthetically pleasing formal relations, wherein moral and non-aesthetic elements hold no significance. The intention is to grant art such an objective status that moral standards simply cannot be applied to it—just as we cannot judge a tree or a stone as morally good or evil, but merely acknowledge its existence.
Ultimately, absolute and total objectivity in art is psychologically and biologically impossible—unless human beings undergo a complete chemical transformation, or an artwork is birthed from the artist's womb like a child. Nevertheless, alongside the individualism and subjectivity of these artists, there is also a visible tendency to make the artwork as objective as possible—an object founded entirely on aesthetic and formal considerations, and freed, as much as possible, from moral standards.
Mallarmé introduces the theory of pure poetry. Verlaine declares that a poem must, first and foremost, possess music; everything else is mere literature. In painting, Impressionism emerges, which refuses to view life in its totality, remaining content instead with a fleeting impression—thus, technique becomes everything. In the novel, Flaubert champions the autonomy of art and the supremacy of style, elevating art almost to the status of a religion that demands monastic sacrifices and ascetic discipline. For him, the subject matter holds no importance; the style of expression is everything.
Alongside these figures are the Naturalists, who, though not devotees of art for its own sake, wish to study human beings with the same rigid objectivity as a scientist dissecting animals on a laboratory table. Obviously, a scientist's discoveries do not fall under the purview of moral standards. Therefore, by imposing scientific objectivity onto art, the true endeavor of the Naturalists—even if unconscious—was to somehow evade moral dilemmas and moral judgments.
In short, the crux of all the theoretical discourse of this era is that artists, exhausted by moral struggles and despairing of success, wanted to separate the concept of beauty from the concepts of goodness and truth, as they could see no other path for honest artistic creation. However, because goodness and truth are such vital concepts that one cannot simply turn a blind eye to them, these artists continued to reassure themselves by claiming that beauty inherently encompasses these other concepts as well.
It is possible that separating these concepts from one another, or considering beauty to be supreme and autonomous, might not be overly detrimental to artists in an era and a nation where society enjoys complete harmony. In a society where the concepts of goodness and truth are clear and firmly rooted in people's hearts, where the artist's bond with the public is strong and continuously provides him with renewed vitality, and where the values of his nation run in his blood—in such circumstances, an intellectual dogma regarding beauty cannot cripple his art. This is because artistic creation is largely an unconscious act. However, when an artist does not live in such a society; when harmony is out of the question and one class is locked in conflict with another; when no universally accepted and validated way of life remains; when the artist has lost all connection with the public and is forced to rely solely on his own spiritual fortitude; when he is exhausted by moral warfare and terrified of moral judgments—in such an era, placing one's faith in the autonomy of beauty and the freedom of art is akin to setting out to navigate the Pacific Ocean on a mere wooden plank.
But let us not forget that the artist is taking all these risks for the sake of a higher morality and a higher truth. When Baudelaire asks, To accuse, to oppose, and to demand justice... is this not all in bad taste? he is certainly declaring the autonomy of art and the artist. However, his primary concern is to somehow protect himself from the pollution of industrial morality. These artists may not possess a clear conception of this higher morality, but they firmly believe that if they can escape the prevailing moral codes, they might just catch a glimpse of a higher one. I admit this is a highly negative impulse, but once bitten, twice shy. Having constantly experienced the falsehoods of their era, they have grown afraid not only of others but of themselves. This, in itself, is a profound moral principle—one that only a few artists know how to practice.
Now, let us examine another tendency among modern artists. According to the theories I mentioned earlier, a completed work of art, in terms of its impact, became an objective and aesthetic entity, transcending morality. But this gave rise to the problem of subject matter. Whether the subject matter holds any intrinsic value or not, a work of art must inevitably have a subject—especially in literature. Setting aside moral opinions or ideas, the moment we deal with emotions or feelings, we once again enter the realm of moral standards. Consequently, artists began to shy away not only from ideas but from emotions as well. They had already begun to view their own emotions with suspicion, questioning whether these feelings were even worth experiencing.
Without a moral framework, not only the human mind and soul, but even the five senses begin to fail. Thus, the twentieth-century artist genuinely feels that his emotions and sensations have died. (I believe the Second World War has not yet brought about any fundamental change in this regard, and the artist's dilemmas remain unresolved.) T.S. Eliot’s following four lines encapsulate the expression of this death, along with its causes and consequences:
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?
I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:
How should I use them for your closer contact?
While it is true that English poetry after the 1930s exhibits a great abundance—even an overflow—of sensations, Eliot has exposed the reality of this as well:
Excite the membrane, when the sense
Has cooled, with pungent sauces,
Thus, these artists face the constant threat of their emotions dying out completely. The artist remains skeptical about the value of whatever emotions do survive. Just as he refuses to accept the values of others, he hesitates to impose his own emotions upon them. He goes so far as to refuse responsibility for his own feelings. This is a major reason behind the heavy emphasis placed on objectivity. There is another aspect to this evasion of emotion: the artist is so fundamentally at odds with his environment regarding values that he considers himself distinct from others, if not entirely superior to them. In fact, he actively strives to keep himself separate and different. This desire can take on such a manic form that Baudelaire, for instance, would publicly claim to boil and eat children. The artist wishes to share absolutely no resemblance with the vulgar masses. If others possess emotions, he must have none at all. Like the gods, he must remain elevated and detached from such things, entirely unaffected. And even if he is affected, or if he does harbor emotions, he must ensure they are never revealed to others. This is the defining characteristic of Baudelaire’s Dandy.
Two solutions were devised to counter this anxiety surrounding emotions. The first was to discover new and obscure emotions—feelings no one had ever experienced before—and present them as enigmas, ensuring that the vulgar masses could never even suspect these emotions related to them. This was the approach taken by Verlaine and Mallarmé. On the other hand, an attempt was made to somehow eliminate subject and meaning altogether. Consequently, the theory emerged that poetry, much like music, should be free from external associations. When listening to different musical notes, we do not pause to consider whether a sound belongs to a partridge or a quail. We perceive them purely as sound, deriving pleasure from their rhythm and the aesthetic arrangement of the notes. This exact quality should exist in poetry as well. While reading a poem, our minds should not drift toward its meaning; rather, the sound itself should provide complete aesthetic satisfaction.
Flaubert spearheaded the attempt to liberate fiction and prose from meaning. In his view, the era in which great literature could be produced was long gone. Our age is so vulgar, filthy, and deformed that it can have no possible affinity with beauty. However, since the modern writer can have no other subject but his own era, his only recourse is to use the power of his art and prose style to mask the filth and ugliness of his subject matter, or at the very least, neutralize its effect. In such a scenario, the subject matter loses all intrinsic importance. Style becomes everything. Is it not possible, then, to create a work of art entirely without a subject, relying solely on style? Flaubert’s fear of his own emotions is truly remarkable to observe. On the one hand, he spent his entire life claiming that the novels he was writing were nothing but depictions of the middle class—a fundamentally worthless subject. He believed that if he could only find a subject of his own choosing, he would finally achieve something truly great. On the other hand, he harbored a lifelong yearning to write a novel about nothing—a novel devoid of subject matter, sustained entirely by the sheer force of its style. In short, this era presents us with the astonishing spectacle of artists attempting to create without any underlying material.
This attempt is fundamentally meaningless, especially in literature. In music or painting, it is still somewhat possible to confine an artwork strictly within the bounds of aesthetics, because sounds, lines, and colors possess a certain independent, objective existence. Lines can be arranged in such a way that, even if they do not constitute a great masterpiece, the arrangement itself provides us with aesthetic satisfaction, leaving us with no further questions. Words, however, are not free and independent in the way that lines or sounds are. Words are not pure sound, nor are they natural phenomena; rather, they are human inventions created for a specific purpose. Words are symbols; they direct our minds toward a particular concept and a specific meaning. To make words pure, we would have to ignore their very purpose, and then no distinction would remain between words and mere sounds. In other words, literature would merge into music and vanish. Therefore, as far as literature is concerned, if it is to maintain its existence, it cannot rid itself of subject matter and meaning. Without meaning, a piece of literature is a mere illusion.
While this was practically impossible anyway, it was ultimately decided that the essential element in an artwork is its style or technique. Consequently, artists began to worship form. This obsession reached such extremes that Paul Valéry eventually declared that the ultimate goal of an artist's struggle is the search for a method. Once that method is found, it does not matter if the artist never actually creates an artwork. Today, the artist seeks neither emotions nor subjects nor anything else—only form. This is his sole obsession. If asked to define form, he will list purely aesthetic qualities, arguing that formal beauty requires harmony between the parts and the whole. Yet, when he speaks of form, it is impossible to know just how many different things he is implying, as if form has become a substitute for the entire artwork itself.
In his eyes, form has become the ultimate talisman; if he attains it, he believes he has attained everything—emotions, imagination, and subject matter alike. The irony is that the artist will never admit to including so many elements within his concept of form; instead, he will stubbornly cling to a purely aesthetic definition. He pursues this purely aesthetic ideal with the same intensity and fervor that mystics exhibit in their yearning for union with God. In truth, the quest for form has become a kind of mysticism itself, containing all the ecstasies and agonies of genuine mysticism.
However, if we consider this not theoretically but practically, can this concept of form—the idea that form is merely a set of formal relationships providing aesthetic satisfaction—ever truly be realistic? This is especially questionable in literature. In a piece of music, one can certainly create a beautiful form by arranging sounds. But in a five-hundred-page novel, how could you possibly establish a cohesive relationship between sounds? How could you create a pattern that exhibits a sense of organic growth and remains captivating from beginning to end? Even if, against all odds, such a feat were accomplished, would you call that artwork literature or music?
A major constraint in literature is that you cannot strip words of their meaning. Therefore, in literature, you must organize two different types of arrangements and create two distinct patterns: first, the arrangement of words based on sound, and second, the arrangement based on meaning. Consequently, a literary work will possess two forms: one physical and the other semantic. As I mentioned earlier, a sequence of arranged sounds cannot be sustained over five hundred pages, but a semantic form can easily bear that weight. Thus, in a literary work, the physical form must inevitably rely on the semantic form. However, the concept of meaning cannot exist without the concept of values. To structure meaning, the standards of beauty and ugliness alone will not suffice; the concepts of good and evil, truth and falsehood must also inevitably come into play. Ultimately, the artist is forced to confront the very thing he tried to escape. Whether he likes it or not, the yoke of morality will remain firmly placed upon his neck.
Consider an amusing example of this. Recently, some painters claimed that they wanted to liberate colors from all associations, just as sounds are free and pure in music. Consequently, this school of art creates paintings by drawing a square or a rectangle, dividing it into various smaller and larger grids, and filling one grid with yellow, another with blue, and another with white. The interpretation of such a painting would then be explained like this: the color yellow, for instance, represents heaven or pure joy, while red represents hell or absolute agony, and so on. It is exactly as the poet says:
Urne na paye thay ke giraftar hum hue
[We had not even taken flight before we were captured]
Indeed, morality is such a formidable snare, placed so close to the nest, that escaping it is simply impossible. Morality is all the more essential for the perfection of form because, in nature, every form serves a purpose. The shape of every object is bound by biological laws and exists in harmony with them. Therefore, in a work of art, a semantic form is impossible without an underlying moral concept. Although James Joyce is often accused of aestheticism and detachment from life, he expressed this truth with great audacity. Joyce’s artist, Stephen, views art as the manifestation of the concept of beauty. He wishes to create art himself but has not yet succeeded, likely because he does not yet possess a true concept of beauty. At the end of the novel, Stephen declares that he is going to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. This means that, first and foremost, he is searching for a concept of goodness and truth, through which he hopes to attain the concept of beauty. Beauty, too, is born from the conscience, and one cannot even dream of beauty while turning away from the conscience. Ezra Pound went so far as to claim that form is not necessary for art at all. For instance, he denies the existence of form in Homer's work—at least in the sense that the word form was defined in the nineteenth century.
Whether form is essential for art or not, a purely aesthetic form is utterly meaningless in literature. It is a mirage devoid of any reality. Attaining it is about as likely as encountering a fairy. The way the quest for form tormented Flaubert serves as a cautionary tale. However, there is one highly intimidating trait in an artist—at least for the Progressives and other enemies of art—and that is the fact that you cannot raise a single objection against an artist that he is not already acutely aware of.
Flaubert repeatedly stated that the greatness of major writers does not rest on art or style; sometimes, they write quite poorly. Yet, despite this—or perhaps because of it—their greatness remains undiminished. However, even after acknowledging this, he insists that for second-rate writers like himself, there is no alternative but to rely on art and style. Consequently, in his obsession with art, he subjected himself to such intense pain and agony that he would cry out in torment. At times, he complains that the monster of style is consuming both his body and soul. At other times, he screams, Art, art, a poisonous illusion, a nameless phantom that glitters to seduce us and leads us to our ruin!
Flaubert knew perfectly well that what he needed to generate energy and creative power within himself was not style, but a new conception of life and a new standard of morality. Waiting for his ideal subject essentially meant that he was in search of a new system of values. He had, of course, witnessed the spectacle of the genesis of life in St. Anthony, a vision that proved profoundly exhilarating and spiritually uplifting. However, he spent his entire life searching for a way to accept the path that life had actually taken and to harmonize himself with it—a formula he never found. He did catch a fleeting glimpse of this harmony in A Simple Soul, but his spirit never found lasting peace, and he remained forever in pursuit of a new meaning. Yet, for the reasons I outlined at the beginning of this essay, he could never muster the courage to admit this to himself. He was searching for a new morality, but he kept convincing himself that what he needed was art. This very weakness was the root of all his spiritual torment.
This is, more or less, the condition of other artists as well. Under the guise of form, they are actually searching for meaning. Life in the industrial age is shapeless and formless. The organic connection between its parts and the whole has been severed. Life, and the elements that constitute it, no longer have a defined purpose. Consequently, their significance is steadily fading. As long as life retained purpose, meaning, harmony, and form, the artist did not have to consciously strive for these elements. Today, however, when these qualities have vanished and the artist lacks the power to restore them to society, he inevitably turns to art, seeking a substitute for them all.
Because a work of art achieves the harmony and form that is so desperately sought in life, the artist begins to view the artwork as a reality distinct from life, and he refuses to impose life's values upon art. Since his environment provides him with neither a standard of values nor a fixed mold for living, he turns to aesthetics for the principles of artistic creation and the arrangement of its components. For instance, earlier novelists had a ready-made form at their disposal: a man falls in love with a woman, obstacles arise in their path, but eventually, these hurdles are overcome, the two marry, and they live happily ever after.
Today, however, no such mold for life exists; every individual's life either takes on a completely new shape or remains as formless as everyone else's. In older novels, our interest in the hero concluded with the end of the book, as we assumed that nothing extraordinary would happen afterward. We presumed the hero would spend the rest of his days just as ordinary people do. But modern novels and short stories end in such a way that the hero discovers a new path in life and sets out upon it. Even if that does not happen, the kinds of events that have characterized the hero's life thus far could very well continue long after the novel concludes. Consequently, there is no final destination in such a hero's life—only an endless journey. This implies that you can end a modern novel wherever you please, and if you wish, you could easily write a second or third installment.
Thus, life does not dictate where to begin or where to end. It offers no meaningful form. Therefore, for the sake of your artwork, you are forced to seek out an aesthetic form, which is impossible to achieve in its absolute purity. Consequently, the artist is compelled to discover that meaningful form on his own; at this point, the search for form transforms into a search for morality. Contemporary art is not merely a substitute for life; it is an active quest for life and its underlying meaning. While this can be said of art in general, it is particularly true of modern art. In this capacity, modern art holds tremendous significance, because other avenues for exploring life have proven largely ineffective, leaving the responsibility of finding meaning for humanity squarely on the shoulders of artists.
It would be a grave mistake to assume that artists have remained oblivious to this entire process. Self-ignorance is not a trait characteristic of an artist. While the desire to detach themselves from morality certainly existed in their hearts, they could never truly escape it. People often complained that Flaubert had become completely indifferent to politics. In response, he stated that his actual predicament was being far too entangled in politics. Similarly, following France's defeat in 1870, he remarked that had people read his book Sentimental Education, the tragedy would never have occurred. It was not just Flaubert; all these artists were deeply preoccupied with politics and morality, perhaps even against their own will. Baudelaire captured the exact condition of these artists in a single sentence when he said that democracy runs in human blood like the bacteria of syphilis—how can anyone possibly escape it? Every novel by Flaubert and Joyce contains some underlying moral concept, which is precisely what endows their work with artistic harmony and formal beauty. While in Joyce's work this moral concept remains somewhat behind the scenes, in Flaubert's work, the entire development of the novel is driven by the force of this concept, which is what gives the narrative its momentum.
Finally, let us briefly examine the relationship between psychology and form. The emergence of modern psychology gave artists hope that it might help them break free from morality. To be fair, modern psychology can indeed liberate us from morality; if we view human beings merely as playthings of psychological complexes or primal instincts, they can no longer be held responsible for their actions. And when a person is no longer autonomous, the question of moral standards simply does not arise. However, psychology destroys form just as it destroys morality, because it renders the already shapeless life of the industrial age even more formless.
According to psychology, a human being is a continuous process that goes on uninterrupted until death. This process has many branches, such as thinking, feeling, and so on. Since psychology exists beyond the realm of ethics, this process inherently lacks a purpose. Furthermore, every single moment of this process is entirely distinct and unique from the rest. Therefore, you cannot arrange these moments into any coherent pattern. There is no underlying rhythm to this process. If this process is your subject matter—a subject devoid of both rhythm and form—and you refuse to seek the aid of ethics, then tell me, how can your work of art possibly achieve form?
Absolute impressionism is simply impossible in literature; or, if it is possible, it can only exist if there is absolutely no trace of form or structure. You are compelled to carve out a specific fragment from this continuous process, but where should this fragment begin, and where should it end? Neither aesthetics nor psychology can assist you here. The moment you choose a specific starting point and a specific ending point, the question of preferring one thing over another—the question of values and moral standards—immediately arises. Let alone art, pure psychology cannot be effective in any sphere of life without the integration of ethics. Without ethics, psychology is meaningless. Those who lose sight of this reality and fail to exercise caution end up falling prey to industrial ethics, despite their claims of neutrality.
For instance, a psychologist might argue that Baudelaire lacked willpower, whereas Ford possessed it in abundance. Why? Because Baudelaire failed to make money, while Ford amassed millions. Yet, only a poet’s heart truly comprehends the immense willpower required for poetry. It brings to mind the verse from the Holy Quran, which states that had this Book been sent down upon a mountain, it would have shattered into pieces. What standing does Mr. Ford have in comparison? In any case, if a bourgeois were to demand to make mincemeat of the poet, many psychologists would not object. Even if one manages to evade industrial ethics, it is impossible to function without relying on some form of ethics or another.
The Surrealists attempted to present a purely psychological art—one that was entirely unconscious and unbound by ethics. Yet, in order to infuse their creations with meaning, even they found themselves in need of Marxism.
In short, whether it is aesthetics or psychology, nothing can absolve the artist of moral responsibility. While the artist's task is undoubtedly the creation of beauty, they cannot attain this beauty by severing ties with goodness and truth. By fabricating the myth of form, artists made countless attempts to escape ethics, but after wandering in circles, they inevitably had to return to the very place from which they began.
In this essay, I have discussed a specific tendency among contemporary artists, merely pointing out that their attempts to detach themselves from ethics ultimately failed. This tendency is more theoretical than practical. In fact, the profound analysis of the era's moral condition and the intense yearning for the establishment of a new ethical order found in the works of these very artists are unparalleled in politics, philosophy, or any other field. If they hesitate to express explicit moral opinions or ideas, it is a testament to their honesty and devotion to truth. Otherwise, without making any prophetic claims and despite acknowledging their own helplessness, they have transformed the lives of sensitive individuals of their time in a manner that amounts to a monumental revolution. Is it not enough that they never resorted to hypocrisy, not even for a moment, and never lied about themselves?
Consider this single line by Baudelaire: Hypocrite reader, my brother, my likeness! The revolutionary ethics concealed within this one line is entirely absent in the teachings of the greatest moral instructors. What artists have accomplished over the past century is not a source of shame for literature and art; rather, their creations have provided a new testament to the truth, power, and significance of art. Artists have demonstrated that while others can be bought with money, status, or the allure of colorful ideals, the artist—so long as they remain a true artist—is beyond purchase. This is because, for the artist, the ultimate reality lies in their nerves, and nerves do not lie. Therefore, the slogan art for art's sake is, in itself, a moral reality and a staunch ally of ethics. Whenever a political or moral tragedy occurs, I find myself saying with profound sorrow, If only people read Baudelaire!
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