So, if we formulate Benjamin’s concept of the aura of a work as static, then does this mean that the relevance of a work of Art in our contemporary present is meaningless? If we have a “static model”, there seems to a certain implication that the artefact belongs to its own time, which it undoubtedly, does but does this ‘belonging’ exclude its having a contemporary significance? Another question here: How crucial is an artefact’s aura to our understanding? I can try, by study and research, to understand the meaning a work had at its moment of production, but I have the feeling that that’s impossible. However, even if this is impossible or even if I make no attempt to understand the work in its own time, does this necessarily mean it can have no meaning in my contemporary present? Is it possible to reformulate this problem by asking “Can a work’s aura change over time?”.
For some odd reason, I’ve found myself reading Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales over the past few weeks. For a start, the work has lost its original aura, in that I only have a vague idea of the conditions of its production, but there are, undeniably, connections to our contemporary present. “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Summoner’s Tale”, written as critiques of the hypocrisy of religion still have relevance to today, especially if we compare them to their modern counterpart, evangelical TV stations: both suggest that you can buy your way into heaven, “Therefore instead of weeping and of prayer, One should give silver for a poor Friar’s care.”
What’s interesting here too is Chaucer’s description of the pilgrims’ physical attributes: their dishonesty and ‘evil’ manifest on their bodies. The summoner:
…had carbuncles. His eyes were narrow,
…Children were afraid when he appeared
No quicksilver, lead ointment, tartar creams,
No brimstone, no boracic, so it seems
Could make a salve that had the power to bite,
Clean up, or cure his whelks of knobbly white
Or purge the pimples sitting on his cheeks.
While the pardoner “…had hair as yellow as wax, Hanging down smoothly like a hank of flax”, hair which falls in “driblets… like rat-tails”, and “he had bulging eye-balls, like a hare.”
These physical characteristics are familiar to us because we’ve seen them in a thousand films, known who the “bad guys” are simply from their appearance…before we even get to that psychological idea that we are more likely to believe those who are seen as ‘attractive’ in our society.
So, have Chaucer’s tales lost their aura(s) by being reproduced? No, but those auras have changed, been incorporated into our contemporary present – they can be said to have been harnessed to an ideological purpose, perpetuating the myth of appearance.
What we can also detect in Chaucer”s Wife of Bath (depressingly so) is discussion of the roles women must play in society, the stereotypes of patriarchal power. In this tale, we also find a treatment of female sexuality…and the radical idea that women too might actually enjoy sex. If we follow Benjamin’s ‘formula’ then these societal critiques apply only in the context of society in Chaucer’s day: the aura is linked to the historical moment of production. If this were actually the case, what would be the point in continuing to study Chaucer’s work? It is the work’s ability to transcend time that makes it of interest. The aura of the work alters (whilst simultaneously remaining the same?), in that we can see this tale as a commentary on contemporary issues. This is what makes it worth studying. The Wife of Bath raises issues that are still abroad in our society. We could say much the same of Chaplin’s film, Modern Times or of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. I think we can say precisely the same of paintings and of music too in that, initially, they offer a commentary on aspects of contemporary life. In the case of music, we may extrapolate from our specific personal situation. I wonder here what it would be like for a piece of music to have an unchanging aura, in that, say, Mendelssohn’s String Quartet op. 44, 1 could only be heard (experienced?) as an expression of its time…or any of Pollock’s or Rothko’s paintings. For example, when first I came across Rothko, his paintings struck me as expressing something “about my life”. Those solid blocks of colour connected to an emotional response within me. To establish the auras of his works, I would need to study the period, and his life, thus, constructing the aura as a historical document.
What strikes me here is the idea that the aura of a work in Benjamin’s sense seems to tie it the life of its makar, which has certain (very limiting) implications for criticism. As I said in a previous blog, from this perspective, criticism becomes a matter of seeing works as jigsaw pieces in a reconstruction of the artist’s life – which doesn’t strike me as being a very useful way of ‘doing’ criticism.
Art ‘survives’, is “passed down”, in our society because of its continuing ‘ability’ to dynamically interact with contemporary issues. Artefacts are seen as being valuable because they offer insights into our society and our personal ‘selves’, regardless of whether such insights are ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
Thus, we can argue that the aura must be flexible, something that changes over time, and in this change is its relevance.
Another question occurs to me here: Is it the case that artefacts deal in applied cases of abstract concepts? Put another way, do they operate as philosophical documents? Personally, I would argue that the answer to both of these questions is ‘Yes’. Artefacts offer us specific examples in particular contexts from which we then deduce abstracts. Return to the Wife of Bath, she gives us a series of “concrete situations” from which we deduce the concept of equal personhood, and all of the questions/comparisons this raises – both at the time of writing and in our contemporary present. We find this in the Wife of Bath, which asks the particular questions “What does it mean to be female at the time of writing?” And “What does it mean to be female now?” (now = whenever the reader lives), thus, inviting comparison. By default, it also asks “What does it mean to be a human person?”, “Is there a difference between male and female?”, and again both questions split into ‘then’ and ‘now’ before combining to form abstract responses to abstract questions.
This leads us into asking why artefacts ‘last’? That is, why do certain artefacts fall by the wayside, while other last for hundreds of years?
Murmurs from the Forest 