Re: [xmca] "Psychology of Art" and "Literature and Revolution"

--- Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
I am trying
> to get the original Russian Mandelshtam "Yule"
> source. I did get the
> collected essays and also complete poems. no
> "swallow" there.

Oh, this one is pretty simple:

http://www.lib.ru/POEZIQ/MANDELSHTAM/tristia.txt#68

This is Swallow (Lastochka); just wondering, what
is Mandelshtam's "Yule"? Can it be a reference to
the Dusk of Liberty (Sumerki svobody)?

> On 6/6/07, David Kellogg
> <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > Dear Mike:
> >
> > Thanks to you, and to your Moscow seminar.
> I'm writing up some things on
> > Mandelstam and Volsinov, and this will go
> into the footnotes. So LSV did get
> > away with it after all!
> >
> > I am waiting, breath baited, for you and
> Tony Whitson to start
> > "blogging" the "Psychology of Art" in this
> space, because it's a book I've
> > long longed to discuss.
> >
> > Here are some starting observations,
> relevant (I think) to why LSV would
> > want to go out on an art note in "Thinking
> and Speech".
> >
> > a) In some ways, the argument in the first
> chapter of "Psychology of
> > Art" recapitulates "Literature and
> Revolution" (L.D. Trotsky, 1923-24).
> > This was not a particularly brave thing to do
> at the time (Trotsky was still
> > in the government, though just barely). But
> it was, in retrospect, something
> > of a hostage to fortune.
> >
> > b) Like Trotsky, he begins by destroying
> the idea of art's complete
> > independence from its social context.
> Interestingly, though, he uses this
> > quote from Plekhanov:
> >
> > "To understand the dance of Australian
> native women, it suffices to know
> > the role played in the tribal life of
> Australian aborigines by women
> > gathering wild-growing plants. To understand
> the minute, however, it does
> > not suffice to know the economy of eighteenth
> century France. We are dealing
> > here with a dance that expresses the
> psychology of a non-productive
> > class...Therefore the economic 'factor'
> yields it's place and position to
> > the psychological factor. We must remember,
> however, that the emergence of
> > nonproductive classes in human society is a
> product of economic evolution."
> > (p. 13).
> >
> > c) This quotation from Plekhanov is also a
> hostage to fortune, albeit
> > not quite so tragic as LSV's debt to Trotsky.
> On the one hand, it helps him
> > make a very convincing argument (which Marx's
> comments on Hellenism also
> > help him make) that art, while not entirely
> separable from social context,
> > is not reducible to that context either. Like
> Trotsky, he will rely heavily
> > on the Russian formalists to bolster this
> view later on.
> >
> > It also helps him suggests something very
> developmental--the EMERGENCE
> > of non-productive art from productive art.
> And finally, it orders them in a
> > way most congenial to Vygotskyan psychology,
> a "psychology of art"
> > historically evolves from some kind of
> "sociology of art".
> >
> > But on the other hand--it CLEARLY suggests
> exactly the kind of thinking
> > that he explicitly rejects here on p. 16 (I
> apologize for the long
> > quotations, but it will allow people who
> haven't got the one or two hundred
> > dollars that Alibris is asking for
> "Psychology of Art" these days to follow
> > along):
> >
> > "Today one one would dare assert that an
> ancient bylina (a Russian
> > popular epic) written from the words of an
> Arkhangel'sk fisherman and a
> > Pushkin poem carefully corrected and edited
> by the poet, are the products of
> > different creative processes. The facts
> testify to exactly the opposite.
> > Accurate investigation reveals that the
> difference here is purely
> > quantitative. the narrator of the bylina does
> not recount it in exactly the
> > same way in which he received it from his
> predecessor.He introduces
> > changes, cuts, additions, and he reshuffles
> wodrs and parts.Thus he
> > becomes the author of that particular version
> using teh ready-made standards
> > and cliches of popular poetry. Hence the
> notion that popular poetry is
> > poetry is unsophisticated in the sense that
> it is created by an entire
> > people and not by professionals (narrators,
> troubadours, storytellers) of
> > artistic creativity applying a traditional,
> rich, and specialized technique
> > to their craft and using it in exactly the
> same
> > way as the writers of later periods is
> completely wrong. On the other
> > hand, an author who puts down in writing the
> product of his creativity is by
> > no means the sole creator of his work.
> Pushkin, for example, is not the
> > individual author of his poems. He did not
> invent the methods of writing
> > verse and rhymes or of construing a subject
> or theme in a specific way. Like
> > the narrators of the byliny, he passes on the
> immense heritage of literary
> > tradition which to a great extent depends on
> the evolution of language,
> > verse wrtiing techniques, traditional
> subjects, themese, images,
> > compositional subjects, and so on."
> >
> > d) How to solve the apparent contradiction
> between what this quotation
> > says and what the Plekhanov quotation says?
> It seems to me that these two
> > statements ARE reconcilable, if we understand
> that Vygotsky is setting up a
> > dialectical "unit of analysis" fairly similar
> to ones we see later in his
> > pedological work.
> >
> > PLAY GENERALLY:
> > action=meaning (rote repetition, babbling)
> > action/meaning (role play and gesture)
> > meaning/action (rule based games)
> >
> > RULE BASED GAMES:
> > imaginary situation = rules (a game of
> catch)
> > imaginary situation/rules (a game of horsie
> with a stick, children
> > playing "house")
> > rule/imaginary situation (a game of chess)
> >
> > The analogy may seem far-fetched, but we
> find the same kind of method in
> > his analysis of teaching in Educational
> Psychology, which was written at
> > almost the same time as Psychology of Art
> (and is also explicitly indebted
> > to Trotsky in several places, e.g. p. 347 and
> p. 350).
> >
> > On p. 49 (and again on p. 187) LSV
> discusses the "rickshaw driver" and
> > the "tram driver", and the reversal of the
> proportions of physical motor
> > energy and directing, organization and
> planning:
> >
> > LABOR
> > physical labor = mental labor (hunting and
> gathering?)
> > physical labor/mental labor (rickshaw
> pulling)
> > mental labor/physical labor (tram driving).
> >
> > TEACHING
> > content provision = environment management
> (child's play)
> > content provision/environmental management
> (tutoring, "scaffolding",
> > DIRECT teaching of concepts)
> > environmental management/content provision
> (public education)
> >
> > With these examples we can imagine a
> research
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Received on Thu Jun 7 01:17 PDT 2007