Distance Reading, Question # 1

1. What are the political implications of defining "distance" as an essential component of the aesthetic experience?

Epiphanal moments under a star-studded midnight sky is an aesthetic experience. The aesthetic experience is characterized as a "separation of thought from reality that was essential for the creation and appreciation of art" (Long, 1). Further, the pleasure and awe that individuals derive from art comes from the "physical processes constituting the aesthetic impression" (Long, 1). This detachment necessary to understand art was also characterized by the synchronous separation and involvement, a term called distance.

Distance cannot be an essential component of the aesthetic experience. Distance only limits the self from understanding. Distance, characterized as simultaneous separation and involvement, does not necessarily permit itself to work well within the aesthetic experience. If aesthetic is defined as a" critical analysis of art, culture, and nature", distancing the self seems harmful. That is, to have a practical detachment from the said experience would actually limit the self from complete experience, as everything is subjective. The individual rarely understands the world through a lens that is not their own. The negotiation of self within the larger context of society is made possible by the individual experience. Lived experiences always seems to be reflective of art. Art seems to be an extension, a temporal experience of the self. Perhaps this quality could be characterized as a form of distance, but with this distance, individual subjectivity is always present. Even with distance characterized as imaginative, the imagination still functions through self and the experiences of the self. As Long stated, " Readers do not present an imaginative world...they maintain their own identity in the same world of reality as that of the listener, inviting an audience to to participate imaginatively in the fictive world of the text, a participation guided by clear and vivid reading" (4). Distance is not attainable.

In fact, "distancing became of little assistance to the interpreter who major objective was to know the dymanics of the literature by performing it" (Long, 7). Distance, requiring multiple distinctions, started to become a problem during the mid-20th century when a paradigmatic shift from modernism to postmodernism characterized our culture. These distinctions "could become a problem when one aimed to study experientally a literary text that made its point precisely by ignoring, overlapping, shifting, or confusing those distinctions" (Long, 8). These four qualities are inherent of postmodern society. Art becomes nothing more than art.

The Lady Actress, Question #2

2. Why were first person narratives by female authors considered inappropriate? How did Mowatt get around this difficulty in her autobiography? What sort of successful strategies of self-creation did she employ?

Writing during the Victorian era as a female author was already a daunting task. Some women were writing during this period but relatively few compared to present day. Using a first-person narrative, a authorial voice, was considered lacking couth during this period because women were viewed as 1.) inferior to men on the socio-evolutional level, and 2.) they were viewed by men as pure, fragile, virginal creatures who were used for procreating and domesticity. In her autobiography, Mowatt even gives an apology for the "degree of egotism in the constant use of of the first person singular. Writing with an authorial voice would overthrow traditionally held norms and values of Victorian culture, where any type of change was frowned upon. However, the narrative authority and rhetorical agility in her writings allowed her to create a space within the Victorian era for herself and paved the road for future female authors.

All of the rhetorical strategies Mowatt employed within her writings such as performance and fiction presented herself, her desires and motivations in a way that "would mitigate the effects of her society's prejudices without alienating her auditors". Her narrative authority includes 1.) speaking from first-hand knowledge and personal experience, 2.) she viewed her work as the fulfillment of a responsibility to inform her readers who viewed her as a potential role model, and 3.) she had statements from men in positions of conentional respectability to corroborate her assertions made in her texts. Her greatest argument for narrative authority is stated in the last chapter of her autobiography, "My Claims to offer a Defense of the Stage". In this chapter, she argues her knowledge and experience with acting and theatre grants her the position to argue for the the value and respectability of acting and theatre. For Mowatt, acting was the "truth and an innate love and reverence for a dramatic art".

Mowatt created an authorial persona that was non-feminine and non-threatening. By doing so, she created/ allowed herself a position within the narrative cirlce by not subervting the gender and social hierarchy that characterized the Victorian era. There was also once instance in which Mowatt published under the pseuodonym of a male author. This was the most common form of publishing for women during this time and the past. Readers, typically aristocracy, religious leaders, and intellectuals (men), would be more willing to read works that were published by men versus women. Also, women of her time would write under the vision of God. That is, women authors would argue that they were simply re-writing the words of God in their works. By doing so, they hoped to legitimize their works in such a rigid, religious moment in time.