The Destiny of the Work of Art : Causes, Propositions, Shakespeare

Journal article


Saval, Peter Kishore. (2023). The Destiny of the Work of Art : Causes, Propositions, Shakespeare. Symploke. 31(1-2), pp. 363-378. https://doi.org/10.1353/sym.2023.a914668
AuthorsSaval, Peter Kishore
Abstract

The categories of cause and effect have falsified our experience of art. To say that Agamemnon caused the anger of Achilles by depriving the hero of Briseis, that reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere caused Paolo and Francesca to fall in love, is not entirely wrong but beside the point. Art discloses a mystery about the unfolding of life and destiny, and the language of causes abstracts from this mystery and impoverishes it. In the legend of Tristan and Iseult, the protagonists mistakenly drink a love potion that is meant for Mark of Cornwall instead. They fall in love (Strassburg 1984, 194–95). Did the love potion cause the lovers to fall in love? The very question is out of place. The Tristan and Iseult legend unfolds a tragedy for which the drinking of the potion is incidental.

I have taken the terms incidental and destiny from Oswald Spengler. Spengler might agree with what I have said above. But Spengler names one artist, above all, as the exemplary dramatist of the "incidental." The artist is Shakespeare

KeywordsWilliam Shakespeare; literary criticism; Early Modern Drama; cause; Proposition; effect
Year01 Jan 2023
JournalSymploke
Journal citation31 (1-2), pp. 363-378
PublisherUniversity of Nebraska Press
ISSN1069-0697
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1353/sym.2023.a914668
Web address (URL)https://muse-jhu-edu.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/article/914668
Open accessPublished as non-open access
Research or scholarlyResearch
Page range363-378
Publisher's version
License
All rights reserved
File Access Level
Controlled
Output statusPublished
Publication dates
Online15 Dec 2023
Publication process dates
Deposited30 Aug 2024
Additional information

© symplokē

Place of publicationUnited States
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