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Abstract(s)
The history of our modern culture – and especially its formation in
the very beginning of the 20th century – is full of examples of artists who (un)
consciously tried to answer intuitive questions that science was sometimes able to approach only many decades later, but systematically forgetting those early artistic
insights and contributions.
In the present paper, we approach three of these early 20th-century forerunners who in their writings dedicated themselves to fundamental linguistic and psycholinguistic questions that still divide many scholars in the early 21st century: (i) the role of structure in language (section 2), (ii) the role of the meaning of self (section 3), and (iii) the relationship between language and memory (section 4). They are Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), Virginia Woolf (1882- 1941) and Marcel Proust (1871-1922). All three of them had some characteristics in common: they came from well-off and educated Jewish families (Stern and Proust were of Jewish origin and Woolf’s husband was a Jew); they were (financially) independent writers and significant figures in London or Paris literary societies; they were homosexual and the first European writers to treat homosexuality openly and at length. Two of them (Woolf and Proust) had serious health problems, which made them look for deep insights in order to deal with hard reality. It is also important to notice that one of the most important influences of all these artists was
the science of their times: Stein was conducting psychology experiments in William
James’s lab, Woolf was learning about the biology of mental illness, and Proust was
attending Bergson’s lectures and reading his books; it is impossible to understand
their art without taking into account its relationship to science.
However, the most outstanding common denominator for all three of these artists
was the fact that they were strongly linguistically minded. They explored their
own language practices and experiences and expressed what no scientific experiment
could see at their time but what became confirmed (at least in part) by science many
decades later: Stein was looking for language structure, Wolf for expression of meaning
of one’s self, and Proust for meaning of one’s memories and relation between
memory and language. It was not an easy task, as they lived in times when the old
dream of the Enlightenment seemed within reach: life was reduced to chemistry,
and chemistry to physics; the entire universe was nothing but “a mass of vibrating
molecules”. In such an organized world, art was supposed to be pretty and/or entertaining, and literature was expected to tell stories, and show the world as it was
or could be, giving its readers some second-hand experience. The modernists turned
against this world: they were not representing what they saw; they were searching
for truth both outside and inside themselves, especially working (their) language,
in order to make us see and understand ourselves better.
Description
Keywords
Psycholinguistics Psycholinguistics, Art, and Literature The role of structure in language The role of the meaning of self The relationship between language and memory Gertrude Stein Virginia Woolf Marcel Proust
Citation
BATORÉO, Hanna Jakubowicz (2010). Was the Birth of Modern Art Psycholinguistically Minded? In: Studies in the Psychology of Language and Communication - Papers in Honour of Professor Ida Kurcz, Barbara Bokus (ed.) Warszawa: Matrix, 149-164. ISBN 978-83-932212-0-2
Publisher
Matrix