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Was the birth of modern art psycholinguistically minded?

dc.contributor.authorBatoréo, Hanna
dc.date.accessioned2020-02-18T16:28:15Z
dc.date.available2020-02-18T16:28:15Z
dc.date.issued2010
dc.description.abstractThe 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.pt_PT
dc.description.sponsorshipFCT, no âmbito da investigação desenvolvida no CLUNL - Centro de Linguística da Universidade Nova de Lisboapt_PT
dc.description.versioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersionpt_PT
dc.identifier.citationBATORÉO, 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 978-83-932212-0-2pt_PT
dc.identifier.isbn978-83-932212-0-2
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10400.2/9328
dc.language.isoengpt_PT
dc.peerreviewedyespt_PT
dc.publisherMatrixpt_PT
dc.subjectPsycholinguisticspt_PT
dc.subjectPsycholinguistics, Art, and Literaturept_PT
dc.subjectThe role of structure in languagept_PT
dc.subjectThe role of the meaning of selfpt_PT
dc.subjectThe relationship between language and memorypt_PT
dc.subjectGertrude Steinpt_PT
dc.subjectVirginia Woolfpt_PT
dc.subjectMarcel Proustpt_PT
dc.titleWas the birth of modern art psycholinguistically minded?pt_PT
dc.typebook part
dspace.entity.typePublication
oaire.citation.conferencePlaceVarsóvia, Polóniapt_PT
oaire.citation.endPage164pt_PT
oaire.citation.startPage149pt_PT
oaire.citation.titleStudies in the Psychology of Language and Communication - Papers in Honour of Professor Ida Kurczpt_PT
person.familyNameBatoréo
person.givenNameHanna
person.identifier.ciencia-id2814-3DE3-B150
person.identifier.orcid0000-0001-9302-1609
person.identifier.scopus-author-id57191271541
rcaap.rightsopenAccesspt_PT
rcaap.typebookPartpt_PT
relation.isAuthorOfPublicationef63eabb-dcf2-45dd-a708-e39a0e39e140
relation.isAuthorOfPublication.latestForDiscoveryef63eabb-dcf2-45dd-a708-e39a0e39e140

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