Art's Visionary Moment - (Anthem Symploke Studies in Theory) by Sidney Homan (Hardcover)

About the Book

In describing their personal encounters with works that have stayed with them, scholars and artists here address the aesthetic, philosophical, and historical reasons that inform what T. Eliot has called great art's "experience both of a moment and of a lifetime."

Book Synopsis

The collection Art's Visionary Moment: Personal Encounters with Works That Last a Lifetime was inspired by T. S. Eliot's observation in his Dante (1929): "The experience of a poem is the experience both of a moment and of a lifetime. ... There is a first, or an early moment which is unique, ... which can never be forgotten, but ... is never repeated integrally; and yet which would become destitute of significance if it did not survive in a larger whole of experience." In this collection, scholars, and artists from a variety of fields speak in personal terms, but with what one has called "intellectual passion," of a work of art (poem, play, novel, film, visual art, among others) that, as Dante suggest, has had an immediate effect on them (the "Visionary Moment" from the title) yet survives "in a larger whole of experience" (that "Last a Lifetime" in the collection's sub-title). Some of the titles of essays already submitted show the range of this inquiry: "Conversations with the Dead"; "Playing Richard III: The Experience of a Moment and a Lifetime"; "Picasso's 'Three Musicians'"; "Poetry Meets Power: Tamburlaine the Great"; "Pleasant Dreaming with 'Thanatopsis'"; "From Madness to Miracle: An Encounter with Shakespeare's Winter's Tale"; "Fight the Power" Spike Lee's Visionary Moment"; and "Plastic Art Moment."

Review Quotes

"Art's Visionary Moment collects a series of brilliant reflections on the works of art that worm your way into your soul and stay with you for a lifetime. Ranging from Shakespeare and Marlowe to Spike Lee and Carrie Fisher, the essays in this collection capture what it means to love a poem, play, or film over the course of a lifetime." -- Christopher Breu, Professor of English, College of Arts and Science, Illinois State University

"In its obsession with what art is, literary criticism sometimes forgets what art does. It fails to care, or care enough, that art moves us. This collection cares. It flicks on the lights and we see the room is full of people. Chapter by chapter, they tell us what art did. Literary criticism just got real." -- Liam E. Semler, Professor of Early Modern Literature, The University of Sydney

"This impressive gathering of essays reminds us that often the best criticism derives not from theoretical or ideological systems of thought, but from those deep, indeed transformational, experiences we have when our encounters with art change the way we think or feel. Admirably free of jargon or pretension, this collection will appeal to, and perhaps even inspire, readers of all stripes." -- Joseph Candido, Professor of English, Emeritus, University of Arkansas

About the Author

Sidney Homan is Professor of English at the University of Florida and author or editor of some twenty-two books on Shakespeare and the modern playwrights. He is also a director and actor in professional and university theatres.