And if I can gain the public ear at all, I would rather whisper a few wholesome truths therein than much soft nonsense.
~ Preface to the second edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
A Question that arose from a RoPo lecture:
What is the meaning of the phrase "refined emotion"? Can emotions ever be refined?
I am glad you pointed out the "filtering of emotions". But doesn't this imply reducing and tampering with the original form of the emotions? If they are channelled into another form, I'd like the "value" of the previous emotion to be retained. For example, if someone is angry and they channel their anger into writing, I'd prefer the energy output (scientifically) to be unchanged. But then, since "emotions" are so abstract, one cannot quantify them.
I do think, however, that emotions cannot be refined. All emotions have the propensity to be uncouth, uncultured, wild and dangerous. Hence, I think they cannot ever be exclusively termed "refined".
Here's what Oscar Wilde, my favorite Victorian, had to say on the matter in "de Profundis," the letter he wrote in prison to Bosie:
"Great passions are for the great of soul, and great events can be seen only by those who are on a level with them. We think we can have our emotions for nothing. We cannot. Even the finest and most self-sacrificing emotions have to be paid for. Strangely enough, that is what makes them fine. The intellectual and emotional life of ordinary people is a very contemptible affair. Just as they borrow their ideas from a sort of circulating library of thought--the Zeitgeist of an age that has no soul and send them back soiled at the end of each week--so they always try to get their emotions on credit, or refuse to pay the bill when it comes in. We must pass out of that conception of life; as soon as we have to pay for an emotion we shall know its quality and be the better for such knowledge."
(And I was going to tag you for the meme, too--Frankengirl tagged me on my "real" blog, www.selfportraitas.com)
2 comments:
aww I found out what you meant by meme hehe.
I am glad you pointed out the "filtering of emotions". But doesn't this imply reducing and tampering with the original form of the emotions? If they are channelled into another form, I'd like the "value" of the previous emotion to be retained. For example, if someone is angry and they channel their anger into writing, I'd prefer the energy output (scientifically) to be unchanged. But then, since "emotions" are so abstract, one cannot quantify them.
I do think, however, that emotions cannot be refined. All emotions have the propensity to be uncouth, uncultured, wild and dangerous. Hence, I think they cannot ever be exclusively termed "refined".
Here's what Oscar Wilde, my favorite Victorian, had to say on the matter in "de Profundis," the letter he wrote in prison to Bosie:
"Great passions are for the great of soul, and great events can be seen only by those who are on a level with them. We think we can have our emotions for nothing. We cannot. Even the finest and most self-sacrificing emotions have to be paid for. Strangely enough, that is what makes them fine. The intellectual and emotional life of ordinary people is a very contemptible affair. Just as they borrow their ideas from a sort of circulating library of thought--the Zeitgeist of an age that has no soul and send them back soiled at the end of each week--so they always try to get their emotions on credit, or refuse to pay the bill when it comes in. We must pass out of that conception of life; as soon as we have to pay for an emotion we shall know its quality and be the better for such knowledge."
(And I was going to tag you for the meme, too--Frankengirl tagged me on my "real" blog, www.selfportraitas.com)
Post a Comment