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Kevin LaTorre's avatar

Here's a curious synthesis between your second and third sections: depiction of "what is inside [artists] but also the world in front of them" can almost definitely apply to Either/Or, though Kierkegaard was far more than a poet. That said, his depiction of the individual attempting to approach God through his own meager subjective perception straddles both sides of the adage you have in mind.

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Adrian P Conway's avatar

Yes, I suspect the modern aesthetic doom loop is a result of the postmodernist dissolution of objectivity. Frozen indeed!

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William Collen's avatar

One thing I noticed in reviews of Knausgaard's My Struggle were people who said "it's just like he's describing me . . . my own thoughts . . . he understands me exactly." I suspect this doesn't prove he is a perceptive writer so much as underscore the truth that human nature is fundamentally the same for everyone; and that most people's private thoughts revolve around more-or-less similar patterns. In other words: if I want to read a novel about me, I can just write it myself.

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Adrian P Conway's avatar

I think intersubjectivity is the soft sub for objectivity. Less demanding. Not read Knausgaard - autofiction idea brings me out in hives!

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