Nadie puede juzgar al arte. Reflexión sobre los límites o la ausencia de ellos entorno a la literatura

Nadie puede juzgar al arte: reflexión sobre los límites o la ausencia de ellos entorno a la literatura

Ada Puerto

Universidad de Sevilla

Es de agradecer que no exista un conjunto de normas o una definición concreta sobre qué es literatura^[1]. En mi opinión eso es lo que hace de la literatura y del arte en general algo tan especial e hipnótico, ese no saber qué será literatura dentro de cien años^[2] y poder esperar siempre que nos vuelvan a sorprender.

Es natural por ello preguntarnos si existe algún límite invisible que nos marca un punto de no retorno en el cuál se quedan esos escritos^[3] que suscitan dudas y polémica sobre la naturaleza de la literatura.

Desde mi punto de vista, la literatura no tiene que ser agradable y bella por obligación, no tiene que hacernos sentir bien siempre y no tiene la obligación de usar un vocabulario bello. Para ejemplificar esta afirmación podemos pensar en la obra Die Verwandlung (1912)^[4] , esta no es una obra especialmente bella ni por su contenido ni por su uso del lenguaje, es una obra con pocas páginas^[5], un lenguaje muy común^[6] y un protagonista que es un insecto gigante, lo cual muy probablemente a algunos lectores no solo no les haya resultado bello si no que les haya incomodado^[7].

Con esto podemos añadir a nuestro concepto de literatura que la literatura puede incomodar o ser desagradable y eso no altera su condición de literatura. Una obra literaria puede ser desagradable y ser una gran obra, como por ejemplo Das Parfum (1985) de Süskind.

“Aber so ein Menschenkörper ist ja zäh und läßt sich nicht so einfach auseinanderreißen, selbst Pferde haben da die größte Mühe. Und so blitzten bald die Dolche auf und stießen zu und schlitzten auf, und Äxte und Schlagmesser sausten auf die Gelenke herab, zerhieben krachend die Knochen. In kürzester Zeit war der Engel in dreißig Teile zerlegt, und ein jedes Mitglied der Rotte grapschte sich ein Stück, zog sich, von wollüstiger Gier getrieben, zurück und fraß es auf. Eine halbe Stunde später war Jean-Baptiste Grenouille in jeder Faser vom Erdboden verschwunden.” (Süskind 1985: 304-305)

Lo más importante de una obra es que despierte en el lector algún tipo de sentimiento. Podemos suponer que en su mayoría las grandes obras de la literatura lo son porque su escritor tenía algo que mostrar o decir al lector, sin importar si es un mensaje que personalmente consideremos adecuado o no. El valor de una obra no reside en si nos agrada o no, en si nos sentimos identificados o no, a veces podemos llegar a sentirnos repugnados por una obra, pero quizás esa era la intención del autor y a través de esa obra y gracias a su cualidad como escritor nos ha hecho sentir y reflexionar sobre lo que él ha querido. Directamente relacionado con esto está que la obra refleje de algún modo algún aspecto de la sociedad de su época, pues creo que eso es lo que, además del modo en que esté escrita, hace que el lector sienta algo al respecto. No importa si la acción de la obra está situada en otra época o lugar, porque igualmente el tema despertará un sentimiento en el lector si tiene que ver en algún modo con algún factor de la realidad que le rodea.

[...]

^[1] “Aesthetics is often defined as the philosophy of art. But the definition of art itself has peculiar difficulty. Ideal definitions are said to be neither too broad nor too narrow; and many of us, in respect of art, doubtless miss the golden mean that Aristotle delighted to honor. Notwithstanding, I venture to submit the view of art following: More or less skillful activity by which form is given to some material object presumably to make the result interesting, or useful, or both.” (Fraser 1959: 518)

^[2] “The supreme novel of the future, I suspect, will allow abundantly for realistic, romantic, and classic elements. If the future novelist, by his characters, would picture life that is life indeed, he will doubtless be affected by forces not only in science but in the many mansions of art, of philosophy, and of religion. His task would seem tremendous, even if the political taboos now restraining authors and the difficulties in publishing experimental novels would be no more. Perhaps courage as shown by Henry George who, when he was poor, printed a remarkable book at his own expense might be unnecessary. But one is persuaded that the best writers of the future will have to be heroic to give adequate form to the complex facts, and thoughts, and feelings of their day. Many an author then, as now, might avoid the larger tasks. It would surely be his privilege to write a technicolored novel with little content. Yet in the writing of a great novel, a novel great in sensuous, formal, and psychological values, the prerequisite would likely be an understanding, much beyond that of Melville, or Swift, or Balzac, or Tolstoy, of art, science, philosophy, and religion. It would seem that on no other ground could a deep and comprehensive literary work be possible. Themselves like books by many authors, art, morals, and religion will doubtless continue to give pleasure or to teach endurance; and the great novelist of the future, whatever his style and whatever his romantic tendencies, will surely seek to grasp the facts of these mighty movements and then sing of what the world may be after many a tomorrow.” (Fraser 1959: 522-523)
“The reductive conception of literature appears not only in lyc?e classrooms and university courses; it is abundantly represented among newspaper book reviewers and even among authors themselves. Is this surprising? They all went to school and many studied literature in the university, where they learned that literature is self-referential and that the only way to appreciate it is to show the way its constituent parts interact. If today's authors hope to receive critical praise, they need to fit this image, however pallid it is. Besides, they often start out as critics themselves. We can ask ourselves whether this is not a reason why such literature is so lacking in interest for anyone outside France. Many contemporary works illustrate the formalist view of literature. They cultivate ingenious construction, mechanical means to generate the text, symmetry, echoes and winks to the reader.” (Todorov, Lyons 2007: 23)
“The question "What is literature?" is not, like "What is hematite?" asked out of ignorance. It is a question of interest only to those who already have a sense of the extension of the concept and who want, for whatever reason, to think about the defining or differen tial qualities of the phenomena to which, as they know perfectly well, the term is generally applied. In attempting to respond, one can talk about what literature does, how it functions in this or that society or institutional context, or one can inquire whether there are properties that literary works share and features that distinguish literature from other cultural objects or activities. The first approach can generate much interesting discussion of the role of literature in establishing or contesting a national culture, in giving concrete, vivid expression to moral, ethical, and developmental scenarios, in teaching disinterested appreciation, in establishing bourgeois hegemony, and so on. Literature has been given diametrically opposed functions?a set of stories that seduce readers into accepting the hierarchical structures of society, and a practice where ideology is challenged or subverted?but unless the functioning of literature is described in rather vacuous terms, there is not likely to be a single function that all literary works perform, and as soon as the functions or effects are described with enough specificity to become pertinent and interesting, one finds that each of these functions (constituting a nation, contesting ideology) can also be performed by nonliterary discourses.” (Culler 2007: 229)
“Of course, it is impossible. To define literature?if by this we mean finding a sense that is fixed or given once and for all?nobody'11 do it. "Literature is?" has nothing of an easy beginning. Should we consequently admit that "it is literature" is always a vague or vain expression? I look at the 1973 special issue of New Liter ary History devoted to the question "What is Literature?" Among other analyses, I find in Tzvetan Todorov's article the idea of an indefinable literature, which "therefore" could have never really existed.1 Notwith standing, the ones who doubted literature have not effaced it. Its death cannot be drawn from the failure to delimit its meaning. The lack of so-called rational and integral designation does not even pertain solely to literature.” (Dubreuil 2007: 43)

^[3] Por ejemplo, ¿es el plagio literatura?

“What I would like to suggest is that plagiarism is a literacy practice; plagiarism is something that people do with reading and writing. As with all literacy practices, plagiarism is "an activity, located in the space between thought and text" and "in the interaction between people" (Barton and Hamilton 3).” (Valentine 2006: 89)
Es interesante conocer la historia entre la novela Strobo (Airen 2010) y Axolot Roadkill (Hegemann 2017) y la polémica que ha despertado. Encontramos en Diariovasco.com un artículo al respecto:
“Una novela de una adolescente -la autora se llama Helene Hegemann y tiene 17 años- se ha convertido en uno de los temas de discusión en los círculos literarios alemanes, no sólo por el sorprendente éxito que ha tenido, sino por haber agitado la discusión sobre el plagio. (…) La parte negativa es que, después de que un "bloguero" la acusase de plagio, Hegemann ha admitido que ha tomado parte de sus libros de otras fuentes y se ha disculpado por no haberlas mencionado convenientemente. No obstante, Hegemann rechaza la acusación de plagio y dice que de lo que se trata es de "intertextualidad", y que, si a todo escritor que hiciera lo que ella ha hecho se le acusara de plagio, la vida literaria terminaría por acabarse.”

^[4] “Kafka's predicaments, whether they occur in his literary works and fictions which always prove to be biographical, or in biographical documents which are invariably literature, seem almost infinitely in- terpretable. On all levels there are interpretations which can claim assent. One appears to be as applicable as another; and seem well, if only there were some organon for the interpretation of interpretations, some master-discipline that would enable us to ascend or descend from, say, the physio-psychological to the sociological, the philosophical, the theological interpretations and to relate them to one another so as to assign each its place” (Heller 1974: 375)

^[5] Concretamente 67 páginas. ¿Dan las obras más extensas una mayor sensación de seriedad y calidad?

^[6] “Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt. Er lag auf seinem panzerartig harten Rücken und sah, wenn er den Kopf ein wenig hob, seinen gewölbten, braunen, von bogenförmigen Versteifungen geteilten Bauch, auf dessen Höhe sich die Bettdecke, zum gänzlichen Niedergleiten bereit, kaum noch erhalten konnte. Seine vielen, im Vergleich zu seinem sonstigen Umfang kläglich dünnen Beine flimmerten ihm hilflos vor den Augen.” (Kafka 1915)

^[7] A pesar de ser considerada una gran obra, si comprobamos los comentarios de algunos lectores en páginas como GoodReads.com podemos leer algún que otro comentario como estos:
“Technically I read this book in German, and if I could give it zero stars, I would. I read the first sentence (in German, mind you) around 3:30 in the morning earlier this semester, and was convinced I was loosing my mind and that I couldn't be translating it right. It read: "Gregor Samsa awoke on morning to discover that he had somehow transformed into a giant cockaroach". After typing the sentence into freetranslation.com and finding out I actually had read and translated it correctly, I thought for sure the author had lost his mind.I'm sorry, but all this stuff about him being a symbol for Jesus and struggling for mankind is a bit over-the-top I think. He's a cockaroach. There's no explaination for it, and his family is only mild freaked out at the fact that he suddenly turned into a giant bug. If the family tried to take him to the doctor, or sell him to the circus, or perhaps even give a damn at all, the story might have kept my attention for more than the first few pages.”
“Thank goodness this is a short story because I don't think I could have suffered through a full-length novel by Kafka. I read this years ago in school (can't remember if it was high school or college, but either way, it was many, many years ago) and didn't like it then. The title is on that infamous classics list of mine, so I thought I'd give it another go. After all, when I re-read "Call of the Wild", I loved it; perhaps that magic would strike again. No such luck. To give you an idea of how much I did not like this story, it took me 3 nights to get through it (and it's not even 100 pages long, at least, not in the version I found). Kept falling asleep waiting for something to happen. The story is very basic: Gregor Samsa, a travelling sales clerk, wakes one morning to find he's no longer human. He is now an immense insect. Which, of course, means he can no longer go to work, interact with his family, go out in public, etc. The story is pretty much him in his little insect head, observing his family and how they try to care for him, and his existence for a few months after his "metamorphosis". The only thing I did get on this 2nd reading is that it doesn't seem so much Gregor that undergoes a change but his sister, Grete. She starts the story very shy, mousy, almost scared of her shadow. In caring for Gregor's insect self, she becomes a bit braver, until she is the one at the end of the story declaring that it can't go on the way it is, that something must be done with "it" (meaning Gregor). Indeed, the last scene is the family minus Gregor walking outside in the fresh air, and Grete's parents noticing how pretty she is, and how it's time to think of finding her a suitable husband. Yawn. I will admit that I tried to read a second story in the collection I picked up, thinking that perhaps I just wasn't into "The Metamorphosis" itself. I read "The Judgment", and I have to say, my judgment is that I simply do not "get" Kafka.”