definition, dramatization, and rasa

Definition, Dramatization, and RasaAuthor(s): Richard ShustermanSource: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 61, No. 3 (Summer, 2003), pp. 295-298Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for AestheticsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1559180 .

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Discussion 295

Theory," The Philosophical Quarterly (Pratap Centre of Philosophy, Amalner, India, Special Issue, 2001): 105-116; see also Ranjan K. Ghosh, "Professor Barlingay on the Meaning of Rasa," pp. 201-211, in the same issue.

6. This is brought about by the process of "Sadharanika- rana" or transpersonalization as it has been explained by Abhinavagupta in his commentary on The Natyasastra. Please see R. Gnoli, The Aesthetic Experience According to Abhinavagupta (Varanasi, India: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series, 1985).

7. Susanne K. Langer, Feeling and Form (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953), p. 323.

8. As to how this is brought about, please see R. Gnoli, The Aesthetic Experience According to Abhinavagupta. This has been explained in a logically more elegant manner though somewhat differently by K. C. Bhattacharyya who speaks of it as "duplicated sympathy." Bhattacharyya con- siders the art situation in terms of three grades of feeling. The primary object-feeling may be understood as, for example, the child's experience of playing with a toy, so that for the child the feeling of joy is not distinguishable from the object. At the second level, a person who observes the child and her sense of joy identifies his feeling with that of the child. Such "feeling of feeling" or "sympathy" is quite detached from the object but not from the feeling of the child for the toy. Aesthetic enjoyment may be considered at a level even higher than this. If we imagine another person who identifies himself with the person who enjoys the feeling of the child (for the toy) then such a feeling may be characterized as "sympathy with sympathy." It is at this higher level of "duplicated sympathy that a feeling can be emotionally contemplated in a detached way." K. C. Bhattacharyya, "The Concept of Rasa," in Studies in Philosophy, ed. G. Bhattacharyya (Delhi: Motilal Banarasidas, 1983), p. 355.

9. As I have argued elsewhere: "In the main tradition of Indian aesthetics, rasa stands for what is created by the artist as well as what is experienced by the audience. Rasa as the created is not the same as what merely goes into its making. The competent viewer (rasika) is here called upon to actively participate in his commerce with the work of art because rasa cannot be evoked in a passive state of mind. What it means is that the viewer must detach himself from his immediate egoistic interests. The emotion experienced is not felt by the viewer as personal or as that of the artist; rather it is universal or 'transpersonal."' Ranjan K. Ghosh, "Artistic Communication and Symbol: Some Philosophical Reflections," The British Journal of Aesthetics 27 (1987): 319-325.

10. Clarifying the nature of emotion created in a dramatic presentation in Chapter VII, 1 of his Natyasastra, Bharata writes: "vagangasatvopetan kavyarthan bhavayanti iti bhavah iti." See The Natyasastra, trans. M. Ghosh.

11. Poetry, here, stands in its widest connotation for dramatic and literary arts.

Definition, Dramatization, and Rasa

I am very pleased to learn from Professor Ghosh's comments that my theory of art as dramatization finds support from the rich tradition of Indian aesthetics and its preeminent theory of rasa. Ghosh is right that I

base my theory on Western sources (though my use of Old Testament material does extend my sources into the Asian continent), and I greatly appreciate his efforts to examine my views in a wider context of comparative aesthetics. Believing that art is rooted in natural and cultural factors of human experience that are widely shared throughout the world, but that art is also variously shaped by the different historical cultures that produce it, I think that cross-cultural aesthetic inquiry can be very illuminating. It seems particularly important in today's age of increasing globalization where the homogenization of cultures is combined with false stereotypes of exotic otherness in ways that conceal many of the aesthetically interesting differences and commonalities in the world's diverse cultural traditions. I am grateful to the Jour- nal for welcoming such transcultural discussion. Before examining the connection between rasa theory and my pragmatist theory of art as dramatization, I should clear up some confusion with respect to Ghosh's first point about my theory.

I am surprised that Ghosh presents me as a cham- pion of the classificatory sense of art and of classificatory definitions, since I have always been extremely critical of their dominance in contempo- rary analytic aesthetics. I have repeatedly argued that although being correctly classified as an artwork does not entail having aesthetic excellence, the concept of art as a whole has a deep and intrinsic connection with value that makes purely classificatory definitions not particularly helpful in enriching our understanding and appreciation of art. I have therefore persistently questioned whether there is "any good reason why we should try to extract [for definition] a purely classificatory concept of art." One reason why "'art' is an essentially contested concept," I wrote in criticizing George Dickie's institutional theory as an aesthetic analogue of legal positivism, is "because it has a distinctively appraisive element and indicates a valued achievement, and therefore its use is worth contesting." I further argued that Dickie's attempt to define a purely classificatory sense of art in institutional terms by using such notions as "the artworld" and "candidate for appreciation" cannot be successful because those notions already imply value.' As I put the point in Pragmatist Aesthetics, "the very notion of appreciation presupposes a background where art is appreciated, just as the very concept of 'artworld' presupposes a world where art is valued as a cultural practice and achievement. Holistically speaking, art and value cannot be separated, which means that essentialistically defining art in a purely classificatory sense perversely eliminates what is essential to art, even though it be absent from many of the objects so classified."2 More generally, I criticize purely classificatory definitions of art as "wrapper theories" that concentrate on the goal of perfectly covering the



296 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

extension of our concept of art instead of improving our order to respond to Ghosh, I do not want to suggest understanding and experience of art by illuminating the arrogance that they are comparable in scope, sub- deep and important features of art. tlety, or richness. Nor should one suggest that a

Ghosh's suggestion that "Art as Dramatization" definitive, uncontested account of rasa can be given, defends the classificatory sense of art is even more since the notion has been differently interpreted by puzzling since my paper never even refers to that theorists; and the term itself, as one commentator notion.3 The paper, however, does continue my cri- explains, "has a bewildering variety of tique of "wrapper" definitions for focusing merely on meanings ... [that] range from the alcoholic soma- art's extension (just as definitions of the classifica- juice to the Metaphysical Absolute-the Brahman."5 tory sense do), and it also claims that honorific defi- But virtually all scholars would affirm that emotion is nitions can be more "useful" and "valuable" for our the chief element of rasa theory.6 The theory in fact aesthetic purposes than definitions that aim at perfect comprises a very complex and subtle philosophy of extensional coverage. I suspect that Ghosh mistak- emotion, distinguishing not only between different enly thinks I am advocating purely classificatory def- kinds of emotion (that differ not only in character but initions because he misunderstands what I mean by in duration) and between the intentional object of the honorific and nonhonorific definitions of art, so that emotion and the causes that excite it, but also when I claim "that nonhonorific definitions can also be between (a) that which generates an emotion (i.e., its useful" (p. 364), he assumes this must be an advocacy intentional object and causes), (b) those actions or of definitions of art in the purely classificatory sense. overt expressions that exhibit the emotion, and (c) By an honorific definition of art I mean one that "ancillary feelings .., which normally accompany that entails positive artistic value of all the items it emotion."7 Experience and pleasure are also consid- defines, so that if an object is defined as an artwork ered to be key features of the theory of rasa, since the by an honorific definition, then it must also be a good artistic treatment of emotion results in distinctly artwork by that definition. A nonhonorific definition heightened experiences that provide special pleas- rejects this entailment of value and thus can allow for ure.8 bad artworks of art. But this rejection does not mean My pragmatist approach to art also celebrates the that nonhonorific definitions cannot recognize that values of experience, affect, and pleasure, so it seems art is a concept imbued with value and that it there- to converge with rasa theory also beyond the dialec- fore cannot properly be understood in purely classifi- tical logic of dramatization that joins intensified catory, nonevalutive terms. My definition of art as experience and structuring frame while integrating dramatization is nonhonorific in precisely this limited the perspectives of naturalist and historicist theories sense, because not all things that possess the defini- of art.9 Differences emerge, however, in how these tion' s two key features (of heightened experience or shared values are understood and related to other val- activity situated within a formal frame) are claimed to ues. Rasa scholars explicitly argue against naturalis- be good artworks. But my definition is also not sim- tic approaches by asserting that rasa's direct ply classificatory, since it does not claim to cover all experiential quality is "unworldly" and its pleasure and only those objects that are commonly classified "transcendental," an experience characterized by as artworks. I would acknowledge, for example, that "rest" or "tranquility, repose, serenity, the 'peace that varieties of sport and ritual possess both features I passeth understanding.' "10 Pragmatism, in contrast, use to characterize dramatization, while certain art- insists that aesthetic pleasures can also be very works (especially bad ones) might lack the first of earthy, sensual, and related to our worldly needs and these features. appetites, while emphasizing the dynamic, stirring

With this misunderstanding clarified, I turn to nature of aesthetic experience. In making emotion Ghosh's instructive comments on the theory of rasa central to art, rasa theorists typically distinguish such and its relationship to my view of art as dramatiza- emotion as a special "art-emotion" (Chari, p. 288) or tion. I have enormous respect for the theory of rasa, "poetic emotion" (Ghosh, p. 294) that is sharply distin- which "constitutes the Central Tradition in Indian guished from real-life feelings and contemplated in Aesthetics." Dating back to Bharata (sometime "an impersonal contemplative attitude" (Chaudhury, between the second century B.C. and the second cen- p. 146). Pragmatist aesthetics does not concentrate tury A.D.) but further elaborated by later Indian narrowly on specific art-emotions but instead con- thinkers such as Anandavardhana and Abhinav- cerns the wider range of feeling or affect that exists in agupta, this theory explains drama and poetry (and, aesthetic experience. Some of those valuable feelings according to some scholars, all the arts) in terms of hardly seem to constitute full-fledged emotions, let emotion.4 Rasa theory is immensely more elaborate alone specific art-emotions. One apparent conse- and time-proven than my brief pragmatist account of quence of this difference of perspective regarding art as dramatization, so that in probing the similari- affect and emotion is that while pragmatism treats ties and differences between these two approaches in aesthetic experience as deeply connected with life



Discussion 297

and rich as with energetic activity, cognitive import, and practical value, proponents of rasa theory instead regard the contents of aesthetic experience as "signif- icant neither cognitively nor conatively, for they belong to a different world," in which the self s "pragmatic aspect" is dissolved. Hence "the belief that a poetic statement can be valued for anything but its emotive element is a chimera."11I

I now turn, in conclusion, to the issue of dramatization. The idea of rasa as "enacted emotion on the stage" (or more generally an emotion that is heightened and formally framed) certainly fits my account of art as dramatization. But my notion of dramatization (for better or for worse) is wider, because it is not fixed narrowly on emotion or even on feelings in general. What my theory requires is heightened experience or activity within a formal frame; it does not require that what is framed or experienced be especially emotional and certainly does not require that it be a specific art-emotion that is opposed to "life-emotions" (Chari, p. 288; Thampi, p. 77). Of course, believing that all experience and activity has an affective dimension, I think what is framed will always have some affective aspect. Yet this feeling need not be the key element of what is framed or even be what justifies the framing, although I happily recognize that feelings are certainly a very crucial fac- tor in many, if not most, artworks.

Perhaps the most interesting difference between rasa theory and my account of art as dramatization con- cerns the notion of framing and the art/life relationship. I argue that dramatization involves "intense experience captured and shaped within a special formal frame" and that art's formal frames serve not only to focus, refine, and thus accentuate "the lived fervor" of the experience but also to demarcate it from "the rest of life," a bracketing that paradoxically further sharpens the "lived intensity" of the experience. Although these frames distinguish aesthetic experience from "the ordinary space of life," I do not think that they establish or reflect any fixed divide between art and life. Art is a real part of life, and our experiences of art are an important part of our real-life experiences and often possess "explosively vital life-feeling." I thus argue that art's framed diversion from "ordinary life" is but a wise "path of indirection that directs us back to experience life more fully.... [and] that the long-established art/life dichotomy... [is better understood as] a functional distinction that surely seems to dissolve with the idea of the art of living" (pp. 369-371). So when Ghosh affirms my idea of the frame as serving to make art "discontinuous with life around," I want to add that it also serves (through the overflowing power of aesthetic experience) in reconnecting art to life.

Although rasa theory clearly recognizes that art cannot be "totally away from our familiar world"

(since even the account of rasa is built on the emotional states or bhavas of ordinary life in general), it seems to insist on a much firmer division between art and life, sharply distinguishing between special art- emotions and "real life-feeling" (Ghosh, pp. 294). Rasa and the delight of aesthetic experience are often described as alaukika. This term is frequently ren- dered simply as "nonordinary" or "extraordinary," though Ghosh elsewhere also characterizes it as "'supernatural."12 Pragmatism likewise recognizes that aesthetic experience (in the most robust and positive sense of this term) is an extraordinary experience. But, acknowledging the underlying continuity between art and life, pragmatism sees the distinction between aesthetic experience and ordinary life experience not in terms of the having of a special kind of emotion essentially different from those of life (and certainly not in terms of supernatural emotions), but rather in terms of aesthetic experience being an inten- sification, refinement, and reshaping of qualities and feelings that exist in what we call ordinary life. (Ordinary life, we should remember, is itself full of formal, institutional frames and staged actions.)

In trying to clarify the differences between rasa theory and my account of art as dramatization, I may be magnifying some of these differences, which may, for the most part, be merely differences of emphasis or cultural temperament. I therefore want to close by affirming the striking convergences between pragmatist aesthetics and Indian rasa theory that Ghosh's paper perceptively raises and that may help bring aesthetic experience, feeling, drama, and pleasure back to the center stage of philosophy of art and help pro- mote the transcultural study of aesthetics.13

RICHARD SHUSTERMAN Department of Philosophy Temple University Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122

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1. Richard Shusterman, "Positivism: Legal and Aesthetic," Journal of Value Inquiry 16 (1982): 323, 324.

2. Richard Shusterman, Pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking Art (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), p. 39. My critique of the importance of the merely classificatory sense of art does not, of course, mean that I deny that "art" can be used in this sense; its being "parasitic" does not entail being unreal.

3. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, this issue. Page references to this paper appear parenthetically in the text.

4. G. B. Mohan Thampi, "'Rasa' as Aesthetic Experience," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 24 (1965): 75.



298 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

5. Ibid. Thampi adds, "The dictionary records, among others, the following meanings: Sap, juice, water, liquor, milk, poison, mercury, taste, savor, prime or finest part of anything, flavor, relish, love, desire, beauty ... and ... essence."

6. Chaudhury claims that "Rasa itself is not an emotion" but "a quality" of experience that has, however, emotion as a key determinant. See Pravas Jivan Chaudhury, "The Theory of Rasa," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 24 (1965): 145-149, citation p. 145.

7. See especially V. K. Chari, "Poetic Emotions and Poetic Semantics," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 34 (1976): 287-299, particularly 288-289.

8. Thampi, in defining rasa "as aesthetic experience," explains this experience as including the experience of the creative artist, the audience, and the objective experiential qualities embodied in the work itself. Abhinavagupta writes that "Rasa and emotion cannot be expressed directly through words, their essence being immediate experience" and Mammata (writing in the eleventh century) characterizes the rasa experience as "immediate higher pleasure." See Chaudhury, "The Theory of Rasa," p. 145.

9. For my treatment of these matters, see PragmatistAes- thetics, and more recently "The End of Aesthetic Experi- ence" and "Affect and Authenticity in Country Musicals" in Performing Live (Cornell University Press, 2000). My emphasis on these values has been criticized by Alexander Nehamas, in "Richard Shusterman on Pleasure and Aesthetic Experience," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (1998): 49-51.

10. Chaudhury, "The Theory of Rasa" p. 145; Thampi, "'Rasa' as Aesthetic Experience," pp. 78-79.

11. Chaudhury, "The Theory of Rasa," pp. 145 and 146; Chari, "Poetic Emotions and Poetic Semantics," p. 298

12. Ranjan Ghosh, "Artistic Communication and Symbol: Some Philosophical Reflections," The British Journal of Aesthetics 27 (1987): 321.

13. For discussion of some of the problems of transcultural philosophy, see the special issue on Internation- alism in Philosophy, Metaphilosophy 28 (1997), and Richard Shusterman, "Home Alone? Self and Other in Somaesthetics and Performing Live," Journal of Aesthetic Education.



definition, dramatization, and rasa

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