ERIC Number: EJ1018858
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2014
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1474-0222
EISSN: N/A
Bathing in Reeking Wounds: The Liberal Arts, Beauty, and War
Stimpson, Catharine R.
Arts and Humanities in Higher Education: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, v13 n1-2 p128-140 Feb-Apr 2014
A historic dialectic exists between the beautiful and the bestial. The bestial destroys the beautiful, but in a bloody miracle, the beautiful emerges from the womb of the bestial, the "terrible beauty" of which the poet W. B. Yeats wrote. The liberal arts, so often thought to dwell in a remote ivory tower, embody this dialectic. Wars and disasters have spurred their evolution. Even more important, the liberal arts are at once the dialectic's most energetic and sensitive explorers. Shakespeare's gory tragedy about war and warriors, " "Macbeth", is a springboard for such explorations, dramatizing a dialectic between war and love, destruction and redemption, savagery and poetry. We bathe in reeking wounds. Because of their diversity, liberal artisans, practitioners of the liberal arts, are now uniquely prepared to engage with this dialectic. They can also inoculate us against the diseases of the allure of war, blood lust, and propaganda.
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
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