Elevating Ugliness

            Since I'd gone to bed two hours early I woke up on Thursday at 2:00 and couldn't get back to sleep. I was able to lie restfully awake until 2:30, then it started to get uncomfortable. Finally at 3:00 I couldn’t stand it any longer and got up. I typed my thirty years ago journal and looked for an image. It took a long time to find the right one. I tried to go back to bed at 4:00 but still couldn’t sleep. I got up at 4:15 and posted the thirty year diary on my blog. I went back to bed at 4:40 and got up at 5:00 to do yoga. After yoga I finished the blogs and posted my daily tweet, then I went back to bed. 

            At 7:05 I got up for song practice. I don’t think I've ever sung and played guitar right after waking up. It was weird because I was still groggy. I did a shortened version of my rehearsal and will do so until my essay is done. Hopefully Friday will the last day I have to do that. 

            I returned to my essay a little after 8:00 and by 8:45 I had it down to 2014 words, which is 614 over. 

            I took a siesta from 9:30 to 11:00. 

            I weighed 88.6 kilos before lunch. I had peanuts, kettle chips and salsa. 

            I took a bike ride to Ossington and Bloor. 

            By 15:30 I was 473 words over in my essay. 

            I took a siesta from 15:45 to 16:45. 

            By 17:30 I was 417 words over in my essay. By 18:00 I was down to six pages and only 390 words over what I need. By 19:00 I was 343 words over the limit. By 19:30 I was 312 words over. 

            I weighed 88 kilos before dinner. By 20:30 I was 275 words over. I had a potato and half a can of peas with margarine, paprika and dill. By 22:00 I was 241 words over the limit. 

            I went to bed at 22:30. 

           I woke up on Friday at about 3:40 but I was able to say in bed until 5:00 without feeling uncomfortable. 

           I weighed 88.5 kilos before breakfast. 

           I returned to my essay at around 8:45, strongly hoping to finish it today. I was 220 words over the limit by 8:50. I was 202 over by 9:00. By 9:15 I was 171 words over. By 9:40 I was 154 over. I was 130 over by 10:10. I was 105 over by 10:30. By 10:45 I was down to five pages and only 88 words over the limit. 

            At 11:00 I tried to take a ninety minute siesta but I couldn’t sleep and so I just rested for half an hour to recharge my brain batteries. When I got up I turned the opening paragraph of my essay into my thesis statement which put me 90 words over the limit. But Word Count registers my citation page numbers as 51 words and so I was really only 39 words over. But we’re allowed to be 100 words over or under. 

            I weighed 88.3 kilos before lunch.

            I wrote a first draft of my essay overview, which put me way over the word count, so I’ll have to pare more of the paper down. 

            I took a bike ride to Ossington and Bloor and stopped at Freshco on my way back. As I was locking my bike a young woman finished locking hers and walked toward the store entrance. Then I saw her walking back and I realized that the store was closed because it’s Good Friday. 

            I rearranged some of the paragraphs of my essay and changed some of the first sentences to make them flow better together. I could have kept working on it for several days but I decided it was done late in the evening. I worked a bit on the citations until after midnight and then went to bed but I couldn’t sleep so I got up and did some more citations.

            I went to bed again at around 1:15 and though I still didn’t get much sleep I stayed there. 

            On Saturday I worked from about 9:00 until midday on completing all the citations for my essay and then I submitted it. 

            Here it is: 

             He was starving in some deep mystery like a man who is sure of what is true – L. Cohen 

     George Eliot’s False Realism Does Not Lie To Arrive at Beauty and so to Oscar Wilde it is Not Art

            Oscar Wilde’s theory of art as presented in his "The Critic As Artist” and “The Decline of Lying" can address George Eliot's arguments for reality in her novel Adam Bede and her essay “The Natural History of German Life". Eliot advocates a realistic depiction of peasant existence, and in exaggerating that reality she conforms to Wilde's insistence that the artist must lie. However as her distortions of the truth serve to emphasize the negatives of peasant life rather than elevating her subject to beauty, she ultimately fails Wilde’s criteria of artistry. 

            We first look at how George Eliot wants to represent the reality of peasant life in contrast to pastoral representations; but this is also a reality different from how the peasants think of themselves, which she believes is with a group consciousness void of middle class virtues until social conditions are improved. To effect social change she advocates art that represents only the most pathetic conditions of peasant life. Oscar Wilde argues this is bad art because it is without beauty and he insists that all subjects in art must be transformed into their own higher states of being. 

            Eliot wants to show her middle class readers the reality of peasant life and so first she must disassociate the peasant from traditional images of happy rustics in pastoral settings (Eliot 3). But she also must not make them too familiar for the reader and so she creates a distance in proximity that is maintained by the tension between vulgarity and sympathy. When the peasant is shown to be living next door to the middle class consciousness, this closeness of quarters allows the reader to more forcefully other him because he can now be sympathized with or scorned through a closely constructed social barrier. 

            This model of peasant life is not meant to be viewed by the underclasses because they are the subject contained like flora and fauna in a terrarium on the desks of the middle class (Eliot 10, 22-23). Readers look in and down upon a fantasized world that is augmented by the fetish of authenticity, like a literary Roman holiday that is expected to be as genuine as possible." 

            In Eliot’s view this transparent barrier between the classes is partially composed by the peasants’ own social habits. She believes they value these customs more than the “tender affection” that is the emotional currency of the more “refined" levels of society (Eliot 12, 13, 14–15). But Oscar Wilde argues that separation by social rank is an illusion, as all the castes are united in a common vulgarity from which only the artist stands apart (Wilde 2807). 

            Eliot admits that separation from the peasants makes her an outsider who can know very little about them (Eliot 3). Any declarations she can make as to why the peasants are different from her own class are in danger of being untrue. For example, her devaluating claim that they are “as like each other in thoughts and habits as sheep or oysters (Eliot 8-9).” She also concludes that this is a necessary characteristic of their class, but Wilde argues for “the development of the individual” even among peasants (Wilde 2944). 

            Eliot sees the rustics as unjustifiably outside “of our religion and philosophy”. But her use of “our” suggests that faith and love of knowledge are the possessions of the privileged which render them as more virtuous, refined in sentiment and charitable than the peasants. Eliot’s theory is that it is impossible for the poor to possess these qualities as long as they suffer from harsh social conditions (Eliot 6, 21). Wilde argues that improved circumstances only produce physical health, but do not enrich the mind. He thinks that if the poor were surrounded by beauty it would ennoble, inspire and elevate their consciousness. For this to occur “art is required” to build critical temperament and aesthetic instinct (Wilde 2832, 3039). He says art should elevate nature to meaningful archetypes, such as heroic peasants, but Eliot requires that the poor be seen as weak, defeated and ugly (Eliot 3). 

            Throughout Eliot’s descriptions of peasants, ugliness and the lack of grace are conspicuous. Although she admits that some members of the upper classes are unlovely, the equivalent fraction is not extended to peasants. Her inability to perceive beauty in the lower classes but only homeliness with which she feels “delicious sympathy” suggests a kind of perverse fascination and some degree of schadenfreude (Eliot 479). The lesson is that the unattractiveness of these grotesque “heavy clowns” with their camel like “rounded backs” and humourless “stupid weather beaten faces” is due to their unfair treatment by society (Eliot 483). 

            Eliot’s social goal is to link rather than to merge the classes and the role of art toward achieving this is to portray the downtrodden in their most pathetic states of existence in dark and sparse surroundings (Eliot 5). Creative ability must selectively diminish reality with exaggeration that leans heavily on the scales of peasant hardship for the public’s sympathetic awareness. She dislikes William Holman Hunt’s “The Hireling Shepherd" because the young man and woman in the painting are shown to be beautiful and contented (Eliot 3; Hunt). The image is no less real than the stark peasant genre paintings of “crapulous boors" that she prefers for their truthfulness (Eliot 3-5). But Wilde would say that such attempts to mirror nature produce bad art that has been sterilized of beauty. They rob the subject of reality “by trying to make it too true (Wilde 2802).” He asks of these dark, and unhappy paintings, “what do they tell us of greatness (Wilde 2847)?" 

            Eliot insists that art that depicts the poor must tell us of the greatness of their misfortune. It “must extend our sympathies” to “surprise ... the selfish” into paying “attention to what is apart from themselves” so they can begin to grow “moral sentiment (Eliot 5).” She believes that we must “be taught to feel” pity for the unheroic artisan and the unsentimental peasant by the art that represents them (Eliot 6). Her program of teaching the middle class how to feel about the poor is a type of social propaganda. She is afraid that the reality of sometimes happy, “heroic” and “sentimental” peasants would cause the public to ignore the horrible conditions in which the majority of peasants live, and destroy the sympathy for the miserable that she hopes to engender. Their loathsome appearance and surroundings must be emphasized to serve as visible symbols of the great misfortunes under which they live. But Wilde argues that “one does not see anything until one sees its beauty (Wilde 2842)” and so in representing the peasant as ugly Eliot is advocating for a subject that is ironically invisible to her. 

            Also beyond Eliot’s perception is the intelligence of the peasant. She does not think that the “coarsely apathetic" unprincipled clown has the intellectual capacity for head work or for cooperation with his peers to organize politically (Eliot 17). He does not produce or enjoy witty conversation nor imaginative ideas, and his only equivalent is to get drunk with his fellow oafs (Eliot 4, 10, 14). Eliot acknowledges a cornucopia of suffering in baseborn life while at the same time ignoring the rich tapestry of folklore that the uncultivated masses laid down as the foundation of our literature. Wilde's response is that it is easy to have sympathy with suffering but difficult “to have sympathy with thought (Wilde 3019).” Unlike Eliot, he does not automatically connect class to quality of temperament and mental ability. He distinguishes between the two, giving less weight to inherited privilege and more to superiority of character and intellect (Wilde 2837). Eliot is the type of novelist who Wilde says “develops a morbid and unhealthy faculty of truth-telling that results in improbability (Wilde 2802).” Her efforts to achieve what John Ruskin calls “truth to nature” arrive instead at what he describes as characters that are like the garbage left behind after passengers have disembarked from a public bus (Wilde 2807). Eliot is rubbing our faces in vulgarity and if she was really interested in truth to nature she would allow the poor to be represented sometimes as beautiful. 

            Wilde says the “spirit of art” lies in achieving beauty through “exaggeration, selection, and intensified over-emphasis (Wilde 2817).” Eliot on the other hand selects, over emphasizes and exaggerates the absence of beauty. Her exaggerations serve the awakening of "social sympathies (Eliot 6),” but Wilde would tell her that for peasants to be a subject in art they “must be translated into artistic conventions” and imagined as more than real. As life imitates art the result will be that the peasants will become in reality physically and mentally beautiful (Wilde 2857). 

            Works Cited 

Eliot, George. Adam Bede. EPUB, Penguin, 2008, pp. 475-496. 

Eliot, George. The Natural History of German Life. HathiTrust, pdf, pp. 2-30. 

Hunt, William Holman. “The Hireling Shepherd.”

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hireling_Shepherd, 23 February, 2021. 

Wilde, Oscar. “The Critic As Artist." The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, EPUB, Harper Collins,

            2010, pp. 2909-3065. 

Wilde Oscar. “The Decay of Lying." The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, EPUB, Harper Collins,

            2010, pp. 2792-2862. 

            It must be hard work for a TA to have to track down all the different sources that students use outside of the recommended course package. For instance, I used The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde ebook for two of my sources and so I assume Carson will have to acquire that ebook in order to mark my paper. 

            Once I’d handed it in I headed down to Freshco where the only few firm grapes they had was globe grapes with seeds and so I only got two bags. I also bought blueberries, five year old cheese, kettle chips, ground beef, milk, eggs, bacon, yogourt, and paper towels. 

            Freshco suddenly has baskets again. Last time I was told that the baskets were a Covid health risk but I guess enough people complained. 

            When I got home my neighbour Benji came out in the hall to complain about the new lockdown keeping us from getting haircuts. Benji had one high lick iof white hair sticking up on top of his head like an antenna. I guess maybe I’ll be able to get a cut before my birthday at the end of next month. 

            I went to Freedom Mobile to pay for my April phone service. There was a new young guy alone at the desk and he surprised me by saying, “I TOTALLY like your hair!” My hair is still not long enough for it to not stick out from a pony tail so either he was bullshitting or he has weird taste in hairstyles. He also said he liked my name “Christian Christian”. I had been worried that I would be turned away from paying there because last month I was told I could only pay online but they made an exception. This time there was no problem. 

            I went to No Frills where I bought two pints of strawberries, cheap old cheddar, soy milk, yogourt, skyr, orange juice and lemonade. 

            I got back $10 change and I was holding it as I walked to pack my stuff. A woman sitting directly in front of me held out her hand for the bill and then laughed. When I was unlocking my bike she walked by and said, “Have a good day sir!” 

            I had peanut butter on Bavarian sandwich bread with lemonade for lunch. 

            I shaved and found a cold sore under my beard. Why do I never find money? 

            I watched the instructional video for the outline of our exam on April 12-13. I was hoping we’d have 24 hours to do the test but it’s a 27 hour window to write an exam with a time limit of three hours. Once again I’m worried about my typing speed. It didn’t do any good to complain about it in the fall, so I can only bring it up if I get an unfair mark. 

            I had the last of the bean packets that I’d gotten last year from the food bank. Since they don’t taste great by themselves I first sautéed some onions with dried crushed chili peppers, added the beans and then piri piri sauce. I had it with a piece of toast and a beer while watching Andy Griffith. 

            In this story Opie and his friend lose a baseball inside an old house that people say is haunted. When they go to the door they hear howling inside and run away. They tell Andy and Andy says for Barney to go get the baseball, but he’s afraid and gets Gomer to come along. They hear howling as well and also run away. Finally Andy takes them both back. They go inside and Andy finds the baseball but he decides to look around. Gomer disappears behind a secret panel and Barney until Gomer reappears, saying someone pushed him out. Barney sees the eyes of the painting of the former owner of the house following him. The man is said to have been an axe murderer. Andy knocks on the wall and it knocks back, then he says, “Let’s get out of here!” After they leave Otis and a bootlegger named Big Jack Anderson appear from behind the panel. Jack’s been running a still in the basement and making the place appear haunted to keep people away. Suddenly they see an axe floating in the air and they run. Andy has tied strings to the axe and he’s making it move from upstairs. Andy catches Big Jack.