Angelic Knight Press: William Cook

Angelic Knight Press: William Cook: "http://3cagency.blogspot.com/ William Cook has a wonderful way with descriptive words, planting a tried and true visual in ones mind, c..."

Dark World Tirade





1.


It is a hostile & balmy atmosphere everywhere injustice reigns.  There is violence on every street-corner, in every home, in every heart & mind. People split into packs like wild dogs & lions, armed with knives, guns, clubs. Cults recruit vast armies who are searching for the right belief the salvation but all the while, famine, disease, & confusion reign the streets, roaming & slaying like huge black worms of energy, effusing the city in rising tides of blood.
Today has become a sick & diseased perversion of a body that once burned with life instead of death. Scenes from all parts of the world flood the TV screens with death & carnage, sickness, cruelty; sinful flesh eating orgies of hate & greed . . .  & so we were warned with our eyes, many years ago. The city begins to crumble & suck us into its vortex in a divine lesson of justice & revenge.
We have joined hands with death & sin, never now to let go, while beyond the burning rubble & decay, the black clouds part for an instant & a blinding light emanates in throbbing rings of energy. A beautiful woman cloaked in sun smiles softly & wipes a crystal tear from her fair cheek, turning back into the shimmering phosphorescence. There is an impression of great purity, yet great evil beyond comprehension. Emancipation somehow seems so far from this place & time, yet I have seen a tree on a mountaintop that is so large & green, that I can think or see of nothing else.


2.


I stand at a filthy shop window, looking through the smeared & murky glass, I see a frame & in that frame I see life trapped, in a dirty glass soul-box. I see liberty coveting oppression, hate, greed, violence, control. I see the whole of humankind linking arms in abandonment & themselves. I see them with bared teeth, lips curled back, eyes burning blood red, face-to-face killing, raping, hating, each other. They cannot talk, nor hear, nor see their own reflections.
Behind me a flash of light & above the noise of the hungry city streets I hear the low belly thunder pushing out the clouds. The rain starts pelting the cars & newspaper shields of citizens, swearing, cursing, heads down some fall in the slippery litter-blocked gutters, cracking their heads on the pavement as they exclaim Jesus!
I watch them fall, like burst balloons they crumple & spread their blood across the dirty asphalt. I look into one mans eyes as he rolls over, his black hair stuck wetly to his chalk forehead, dark blood spread like chocolate across his face, his white teeth glistening, chattering. His eyes fill with rain like pools of crimson tears, glazed like cherries, he jerks & slumps, staring up at the churning sky. 
I begin to walk, the air being sucked from my chest, all around I see trees sprouting from drains, from cracks in the footpath, from balcony windowsills plants, moss, ivy, vines, leaves, grass burst across the street in front of me, scurrying up grey concrete & red brick walls  .  .  .  as the people continue to drop, scratching at bleeding throats, & weeping blisters, broken bones peeking through skin, black-rimmed eyes with no pupils, falling, falling, fallen, like mange-ridden dogs on all fours yelping, barking in pain & contortion. The green blanket of vegetation covers everything for an instant like a shroud, enveloping their writhing forms, constricting, devouring, renewing, living. Oily silver minnows begin to rain from the sky, bouncing off the street like taut pieces of thin chrome the green vines twist through & under their pelting brilliance as if hungry for some feast of fish the clattering of flopping fish & the rustle of procreation is almost deafening I close my eyes, hands over ears . . .  


3.


I keep walking, vaguely bemused; is this a dream? Am I alive? Naked couples copulate in doorway shadows, screaming, snorting, convulsing, singing strange songs of joyful celebration in their unhappy bonds of coitus, tearing flesh as they break their desperate bones against each other. I turn away in time to see a nude man, pale, skinny, dishevelled, climb the steel back of a neon sign buzzing in the rain. He stands on top of the sign; it advertises some product in the shape of a cross. He climbs down on to its face & drops onto the small platform in front of it. It has white lights that pop & switch on & off around its ϯ shape. He unscrews the bulbs, throwing each one in an arc over his left shoulder, bouncing them off the side of the office building & smashing down on the slick street.
A small crowd has gathered below, staring expressionlessly, blankly, up at the naked man. Black, white, brown, blue, pink, mustard, coloured faces melt together as they begin a slow clapping chant:  --- Mary! Mary! quite contrary, how does your garden grow? Mary! Mary! quite contrary .  .  . The pitiful man has now turned to look down on the crowd; his ribs cast shadows in the sickly light of the remaining neon bulbs. He looks to the sky, silhouette framed in light & the signs red background. Looks at the crowd blankly, his toothless, sunken skinny face, smiles. Thumbs up, arms out stretched, he starts singing along with the crowds new hymn Mary! Mary! quite contrary, how does your garden grow? Mary! Mary! quite contrary .  .  .   then he thrusts his bony thumbs into the crackling black sockets of the neon sign . . .
Fire incinerates his jumping form, like a thin tree he crackled, sending sparkling showers of sparks & ash up & out across the crowd, twisting & turning, then burning out in the whirling wind & rain. I looked at their blank faces; they were covered in a sooty mask of what looked like mud or clay. They continued to clap, now humming, quietly.
I climbed down from my vantage point & walked to the next block, stepping across bodies, clambering across car bonnets, over steaming man-hole covers. The sky was growing dark; all the lights dully gleamed like pearls of oil, a long straight street with black doorways spilling filth into the light of city night. Nude women, naked men, fondling, groping, leering, prancing, grinding each other against graffiti covered walls of peeling newsprint & brick, amidst twitching piles of trash & broken glass, dead rats & cats, stumbling blind dogs with three legs urinating everywhere, a man dressed in a silver suit made from broken mirrors, smiles at me his face is greasy with perspiration his mirror hat tilted toward my face so my eyes are sitting above his A girl, a guy, a thing, a thang, an it, a bitch, a child, a frog, a toy, a gun, a hook .  .  . he paused for a second, looking this way & that, his eyeballs swivelling madly in his dripping skull, reaching behind the face on his lapel & pulling out a cross? he asked. I turned on my heel & walked deliberately, slowly, languidly, down the hall of ancient mirrors on deaths dark boulevard plucking a green bottle, from the grimy hands of a broken-down bum propped up against a rotting mule – drinking deep of that refreshing draught that was poison.


4.


I looked at the passing forms & they too were lost in consumption, swigging from dark bottles of jolly-roger juice, smiling at the city with lust in their eyes & happiness in their wayward hearts. The night took over, I smashed my bottle against the gutter, its foul liquid evaporating in a steaming pool of nothing, all lights went out & I found myself on the other side of morning. On the side of the highway, the red sun bleeding through the cobalt dawn, the brown aura of loss concealed the dying breed of flesh-eaters & saints.
Cars droned past while I sat & looked back on whence I had come. Faces pressed against the glass of their windows, naked, staring straight ahead gunning their engines across the swaying steel bridge that leaves this place. Grasping clubs, machetes, rocks   smeared with blood, war paint their exodus determined by the liquid fuel of self-determination. Dragging broken, scraped, grated, bodies on lengths of steel rope & chains behind their wagons. The dismembered bodies of castrated males wearing rosary beads some strangled with them leaving a bloody trail like engine oil behind their sputtering, speeding, steeds.
The people were revolting against polarities of power that kept the barking dogs of apocalypse at bay in fear. A great evil had burnt itself into the minds of those with the means to end it all. Empires crumbled under the weight of a new morality of survival & insanity. Dichotomous choice became ingrained in the perception of the masses: things were black or white, give or take, live or die, hell or heaven. A juxtaposition of sanity, a great meddling of the senses bred tiny monsters that gnawed at the soul & the very essence of humanitys last ounce of self-control. A moral was a badge you wore, a uniform of dissent, a rifle or pipe bomb in your clenched fist a thumping in the chest. 




What do you reckon, take it fu/arther?

FERTILIZER



Tom Berry had the best vegetables on the estate. He kept a quiet garden, buried under a shady tree that hid it from the neighbours’ view. Raised bed with solid Oregon timber beams: turnips, sweet potato, prize-winning-sized carrots and pumpkin in the winter [?] months. Folks on the impoverished housing estate called him Old Tom. No-one really knew him as Tom Berry, Retired & disgraced Dr. Tom Berry. But there he was, Dr. Tom Berry, retired Head of the Research Dept at the University of Anatomy in the Deep South. Old little bent scarecrow of a man in his grey Anorak and Black Rubber Boots, looking like a Nazi War Criminal. He would sit perched in his window seat and scan the street below, writing descriptions of the local thugs as they sold their wares and loitered in the trash-filled gutter. He was given a wide berth by the mostly-black residents who dividedly thought he was either a child-molester, or someone on the witness-protection- programme. So he kept to himself and pretty soon became part of the grey concrete surroundings. As far as anyone knew nobody had a garden or had attempted to grow one on the estate, apart from a few trees and shrubs at the rear of people’s properties that existed without human help, everything was concrete. But Tom had silently broken up the concrete patch of yard at the rear of his house, under the cover of a ragged hedge-of-a plant that grew in the alley that ran parallel to Tom’s high fence. He drove to the outskirts of town in a hired small covered-truck. He returned in the middle of the night and parked under the smashed streetlight outside the entrance to his apartment on the ground floor. If anyone had seen him they would have been surprised at the old man’s strength, as he lugged the retaining beams for the vege-garden down the side of the two-storey unit, stacking them neatly under a black tarpaulin. He later used the black tarpaulin to cover the garden from the elements and neighbours prying eyes. After a while, word got out amongst his neighbours that he had a pretty successful vege-patch right under their noses. Dr. Berry saw this coming and appeared within a matter of minutes on each doorstep within the visible vicinity and presented them with a shopping bag full of fresh vegetables. His plan seemed to have backfired as pretty soon every mother’s son was queuing up for Old Tom’s fresh ‘organic’ vegetables.








The Consumption of Katherine Mansfield - William Cook


I. Dragging Mansfield Out of the Closet

The varied critical debate about Katherine Mansfield’s sexuality seems more of a biographically inclined criticism about her lifestyle, rather than her literature. Such criticism also tends to construct a reflection of the various political agendas of the critics, who carry out these treatments. Therefore, I will try to refrain from making any judgements about Mansfield’s sexual preference/s, and look at some select examples of the type of criticism that focuses more on Mansfield the ‘lesbian’, or ‘bisexual’, than on Mansfield the ‘writer’. I will treat these issues alongside relevant aspects of Mansfield’s life and literature.

The focus is primarily on the arguments of two feminist critics: Sydney Janet Kaplan and Alison Laurie. Both attempt to decode Mansfield's sexuality by analysing her influences and experiences, in the context of a repressive patriarchal society. A common thread that will guide my discussion, and that of the critics, will be the relationship of the influence of the ‘decadents’, in particular Oscar Wilde, on Mansfield’s life, sexuality, and art. I will also attempt to show the influence and biases present in her critics’ reactions, to issues of sexuality in Mansfield’s personal life, and in her writing. 

From a male perspective of Mansfield's art, Vincent O’Sullivan’s essay, The Magnetic Chain: Notes and Approaches to K.M., analyses her work by interpreting the symbolism; her (‘decadent’) influences, and the probability of her lesbianism under the title of ‘bisexuality’. He claims that “as a young woman (and to some extent all her life) Mansfield was bisexual. Its early appearance comes often in that ornate language she took from Wilde.” In this quote, we see O’Sullivan’s recognition that Mansfield's artistic ideals developed from Wilde’s ideas, manifesting themselves in her life and sexuality. In this respect, Kaplan’s view of Mansfield’s “bisexual nature” is empathetic toward O’Sullivan’s argument. I agree with O’Sullivan, concerning Wilde’s effect on Mansfield’s art and life, but I do not want to attempt my own definition of her sexuality. I will however, use O’Sullivan’s ideas (as well as my own), as a counter-claim to argue the limitations and strengths of the two radically different feminist viewpoints.

The influence of Oscar Wilde and ‘decadence’, on Katherine Mansfield, was profoundly significant in the development of her aesthetic ideals and literary practice. Both Kaplan and Laurie accept this (whilst not necessarily endorsing it). Her ideals, garnished with Wilde’s own concepts, were useful, yet problematic in the development of her identity and sexuality. While there was a profoundly positive influence on her growth and strengths as an artist, there was also a negative aspect to the effects of that ascendancy in her personal life. As she herself wrote in a candid letter of confession to a ‘friend’:

In New Zealand Wilde acted so strongly and terribly upon me that I was constantly subject to exactly the same fits of madness as those which caused his ruin and mental decay. When I am miserable now – these recur. Sometimes I forget all about it – then with awful recurrence it bursts upon me again and I am quite powerless to prevent it – This is my secret from the world and from you – Another shares it with me, . . . For she, too is afflicted with the same terror – We used to talk of it knowing that it w[oul]d eventually kill us, render us insane or paralytic – all to no purpose – It’s funny that you and I have never shared this – and I know you will understand why. Nobody can help –it has been going on now since I was 18 and it was the reason for Rudolf’s death. I read it in his face today. I think my mind is morally unhinged and that is the reason – I know it is a degradation so unspeakable that – one perceives the dignity in pistols.

Sydney Janet Kaplan suggests in her essay, The Problem of Oscar Wilde, that this letter of Mansfield’s “gives clear and painful evidence of the ways that society’s ingrained homophobia finally overcame her.” Other critics like Alison Laurie suggest emphatically that “the context within which Mansfield saw her lesbianism . . . was that of Oscar Wilde and other [?] male homosexuals; she saw her feelings as an abnormal and shameful perversion which would lead to insanity.” The title of Laurie’s essay, Katherine Mansfield – A Lesbian Writer, leaves no doubt as to her beliefs about Mansfield’s sexuality.

Although Mansfield continually wrote in her Journals and Letters of romantic liaisons with men as well as women, which would indicate bisexuality, Laurie denies any critic outside the realm of her critique, the luxury of such logical claims. She states that “lesbian writers, lesbian writing and lesbian readings can be addressed only within the context of lesbian – feminist theory.” She sees ‘bisexuality’ as an invalid notion, a “simplistic and inaccurate” socially acceptable label, used to trivialise lesbian relationships. Laurie also uses the letter (quoted above) to show “the context within which Mansfield saw her lesbianism. It was that of Oscar Wilde and other homosexuals [like “Rudolf”]; she saw her feelings as an abnormal and shameful perversion which would lead to insanity”. Toward the end of this essay, I will address the strengths and limits of Laurie’s critical judgements in relation to this issue.

Kaplan and Laurie, both tend to focus on the relationship between homosexuality (particularly Wilde’s) and influence. This has the effect that Mansfield's sexual experience is seen as the primary centre around which her life revolves. Consequently, the criticism focuses on sexuality as crucial to understanding her work. Sexuality is not considered as ‘just a part of life’ in this respect, it is seen as the biggest part of Mansfield’s identity. I feel that the treatment of such issues does not give us a greater enjoyment in the reading of the fictional short stories.

Whilst it may provide reasons why Mansfield conveyed ambivalent sexuality and gender sensibilities, in the majority of her compelling characters, it does not add to our appreciation of the fiction itself. The mystery of Mansfield’s characters, both male and female, is what compels the questions no doubt. However, the question must be asked if the same compulsion to determine the author’s own character would have occurred, if her Journals and Letters were not as well written (and available), and provocative, as her prose. In order to place the criticism in context we must look at the reasons (which are largely biographical in detail), why the critics I discuss, believe what they believe about Mansfield’s sexuality.


2. The Immoral Influence

“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”
WILLIAM BLAKE

“While there were many times when I rejoiced in the idea that my sufferings were to be endless, I could not bear them to be without meaning. Now I find hidden somewhere away in my nature something that tells me that nothing in the whole world is meaningless and suffering least of all. That something hidden away in my nature, like a treasure in a field, is Humility.”
OSCAR WILDE from De Profundis


‘Humility’ was a characteristic of Katherine Mansfield’s life and art. Whilst never losing her strong sense of aestheticism, her work reflects an image of one who was too aware of her own mortality, to ever consider herself above the ordinary characters that she wrote about. While she had empathy with her character’s and other writers, Mansfield’s work and life was renowned for the sense of loneliness it conveyed.

Whether this isolation and loneliness was intended or not, driven by her sexuality and/or art, it flavours Mansfield’s work with a profundity of depth that is characteristic of modernist literature. The sense of loneliness and suffering, conveyed through the characters of her stories, gives an impression of the trials she endured through her short life, along the route of her commitment to art. Her identification with the decadent Oscar Wilde, seemed to cause Mansfield a great deal of mental anguish as she tried to fulfil the aesthetic prophecies of her idol, through her own conscious experiments with decadent sexual behaviour and aestheticism.

Whilst Wilde’s example carried with it a risqué ‘anxiety of influence’ for Mansfield, it also served as a liberating model for her own self expression and sexuality. The freedom she sought in Wilde’s ‘immoral’ influence could only take her down the same path of martyrdom and struggle. Resulting, from similar excesses, in a symbolic incarceration of disease and misfortune, that was far from the desired form of liberty she sought. Kaplan, from a feminist perspective, suggests the dangers of Wilde’s influence on Mansfield’s being, particularly upon her ‘womanhood’:

Although Wilde provided her with the impetus to seek experience, to express sexuality and not deny the body, following such advice proved dangerous, as her later pregnancies, abortion, and related illnesses gave sad evidence. Moreover, the call to burn oneself out for experience, to destroy the body in service to art, and all those other exaggerated aesthetic poses were intended rather to suggest a certain kind of masculine initiation into art.

Whilst Kaplan’s feminist reading attributes an immoral influence to Wilde, that is ‘masculine’ in nature, she points out that we should not “assume that Mansfield’s innovations are attributable primarily to literary influence[s].” This may well be true of Mansfield’s literary innovations and style, but yet Kaplan also deals largely with the fact that Mansfield’s character and ideas were influenced, more so than by any other, by Oscar Wilde. Kaplan relays Mansfield’s early sexual experience and identification as a woman, as being negative because a male model of sexuality (the homosexuality of Wilde) encouraged it. This is one of the few weak points that I found in Kaplan’s argument.

Kaplan’s strong feminist view of stereotypical notions of gender, is contradictory in this instance; because of her own political notions expressed as to what a feminist should be and how a woman should act. Here Kaplan herself conforms, and subsequently supports, stereotypical assertions about gender related notions concerning experience and emotion i.e., that aggressive, self-sacrificial behaviour, and artistic idealism are ‘masculine’ in nature, and therefore not suitable as ‘feminine’ artistic and sexual prerogatives.

Combining select ideals with her own philosophy and the urge to create, Mansfield refused to exist within archetypal models of belief and practice. This useful ambivalence is as much a part of her character and style, as is her humility. Using impressionism, symbolism, imagism, realism, and other aesthetic concepts of practice, she developed an aesthetic style that was a fusion of imagination, influence, experience, and eclecticism. Her rebellion within conventional models of society and literary tradition, which were predominantly male dominated, suggests a strong feminist sense of self that had to be aggressive to ‘make it new’ and to develop her own identity and personal freedom.

 Mansfield’s rebellious nature led to trial and tribulation that was on a par with Wilde’s own suffering. His maxim that “life imitates art far more than art imitates life” (from The Decay of Living), fuelled the fire of Mansfield’s imagination and her complete involvement in the creation of experience and disposition as an ‘artist’. This conscious and motivating desire led her life to become as aesthetic and stylised as her work. The symbiotic relationship between the artist’s life and the her work, may not have been as profoundly relevant, to her stories and to criticism, if it were not for the extent of personal literature that is available about Mansfield. Her fiction enveloped fact, and vice versa, as Mansfield’s body of works (her fiction) coupled with the body of her being (personal life).

Distance, between reader and writer, diminishes because of the carefully constructed realism of her fiction and the relation of her fiction to her personal experience (as described in her published Letters and Journals). It is interesting that both Kaplan and Laurie do not address the validity of Katherine’s personal writing. They never dispute the factuality of her highly romantic personal style. Just because Mansfield’s journals and letters are available, does not mean that they are untainted by the fictional fingers of their author.

The importance of art to Mansfield seems to be diminished and underwritten by the critics I discuss in this essay. They tend to focus their criticism on determining her sexuality, through the filter of Wilde’s homosexual escapades, in a sort of symbolic trial that parallels his own. Except in the case of Katherine Mansfield, there seems to be no conviction forthcoming. One thing that stands out for me in my reading of Wilde, Mansfield, and her critics, is that ‘art’ was the supreme and most constant influence on her life. As Wilde is so much a part of the criticism I will use him to sum up the power of the influence of art on the imagination: “I treated art as the supreme reality and life as a mere mode of fiction. I awoke the imagination of my century so that it created myth and legend around me . . . I became the spendthrift of my genius and to waste an eternal youth gave me a curious joy.”


3. The Mask of Ambivalence

The façade, for Mansfield, was an important means of both identity and protection. This applied not only to her persona, but also to her sense of style and aestheticism. The importance of character development and personal identity, within her stories and her own life, caused Mansfield to try on many different ‘masks’ of character and experience. Alison Laurie believes that the most transparent mask Mansfield wore throughout her life, was that of the heterosexual. She used this ‘mask’ to disguise her identity as a lesbian, and she did this because of the “patriarchal ideologies of gender” that forced her into a ‘theatrical’ state of pretence. 

Laurie discusses Mansfield’s position as a “lesbian writer”, in relation to negative social views of homosexuality (both male and female) within the context of early twentieth century history. She also looks at the reasons for and behind Mansfield’s renowned multiplicity of character, citing select examples to support her claim that Mansfield’s lesbianism was the cause of assumed identities and deliberate heterosexual relations. Laurie implies that nearly every man, whom Mansfield had more than fleeting relationships with in her life, was homosexual. In fact, she states that the main evidence for this claim lies between the pages of Mansfield's Letters, which Laurie sees as “theatrical” disguises that try to mask her true but “secret and marginal self”:

Mansfield constructed the fiction of a heterosexual self, engaged in romantic relationships with men such as Garnet Trowell and John Middleton Murry. She then attempted unsuccessfully to translate her own romantic construction into heterosexual reality . . . Many other women of her time also concealed their lesbianism . . . most lesbians learn to live double lives, and to deceive at least some of the people around them, because they fear the consequences of exposure. I see Mansfield’s romantic letters to men as theatrical presentations of various identities, which are acceptably heterosexual, despite their flamboyant and made-up quality (pp. 213 – 214).


Laurie dismisses all other accounts of Mansfield’s heterosexual abandon as negative (if she even mentions them at all). I feel that Laurie’s argument is weakened by the narrow focus of her political agenda, which is in proving that Mansfield was a lesbian. Another flaw is her uncompromising view that same-sex relationships are ‘normal’ and heterosexuality is somehow an archetypal social construct characterised by homophobia. She also relies heavily on Mansfield’s life long relationship with Ida Baker (or LM) as more evidence of her Lesbianism. Although she admits the lack of factual proof of such a relationship, she implies that the love Mansfield expressed for her closest friend was lesbian in nature. While there is a lack of definitive proof about LM and KM’s sexual relationship, Laurie insists that “the absence of such information does not provide evidence that a lesbian relationship did not exist”(p. 220). 

While there seems to be much contradiction and conjecture in Laurie’s essay, I feel that she makes some insightful comments about Mansfield’s difficulty with relationships and the effect of her terminal illness on her friendship with Ida Baker. She also points out Mansfield’s early identification of death and tragedy with homosexuality. The death by suicide of her young homosexual friend, Rudolf, obviously had a profound effect on Mansfield. In relation to her secrets of sexuality and decadence and the connection between Wilde’s suffering and Rudolf’s, she is obviously greatly troubled by her own connections. She exclaims that “Wilde acted so strongly and terribly upon me that I was constantly subject to exactly the same fits of madness as those which caused his ruin and his mental suffering . . . and it was the reason for Rudolf’s death” (p. 219). 

Like Kaplan, Laurie suggests that this letter is evidence of Mansfield’s context in which she sees her ‘lesbianism’. It is the best case Laurie puts forward to support her argument. The letter is highly emotional and personally subjective; it links figures of homosexuality with her own anxiety, and it expresses a moral dilemma that seems to point toward despair because of a “degradation so unspeakable”, that Mansfield felt she had to keep it secret. The letter is interesting, as it seems so obvious, because of the links between sexual identities, that the secret of Mansfield’s is that she too is homosexual. Yet, the letter remains highly ambivalent because of its suggestive nature; she is not explicit and for a letter that is meant to be opened after her death, it is not exactly a Pandora’s box of definitive personal revelation. 

Laurie believes that the letter was intended for Mansfield’s ex-husband, George Bowden, to explain her lesbianism, “because she believed that he was, like her, a homosexual” (p. 219). Laurie also disputes C. K. Stead’s claim that Mansfield had previously given Bowden cause to believe she was a lesbian. She dismisses Stead’s suggestion as a “typical trivialising heterosexist device”. She bases her conclusion on her political agenda and in doing so she neglects the fact that Bowden had indeed acknowledged Mansfield’s sexual ambivalence, in a letter to Mansfield’s father: “The lady I married, though of excellent and well-to-do people, and herself of some literary reputation, was sexually unbalanced and at times was irresponsible, although at others perfectly normal”(p. 219). Why would Mansfield need to write a letter (as encoded as it was) explaining her sexuality, to someone whom was already aware and obviously forgiving of her sexual identity? Like the letter, the question is as ambivalent and elusive, as is a definition of Mansfield’s sexual identity. 

Laurie’s analysis, along with Kaplan’s, of Mansfield’s sexual identity, in her writing and in her personal life, contain references to Oscar Wilde and the ‘decadent’ nature of her own sexuality. Like Mansfield’s life and art, his influence is present in the criticism also. Wilde’s notorious ‘homosexuality’ and ‘decadent’ philosophies affect the critic’s treatment of Mansfield’s sexuality, by making ‘it’ the connecting experiential factor, between her and her mentor. Rather than her profound sense of aestheticism and artistic ideals, which I feel Wilde influenced more than her sexual preferences, sexuality has become the compelling life force that these critics try to wring out of Mansfield's cadaver. It is almost as if, because Wilde influenced her literary art, and was present in her personal writing (which so many critics treat as non-fictional doctrine), then therefore the crossover between fictional and factual worlds must become the bridge to deciphering Mansfield the person, rather than Mansfield the writer. That ‘bridge’ being Wilde’s most infamous claim to fame, his homosexuality. In other words, the critic becomes a juror, in the trial of the defendant’s character, in relation to a case of crime by association.


Photos Source: Wikimedia Commons 

NOTES:

Ibid, pp. 41 – 59, in particular, see p. 52 in relation to O’Sullivan’s perception of Mansfield’s sexual disposition.

See Sydney Janet Kaplan’s, Katherine Mansfield and the Origins of Modernist Fiction (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 25 – 26, 36 – 37, 88, and 169 – 70.

The mystery and ambivalence that surrounds Mansfield's life, sexuality, and art, is the perfect foil for contemporary feminist critics of socio-political cultural theory. In the process of such politicised critique, we unfortunately tend to lose sight of the literary object itself. However close we are to finding out about the writer (and the critic) through biographical interpretation, ultimately, as literary criticism, the critique must focus on the writing or else it becomes mere biography. A fault I find with this criticism is that the search for such prudent meaning narrows the response to the text, and thereby its accessibility. This has the tendency to negate the work in question and the critic’s response to it, i.e. we are looking for something that may not be there. This ultimately renders the literary work near impossible to enjoy, for the mere quality of its art. As an activity, or mode of interpretation, it then becomes about as devoid of objectivity as is criticism of a particular subjective bias.

See Sydney Janet Kaplan’s, Katherine Mansfield and the Origins of Modernist Fiction (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 26-27, for citation of this letter. Kaplan adds the following footnote that is useful to see the critical response its discovery generated:


This is a fascinating letter. Its origin is unclear, and also its recipient. O’Sullivan and Scott (Letters I, p. 90) suggest it was written to Ida Baker. They mention . . . “on either side of the paper wrapped around it she wrote, ‘never to be read, on your honour as my friend, while I am still alive. K. Mansfield.’” Cited by Alpers, Life, p. 91. Tomalin is dubious, however, about the sincerity of Mansfield’s angst in this letter, believing the letter might have played a role in her efforts to rid herself of her husband, George Bowden. (p. 27)

Ibid, pp. 19 – 35, in particular p. 26.

See Alison Laurie’s essay, Katherine Mansfield – A Lesbian Writer, reprinted in ENGL 316 – New Zealand Literature 3: Katherine Mansfield Anthology (University of Canterbury: Dept. of English, 1999), pp. 213 – 224, in particular p. 219.

Ibid, p. 214.

Ibid, p. 28.

Ibid, ‘Introduction’, p. 5.

From Wilde’s De Profundis. I feel that this quotation is especially significant in relation to Mansfield’s philosophies on life, experience, art, and fame. I think that this quote also applies to Laurie’s reading of Mansfield’s “construction of a heterosexual self”. I feel that M. constructed herself through experience, sexual or otherwise, as a means to exist in a constant state of fiction that she could control as a living art form. While this may sound vague, I think it explains a lot about her journals and letters, and her adventurous and imaginative nature, that remains unexplainable. In light of her battle through adulthood and adolescence with misunderstanding, sickness, tragedy, and toward her later years – the constant worry of imminent death from her tuberculosis, I feel that the construction of any self, would be a conceptually imaginative one that centred around a world that was as far away as possible, from the grim reality of her deteriorating physical state. The constant presence of the ticking clock would also motivate an over-immersion in experience and life, which was as sensually aesthetic as possible.

These men are Garnet Trowell, George Bowden, and John Middleton Murry. Laurie goes as far as to justify her accusatory claims about Murry’s ‘latent’ homosexuality, using as evidence his confession in a private journal that he had been homosexually raped and also his rejection of D. H. Lawrence’s sexual advances, (which Laurie perceives as a “homophobic” reaction, p. 221, ENGL 316 Anthology). She also cites Mansfield’s propensity for pseudonyms and affectionate pet/nick-names: “she referred to him as ‘Betsy’” (p. 222), among other names.

A little ditty about the Spring Wind.

The sun casts mercurial shadows
across the yard:
green yellow grass
dirt path
silvered timber porch

like black ink blots
the shadows slowly roll

the gray weatherboard
at the back of the house
still cold with morning
despite the bright glare of the sun

I remember summer
halcyon memories
childhood romances
with the senses

the blue sky
long crisp grass of summer
cool rivers filled with swimming
bush clad adventures
hot sweat tiredness
contented hunger
the death of youth

I remember summer

halcyon memories
shed with each chilled gust
of spring wind
now rising coldly
against the past.

An old poem I found

 
 
 
The Road Less Travelled


We traveled to Mapua
through Nelson from the Sounds
in the hot afternoon sun
between colonnades
of scruffy apple trees,
their burden of fruit ready to shed
sparkling balls of blood
dancing in the breeze 

& the road rides on
to Mapua wharf & over there
is Rabbit island, framing
the river mouth with a slab of dark pine
& on the other side
— the motor-camp, nestled between
huge trees, not meant for harvest
just shelter & ‘clothing optional’
the café now spawns delicacies
a small restaurant behind smokes
fish & oysters & makes the best
burgers around, yet here it was
that another world existed

& brave men ferried cargo
across the teeming strait
on timber boats the size of small trucks
— even using sails & oars
& people were withdrawn or deposited
on these planks long-gone replaced,
to make way for the new, repair the past
from Mapua to Nelson . . .

still in the sun
the bay sparkles & a bright sea mist
covers the horizon — the blue sky,
faultless — the fields flicking by
like cubist paint effects in drought
but still lots of green to lead us
into night & the broken white line
of winding black roads
littered with carrion & daylight
memories, meanders us back toward
the Sounds.

Tired but good.
Somehow released, 
it begins to rain.



Not sure about this one! What do you think . . .?

Masters of Horror reviews

These are the reviews so far. Quoted verbatim from source below [caveat = not my issue re. grammar etc!].

Review one from Sonar 4 Publications, Shells Walter

"When one thinks of horror, there are so many extremes that can be done in writing. The Masters of Horror: The Anthology is no different. The 16 authors that fill this anthology bring terror, darkness and a whole lot of push that any horror lover would want. Authors such as Carole Gill with her story ‘ Truth Hurts’ , William Cook with ‘Devil Inside’ and several more stories bring the horror genre into its true form.

The one thing that stands out about this anthology is that no two stories are the same. Yes, they are horror, but each one brings in a new tasty scary delight. Triskaideka Books has done an amazing job of bringing all this talent into one anthology. There is no anthology out such as this and one that needs to be on everyone’s bookshelf at one time or another. Jumping into this world of darkness only brings forward the most compelling and interesting tales seen in a long time. It is worth the read and worth keeping for years to come."

Second review from A. R. Braun

"This was an entertaining read from beginning to end. The stories lurking within truly creeped me out on so many levels. There’s still a bit of proofreading to be done, but what published book is typoless? Sixteen authors contributed to this antho’ guaranteed to rob you of sleep at night by bringing you the nightmare you’ve most feared…

The first three stories are excellent. I especially loved Carole Gill’s “Truth Hurts,” where a woman writing about douchey vampires gets her comeuppance. A man is seduced by the lamia in “Ladies of the Scale” by Bob Morgan Jr., and Lee Pletzer’s “Teeth” will make you think twice about taking your son fishing again. A boy gets revenge on abusive adults in “Devil Inside” by William Cook, and we go on a Lovecraftian journey with Jason Warden’s amazing story, “Once Seen.” K.K.’s “The Visitation” will have you shuddering, and Mark Edward Hall’s “The Fear” makes a case against hunting for a lost relative. Other great, creepy tales are “Wounds” by Joseph Mulak and “The Barnes Family Reunion” by Angel Leigh McCoy.

One of my favorite parts of the book is the unrestrained gore, but if psychological is your thing, you’ll also find compelling stories within. When this book comes out, any horror fan would be a fool not to get a copy.

More reviews will be available on the website, including interviews with the authors."


http://terror.co.nz/MoH/

Source: Masters of Horror reviews

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The Legacy Writing Method by WIlliam Cook


The Before & After Writing Method or, The Legacy Method by William Cook


This method is best applied by short-story authors who wish to enlarge the scope of their prose. This method should be applied to enlarge/lengthen a story already written.

After following the steps outlined below you should have enough material to create a 3-part Novel. A 12-chapter template for each story is used, comprising 36 chapters upon completion. (Approx. 6-7 pages per chapter to create a 250 page novel)

With this method, even a newspaper size story can be enlarged to the point where ideas are exhausted (if at all) – the application of the method can be repeated an infinite number of times within the scope of one novel-sized narrative. Think hierarchy.

Essentially, the following steps should be taken to achieve the desired outcome:
1. Write short story (If written, read carefully and take notes). Any
story will do although the B & A method works best on strong character driven narrative.
2. Carefully think about the characters in the story and take notes
(e.g. Names, description, events, etc).
3. Do the same with the setting.
4. Think and write down what the main character’s life previously
(i.e., the time before the primary story) entailed – how did he/she arrive at the point where the initial story occurs.
5. Write a brief timeline of the character’s life taking into account
their age during the first story.
6. Outline the events that possibly lead up to the first story written.
7. Outline multiple scenarios then choose the most believable. This is
the basis for the ‘Before’ story.
8. Number twelve chapter headings (e.g. 1-12) and ‘back-fill’ using the
proposed basis for the ‘Before’ story. Work backwards from the primary story using the timeline as a guide to the character’s/s life and the events therein that make up the first part of the novel.
9. When complete edit once and then read both stories front-to-
back starting with the ‘Before’ story, taking notes and thinking about the characters/events that will make up the ‘After’ story.

     10. Use the same method, except in reverse, to write the ‘After’ story.

You may want to change the order of the three parts chronologically and switch order between the parts upon completion. 


The Masters of Horror Anthology is now available


The Masters of Horror Anthology which contains my story "Devil Inside," as well as many other great stories, is now available. The print version doesn't come out till the end of April. but the digital version of the book is available now from Smashwords for $1.99. It's available in several formats including PDF, Kindle, LRM (sony), E-Pub, PDB (Palm) as well as others. Check it out if you are so inclined. You can get it here.

Novel finally finished - hooray. Now to find a publisher [hopefully]!



Hi, it's been a while as I have been working frantically to complete my novel before Christmas time. It has been a 'work in progress' for the past four years and i'm pleased to say that the end is nigh. I am editing the last draft and will have it ready for submission to publishers in the New Year. As you can probably guess from the book cover mock-up (by yours truly) and the working title, it is a novel about a killer. Actually about a family of killers to be exact, told through the journals of a budding serial killer whose twin brother is also afflicted with the same unfortunate disposition.

I guess you could place this novel under the genre banner of 'Serial Killer Fiction,' or crime fiction. I realise that this field is littered with cliched monsters all trying to replicate the success of Harris's Hannibal Lecter trilogy +, hopefully I might have succeeded in providing a new twist to the genre - or at least to the smaller sub-genre of 'First-person Serial Killer Fiction.' Whew, anyway - worth a crack, so there it is.

If I don't have any success with publishers I will probably post it here in installments for at least some people to read and hopefully enjoy.

If anyone has any publishing contacts who might be interested in this kind of work please let me know via 3cagency@gmail.com. Also, what do you think of the cover?

Have a great Christmas everyone. Will/Grant.

Babylon fading

This seat is hard, my shins are cold, my socks are low & black with grime, my shoes are stiff, my knees ache with the weight of my worn corduroys — the night is warm & noisy, so dark it is, that abstract & absolute light which is darkness — it is so dark tonight . . . Wait! There is light, a shimmering speck, by Jehovah! & Then cans twang bottles clang & smash, paper blows its rustled way wrapping around my lower leg like a flaky piece of skin or the slap of a bird’s flapping wing & then it’s taken by another breeze in the black city night — that light small speck I saw is extinguished now by the black hulk of a looming tower block — frail barks flounder in darkness, speech silent for a still savage moment . . .

My neck is sore I crane it skyward searching the churning ether for that noisy light . . .

BOOM!!!

ZOHAR!!!

A shock of burning white light — the infinite brightness violently broke through into vision — the corneas ripped from their lethargic slumber — the howling light turns blue, bouncing off the geometric multiplicity of the chainlink fence I clutch at, frantically gasping at the light on the other side — arcing shadows dance beneath the light’s accusing glare . . . lingering — I am shaking I am fear I am death I am insane I am paralysed I can’t move I can’t see I am dead I am about to be killed. . .

Mother?

Father?

MotherFatherMother

HELP!!!

PLEASE!!!

PLEASE!!!

PLEASE!!! Please . . .?

I’m still on the bench seat in the trash-blown park, my legs nailed to my seat to the concrete thru right to burning hell . . . — STAY WHERE YOU ARE — DO NOT MOVE — IF YOU DO SO YOUR LIFE WILL BE TERMINATED — I REPEAT DO NOT MOVE —footsteps shuffling then a broken run, boots slapping asphalt louder, quite, yes there they are a stampede, ground rumbles thunderclaps hammer on steel, bombs drop resound — No, nononononono . . .

The light goes off. I am released. The sound breaks like a truck passing — a distant rumble then the noise of the dead man’s bones return to their creaking — halfalive halfalive halfalive — my breath is smoke, my eyes throb, my brain burns, my heart tries to saw its way out through my crumbling ribcage — I release a sigh, exhale, to end all sighs.

I close my eyes & feel & smell the dirty hot warm air of hell caressing my face, my hair, creeping up my trouser leg, crawling across my heaving gut & across my bruised bare chest — a massive hole now gaping blackly just above the left nipple, the icon of Mary grinning in the growing light — I lay back on the hard bench — the smog flavored morning bleeds light across the bay, a tugboat blares its horn through the fog, the trash barge shunts its bulk through the mist across the harbor to refuse island, car lights cut across the motorway invading the sleeping city, a silver-snake of train thunders past on the stilt-tracks, police sirens blare in the distance & a cold wind wipes my face.

A gull floating in on the light & breeze, eyes me suspiciously, dips its wings & turns circles above me looking down with malice & a perceptible hunger as it stretches its sharp red beak screaming at me — CAWCAWCAWCAWCAW . . . all black & white — Babylon fading . . .

‘CHILD ART’ - History in education

In the context of the nature/nurture argument in education, this essay will attempt to explain what ‘child art’ is and how it came to exist. A basic summary of the nature/nurture argument is as follows. The naturists believe that childhood is a natural stage of development that generates its own unique experience relative to the individual child. It is a privileged stage of life; the role of education in this respect is to encourage such development with as little interference as possible. The nurturists argue that education should impart knowledge and social skills in preparation for participation in society. Children are presumed capable of learning these skills and knowledge at all stages of development to varying degrees. The polarities between these two sides show the reactive state of educational beliefs and theory. It is within this context that concepts such as ‘child art’ have evolved.

To begin this discussion it is necessary to trace the origins of the educational ideas that produced such concepts as ‘child art’. One of the early arguments, of a distinctly educational viewpoint on natural development and child rearing, is that of Jean Jacques Rousseau. His educational romance Emile, presents an unconventional (at the time of writing) view of educational and social reformation, based on his beliefs about ‘nature’ and individual freedom. His views on childhood education were centred on the notion that natural development, encouraged in accordance with the individual’s own nature, could only be achieved through “well-regulated liberty”[1]. He viewed freedom as being something controlled by the rationale of the upper classes, and the ‘unnatural’ constraints and lies imposed on individual truth, by religion and the state.

Rousseau was looking for the universal nature of truth common to all “men;” it was in this search that he saw the promise of a new and ideal society. He saw childhood education as the means by which to change society through ‘natural’ development. The emphasis was on learning by individual experience, and the treatment of children in accordance with evolutionary stages of development, free from the influence of social constructs of adult morality and reason:


Natural growth calls for quite a different kind of training. The mind should be left undisturbed till its faculties have developed; for while it is blind it cannot see the torch you offer it, nor can it follow through the vast expanse of ideas a path so faintly traced by reason that the best eyes can scarcely follow it. (Emile, p. 200)

The implications and influence on pedagogical education, generated by Rousseau’s romantic notions of natural and evolutionary development, show in the ideas of educators that followed, like Freidrich Froebel, Franz Cizek, and Wilhelm Viola. Rousseau’s celebration of “natural liberty” and childhood education paved the way for notions of education, like ‘art education’ and ‘child art’, to emerge in response to the apparent need for a form of expression that was natural, and relevant, to the early stages of childhood development. As Stuart Macdonald has pointed out, ”the concept that art education for the child should differ from that for adolescents and adults stemmed from Rousseau’s scheme of education in Emile ” [2]. It must be noted that Rousseau did not place any importance or relevance on ‘art’ in relation to a child’s natural development. In fact, he saw it (‘art’) as a corrupting influence that was morally ‘bad’ and detrimental to nature at that stage of a human’s life.

Rousseau’s naturist ideas were largely idealistic and romantic, and because of this, they were not coherent enough at the time to justify as a form of education for children. Froebel, along with others, developed the ideas expressed by Rousseau as a basis for such an education. Froebel believed that drawing was the means by which children developed naturally. He developed the concept of ‘Kindergarten’ as a place for individual children to develop in accordance with the laws of nature. Froebel’s ideas were scientific in that he used esoteric precepts of psychology, in relation to understanding what a child’s drawing represented:


Beautiful drawing . . . demands the spontaneous, skilled use of the senses . . . the development required for drawing, conditions in the same way a harmoniously unfolded soul, a feeling, experiencing mind, as well as a thoughtfully comparing, intelligent, and perceptive intellect, forming judgement, correct conclusion, and so, finally, an idea of that which is to be formed . . .

As can be seen, his naturist idealism peppered with psychological jargon, shines through in his views about the importance of child drawings. His educational philosophy, which is based on the notion that the child is a self-determined vessel of creativity, inspired other educators and artists later on like Franz Cizek, Paul Klee, Alexander Bain, and the Bloomsbury group, to name a few.
Like Froebel and Rousseau, Herbert Spencer championed the naturist ideals about drawing and childhood education, except he “modified [it] . . . from the scientific viewpoint of a nineteenth century evolutionist”[3].

Spencer saw children’s drawing as an evolutionary process. In fact, he believed it was the main factor in human development. He was of the opinion that the science of psychology was the means by which education could develop, and a culture could come to understand itself, through the interpretation of children’s drawings. Thus, childhood art education became important as a tool to understanding and determining “self-culture” and progressing as a culture in general.

Spencer’s educational theories attacked the nurturist arguments of mass-education theorists like Henry Cole, who ran state controlled institutions that were geared up for social and industrial production. Spencer’s ideas were also nurturist, in the sense that they supported utilitarian ideas of training children to be productive members of society. However, his ideas were more naturist in origin (following on from Rousseau’s ‘nature of the child’), in that they argued that there is a natural development process (“phylogenesis”) in drawing, that should be integrated into childhood education.

Spencer’s ideas are also important to the concept of ‘child art’ because any development (according to him) in the individual, and therefore the whole society, could be influenced and reflected by the drawings of the child. While it must be said at this stage that the drawings of children were not yet considered as art works, there was great importance placed on their significance as indicators of cultural and biological development.


Although there was a large void of disagreement between the two factions of thought (nature & nurture), ‘art education’ became an increasingly important concept to the curriculum of schools and to the educational theories of both sides. Cole is important here in this instance for he implemented the establishment of art schools in England, art training for teachers, and compulsory art education as a subject on an equal footing with other subjects. This is important in relation to the origins of ‘child art’ as well, because it generated interest in children’s drawings and paintings, in such a way that they became viewed as ‘art works’.


In other words, this social change provided the impetus and the infrastructure, wherein the claims and ideas about ‘art’ education and making ‘art-works’, as being essential to a child’s ‘natural’ development, began to be seen as educationally beneficial and logically defensible. With this implementation, and despite the negative impact on the radically nurturist Kensington system, ‘Art education’ (rather than ‘drawing education’) became to be a valid and accepted part of the infrastructure of educational teaching and training (educators).


Alexander Bain helped this along by following on where Spencer left off. In maintaining that “Drawing was not a universal mind-trainer, but also that art appreciation, or the cultivation of ‘Art-Emotion’ as he put it, was the important factor in education, not Drawing” [4]. His idea was that art education provided the means by which children could have fun and express themselves creatively. Other educational thought developed along the same lines until the idea of art education was more acceptable in Victorian education circles.


So far, children’s drawings were still not considered viable art forms, like other established adult art works and movements. The rise in anthropological studies and scientific (in particular, psychological) research changed all that with their growing interest in child drawing as an important means of developmental research. The influential and growing relationship, between education and science, meant that this perceived importance transferred to the educators, curriculum, and to the type of experience drawing was considered as. The Kensington attitude toward children’s drawings, as only having commercial value in industry, was its main weak point as it was in contrast to developmental (and naturist) scientific beliefs, which had popular and governmental support.


‘Art’ began to evolve as a practice along with the changing times. The continuing (but waning) influence of Romanticism encouraged a new style of expression that was more ‘primitive’ and ‘natural’, with an emphasis on the individual, freedom (in thought and from authority), and the ‘symbolic’. Like science, ‘art movements’ represented new ideas and invention, which had profound influence on the intellectual culture in which they existed. Children’s drawings were beginning to be seen, like the cave drawings of ‘primitive man’, in the context of symbolic interpretation and meaning. Comparisons between ancient ‘primitive’ cultures and children’s drawings increased, as artists became interested in ‘primitivism’ and the symbolic nature of cultural artefacts. The connection became apparent and soon artists saw in children’s works, that which they tried so hard to replicate in their own ‘art works’.


Children were seen as ‘artists’, naturally endowed with ‘artistic talent’, who could perceive their social and natural environment with an innocently naïve sense of truth and insight, reminiscent of primitive adult cultures from the past (Palaeolithic Age) and the present (Aborigine). This increasing concern with ‘culture’ and of children as artists whose work represents “the primordial origins of art”[5], was typical of artists like Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, and many others, who delighted and strove for the same kind of rawness and meaning in their own work. Like the nature/nurture arguments, these new theories on ‘art’ became embroiled with debate as to what the work in question signified. One thing that came from the debates of the modern movements, was that ‘primitive art’, and therefore ‘child art’, were viable art forms. Herbert Read suggested that “a growing appreciation of primitive art, tribal art and revolutionary developments in modern painting helped to bring children’s art within the general range of aesthetic appreciation” [6].


Franz Cizek, perhaps more so than others, defined what ‘child art’ was and what he thought it should be:


Child Art was disregarded, ridiculed, and scoffed at. Even now people visit me who, when I show them real infantile work, only laugh. I estimate very highly those things done by small children. They are the first and purest source of artistic creation . . .

and more definitively:

Child Art is an art which only the child can produce. There is something that the child can also perform, but that we do not call art. It is imitation, it is artificial. [7]

Cizek approached art education with a naturist view. His theory on child art, obviously influenced by naturist idealism, was a reaction against logic-bound, scientifically based, notions of education and child development. Whilst he still used scientific concepts to explain art, he based his ideas on naturist convictions, “all true art contains psychology, but so wonderfully dosed as only nature can dose” [8].

With the conviction of his own ideas and studies and the views of his other artisan comrades, Cizek concluded that children were naturally gifted as artists and producers of art works. He saw this quality in children in somewhat phenomenological terms, in that it was separate from the adult art world. Children were individuals who perceived the world on a more instinctual and natural plane than adults did. Paradoxically, it was this adult experienced (and therefore morally corrupt, re. Rousseau) world, that must not influence the children’s.


Cizek believed in the innate will of the child to be creative and to develop ‘naturally’ (re, Froebel) and in the power of nature to develop humans free from unnatural and socially constructed constraints (i.e., morals, sin, reason etc). Cizek’s theories on art education and child art, may display inconsistencies and contradiction, but to explain them, along with all the other flaws in the other theories mentioned, would take more word space than this essay will allow.


The major flaw in Cizek’s theory was that his own adult influence was a major factor in the production of paintings and drawings by his child students. Obvious training in technical aspects and adult ideas of artistic practice and formality/tradition were reflected in the children’s highly stylised and competent works. So what was essentially a naturist theory of art education, based on his own ideas and those of Rousseau and Froebel, was in practice a nurturist based exercise in art training that steered the children far from their natural stages of creative development (maybe?).


Cizeks’ theory provided a model for future art educators to base their justifications of their discipline on. This artistic ideology was the high-water mark of naturist education theory, just as Cole’s was the nurturist extreme. The gradual shift of focus in the ideology and allegiances of the education theorists, anthropologists, and from artists, culminated in debate to look for connections between ‘primitivism’ and the adolescent production of ‘art’. Artistic movements, more so perhaps than educators, contributed to the evolution of childhood art education and concepts about ‘child art’ through their assimilation and recognition of the drawing and painting of children as a viable art form.






NOTES:

[1] See Readings in the History of Educational Thought, ‘Rosseau’, edited by Alan Cohen & Norman Garner (London: University of London Press Ltd) p. 91.

[2] See The History and Philosophy of Art Education, Ch. 18, ‘The Recognition of Child Art’, by Stuart Macdonald (London: University of London Press ltd.) p. 318.

[3] Ibid, p. 321.

[4] Ibid, pp. 324 - 325.

[5] Quote from Paul Klee.

[6] See The History and Philosophy of Art Education, Ch. 18, ‘The Recognition of Child Art’, by Stuart Macdonald (London: University of London Press ltd.) p. 329.

[7] See Child Art, by Wilhelm Viola, Ch. IV, ‘From Talks With Cizek’ (London: University of London Press, 1948) pp. 32 – 34.

[8] Ibid, p. 32.

So you wanna be an indie horror writing superstar?

This article outlines the pros and cons of being an indie horror author on Amazon.com. Hey, fellow writers! If you’ve got a penchant for wri...