On Susan Sontag's Literary And Artistic Thought

Susan Sontag (1933--2004), a pioneer of American cultural and ideological thought and"new intellectual", is a literary and cultural critic living in a world filled with false impressions. In the era when truth was distorted, she committed herself to maintaining the dignity of the ideal of freedom. Along with Simon de Beauvoir and Hannah Arendt, Susan Sontag is considered as one of the most important female intellectuals in the West.The essence of Susan Sontag's literary and artistic thought is to oppose essentialism, metaphysics and traditional epistemology. She holds the opinion that rational thought is unreliable, and reality can't be gripped at all. She believes that the subjectivity is absolute and the objectivity is relative. In her eyes, reality can only be a selective"reality", so is"truth". She takes a skeptical view towards all phenomena, calling for value assessment to the culture system of today. Her standpoint is especially obvious in that she reviews literature and art, social life and politics from the point of existentialism. She put forward the"Against Interpretation"theory, which sharply objects to tradition of Western rationalism, and by using it as the core she raised such a series of aesthetic ideas as New sensibility, Camp, Erotics in art and silence, opposing the opposition between reason and sense, content and form. Her theory of"Against Interpretation"has rich connotations. It is not only against the universal truth, constant rule, the eternal justice and moral education that arose in the age of Enlightenment, but also against the Dominance of reason to sense, content to form. Moreover, from the perspective of feminism, she opposed the binary opposition under the patriarchal cultural values and male Chauvinism on the cultural explanation and statement in order to support Feminism. Inspired by Herbert Marcuse, her"new sensibility"theory is the enemy of the art of moral and ethical content , and she stresses the sensuous experience in the arts. As a result, it emphasizes the fact that the release of the original instinct offsets the usual reactions in the process of experiencing the text, torturing why the art exists, which led to the purpose of art that is to"delight against enlightenment", a formalism of sensuous pleasure.Her theory of"Camp"is actually the formalism, or rather, a pursuit of feminist formalism, as it opposes the opposition between high culture and popular culture and the vulgarity of popular culture. Her theory of"Erotics of art"is to restore the contact of language with the sexual desire. She holds that the language has been polluted by patriarchal culture, and only the silent language can avoid the language of"overtones"or"meaning beyond the words". Therefore, Sontag took advantage of"Erotics of art"to oppose"art Hermeneutics". We can say that Against Interpretation, a kind of formalism in the pursuit of silence, is Sontag's basic position. Naturally, Sontag chose form as the road to achieve this purpose. The"form", as a"connecting point", links together the new sensibility, Camp and erotics of art.The whole passage consists of eight chapters.The first chapter is an introduction to Sontag's life, including her childhood, academic background, family, love and marriage. In particular, it highlights her left-wing feminist stance, her lesbian identity and her struggle with disease.Chapter II focuses on the soul of Sontag's literary and artistic thoughts of"Against Interpretation"."Against Interpretation"has rich connotations."Against Interpretation"puts emphasis on people's expansion of subjectivity, pays much attention to people's sensory feelings, being against the opposition between reason and sense, content and form, moral and aesthetics in the litreary review practice, calling for the sense to experience the arts in place of reason . Her"New sensibility","Camp","Erotics of art"are just the products of the sensuous subjectivity, for their goals are to highlight the sensuousness to resist rigid metaphysical way of thinking, being against the immutable conclusions and supreme rationality. Therefore, the spirit and essence of"Against Interpretation"is the subversion of traditional critical view.The third chapter is about New sensibility. Marcuse's New sensibility was the result of the fact that the whole capitalist society was nothing but a completely rational ruling society. Sontag's idea of new sensibility is just from Marcuse's theory. In order to achieve her own artistic ideas, Sontag must highlight a strong form in place of"content". Only"form"can awaken a new sensibility hidden in people's minds. To avoid binary opposition between the content and form, Sontag cleverly uses the concept of Style to replace the traditional ideas of forms and content, declaring that the new sensibility is a kind of formalism in the pursuit of sensuous pleasure.Chapter IV focuses on"Camp"."Camp"digests the content of the hegemony in an exaggerated form, for the sensibility and the form of standpoint are more clear-cut. In the post-modern context, Sontag's"Camp"is actually"Form", removing the halo around art and morality, digesting realist narrative mode, recognizing gay culture, and digesting the content of the text by way of throwing off the"sacred"and"morality"."Camp"is neither in favor of the confrontation between high culture and popular culture, nor in support of the vulgarity of popular culture, and not only objecting to the so-called"male style", but also opposing the so-called"female style", at the same time it is also against the elite culture and popular culture, reflecting the unique spirit and high spirit of democracy, and is the expression of Feminist Aesthetics against male hegemony.Chapter V focuses on"Erotics of art". Sense removed the sacred cover of reason, and it gave the birth to"Erotics of art"."Erotics of art"was the product of postmodernism context, which revolted and deconstructed all the values of the past, brought the fact that the sexual desire rescued the language. As a concequence, we use the language of"literalness"instead of the language of"overtones", only in this way can we reach the purpose of avoiding interpretation.Chapter VI focuses on Sontag's literary and artistic criticism. In On Photography, Susan Sontag revealed the essence of photography to be"true lies", which produces another world of meanings, of the shadows and false interpretation to the real world. More importantly, in the image field, the image of women has become the"goods"and a tool of maintaining patriarchal cultural order. So a way of seeing of feminism is urgently needed. In Illness as Metaphor and Aids and its Metaphor, Sontag opposes the metaphorical way of seeing the world. In her view, the task of "Against Interpretation"is still not completed in the disease field, either. The metaphor of disease has much influence on artistic creation, artistic expression.Chapter VII focuses on Sontag as a writer's practice. She always wrote fiction and literary criticism, doing well in both of the related fields, which influences and promotes each other."Criticizing with left hand while writing right hand"is a vivid description of her career."Against Interpretation"and feminist ideology are embodied in her works of fiction. Her great novels"The Benefactor","Death Kit","The Volcano Lover","In America"are the footnote of"Against Interpretation", of feminist ideology. In her works, Sontag gave up the mode of realism, but use various techniques and unique perspectives in her career as a novelist to meet her critical theory.Chapter VIII is the evaluation of Sontag's literary and artistic thought. As a public intellectual, Sontag is a critic with an European cultural background. When Western society entered the post-industrial period, she criticized Capitalist culture in depth, opposing the metaphysical way of regarding the results of civilization since the Enlightenment as a guiding principle. But in the current increasingly globalized days, she returned to the solemn position of enlightenment intellectuals, to refute that hegemony of the weapons is still the traditional bourgeois humanism. When it comes to the relationship between material and consciousness, she exaggerated the role of consciousness. On the subject of the relationship between reason and sense, she separated sense and reason, exaggerating sensory role, bringing the clash between moral and aesthetics. However, her complete deconstruction of reason can only be a utopia. Sontag is an intellectual with an independent personality, playing a role of lawyers of the weak and the"warriors"of the international society to maintain justice. Her criticism of contemporary capitalism has important significance to the transition period of China's economic and cultural development, cultural exchange and personality construction of Chinese intellectuals.In short, Sontag was a female intellectual with acute eyesight and intelligent mind on the social affairs, a person with rich feelings, kinds of hopes of the life, conscience of the morals, devoting her life to criticising the dominant capitalist culture, completely different from the description of some US media which said that she was a cold killer, a trouble-maker. Sontag was not an intellectual who locks herself in her study room only doing research. On the contrary, she was a public intellectual and staunch feminist. She was actively involved in social affairs, using the pen as the gun, opposing any form of art and aesthetic hegemony. She criticized the daily ideology rooted above the binary opposition. She objected to the American cultural insularity and the hegemony under the guise of fighting against terrorism, and strove to expose false coverups, in particular, to remind people to be alert to political hypnosis of modern media.