Susan Sontag's Literary Ideas And Her Literature Works

Susan Sontag was a mother,a lesbian,and a patient who had been fighting against two cancers for years.She was an incisive thinker of European art,a distinguished avant-garde,and a New York Intellectual.She composed drama scripts,directed movies,and wrote aesthetic essays.Most importantly,she had a great passion for literature and wrote fictions and literary criticisms,which had made up a great intellectual self-expression.When readers are reading her aesthetic criticisms,they could find literary assumptions underlying specific tastes and judgments.Her attitudes toward literature could be clearly seen from her interviews and private diaries as well.Her ideas of literary criticism are far-sighted and classic,for most of her literary predictions turn out to be accurate,and the literary issues she cared are still significant for us to discuss these days.Sontag had long been devoted herself into writing sharp articles and reviews on American prestigious publications after she entered into the academic world.In her thirties,she did some creative writing attempts and started to write novels,short fictions,and play scripts.Her literature works are of great research values because of their creative writing techniques and illuminating ideas.Susan Sontag's literary reviews are based on some European academic schools' ideas.She liked the ideas of Modernism and Nouveau Roman and agreed that the writing of novels should be developing.It seems that the style of novel has not changed too much since Balzac's realistic period.She hoped that literature would make some difference day by day,and readers could be more patient.Sontag appreciated Auerbach's idea in his well-known book Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature,which goes like every literature writer believed that his writing is the best way to represent reality.But Sontag thought if all literary schools could be described as Realism,and representing reality is the main idea for all novels,then the word “Realism” would lose its significance.Apart from the influence of European art schools,Sontag has been influenced a lot by American academic schools as well.Firstly,because of her Jewish identity,education background,and political standpoint,Sontag is a member of New York Intellectuals.She thought public intellectuals should not be controlled by any political parties and should write and act independently.Though Sontag tended to be a left wing follower,she believed her literature work should be separated from her political ideas.This literary viewpoint is especially distinguished from other New York Intellectuals.Secondly,Sontag was graduated from University of Chicago in the United States,and after years of studying,she came back to University of Chicago to teach philosophy for years.Apparently,her literary ideas have been affected by Chicago School.She thought,just as most Chicago School members do,that literature could be analyzed from perspectives of politics,culture,psychology,and history,but literature is not a parasitic art,which means literature could be understood and appreciated for itself.Thirdly,when Sontag was a young teenager,she liked to read the books of the New Criticism.The idea of organic wholeness of the New Criticism enlightened her a lot.Though it is hard to find the exact word in her books,the word “Truth” could perfectly generalize Susan Sontag's academic idea.In On Photograph,she wanted people not just to focus on the photos,rather to pay attention to the truth under the photo in the real world.In Against Interpretation,Sontag compared interpretation to cholesterol in blood,which could do harm to the blood vessel.She worried that the needless interpretation would be a big burden for hindering the readers to understand the original idea of the writing materials.In the Aesthetic of Silence,Sontag reminded readers to keep an eye on the side effect of metaphor,in order to prevent thinking going too far away from the truth of the problem.All in all,Sontag hoped others to overcome the bad habits of distraction,and to focalize on the original things so as to see the “Truth.”Susan Sontag's literary views are based on her aesthetic ideas,and her attitudes against the ubiquity of aesthetic duality reflect her wish to get close to “Truth.” Firstly,Sontag thought it was Plato's argument that the task of art is an imitation of reality and Aristotle's defense of poetry that made art lost its artistic value,which means art could only exist when imitating the reality.The result of this dependent existence is that the content of art is gradually segregated from its form and weighs way more than its form.It is this segregation and unbalance that gives way to needless interpretation,which could gain weights for content.Sontag was against excessive interpretation rather than neglecting art's content.She wanted to emphasis the importance of art's form to readjust the unbalance between content and form.Secondly,from Sontag's perspective,there should be no gap between literature and morality.They are two things but could work together.The morality in literature works would be attained by enabling the readers to experience the story by transcending time and space.Only when morality turns out to be one certain moral preach,then literature should be opposed to morality.Thirdly,Sontag did not agree that the affection of science on literature would lead to the forfeit of literary value.Art and Science would have chemical reaction and arouse people's new sensibility.Sontag's rethink of the ubiquity of aesthetic duality would help people realize that duality is not problem itself but one of the ways to solve the problem.Sontag tells that the categories of art are losing their boundaries,and the boundaries of genres of literature are blurring as well.Even in this situation,Sontag still thought literature is irreplaceable,for its continuous development and its distance from reality.Besides that,she realized the happiness theme of literature has gradually become a taboo since people like to see the miseries and suffering of human,which make up a great part of the sublime.She wanted readers to enjoy the strength of happiness,which is human being's primitive instinct.In addition,as many great language masters did,Sontag did not trust the Truth language presented,so she called for readers to attach importance of silence and pay attention to the side effect of metaphor.Though she doubted the reality language presented,she had a confidence of expression.In her viewpoint,things and emotions could be described and expressed,but the tough question is how to do it.She liked straight literature works,which does not meant to express certain points.She considered readers as tolerant partners of the writers,who should not try to fix the literature work from a one-way perspective.In America is Sontag's last novel,which has been appraised a lot by the public.This book tells a real story of some Polish artists immigrating to the United States,and adjusting to the brand new life.Chapter Zero is an extremely special part in this book,and Sontag's thought of rhetorical devices,irregularity usage of punctuation and synesthesia description in this chapter contribute a lot to the high reputation of this book.In America depicts the culture shock the European experienced when they first arrived in America,a community the Polish built to live through the new life,and the stage life of a drama queen.I,etcetera is the only short stories collection of Susan Sontag,which contains ten short fictions,and two of them are chose to be analyzed in this PHD program.“Project for a Trip to China” is an autobiography short fiction written by Sontag,telling a story of an American girl who had long been dreaming about going to China.This American girl put down the stereotype of Chinese,and through her words,readers would see a new China in a westerner's eyes.This story is written as a style of notes,which leaves much creative space for the author.It looks like the story is made up by some random sentences,however,the whole passage is rather logical,and makes a lot of sense.Another short story “The Way We Live Now” is quite ironic,because it used the metaphor of AIDS to enable readers to notice the bad affection of the metaphor of a disease.In other words,a metaphor of a disease is much more harmful than the disease itself.All in all,this dissertation is a study of Susan Sontag's literary thoughts and her literature works.Through the research of her literary thoughts,her literary ideals,her attempt to seek the Truth and her expectation for new literature would be clearly seen in her literary reviews.Her literature works are of great literary value for their experimental writing techniques and humane care about social issues.Sontag's literary world enables readers to see numerous possibilities of literature.