1.3 Artists' ‘Lives’ Helen Langdon's subtitle ‘A Life’ points to a very particular combination of literary and artistic sources in her biography. Catherine M. Soussloff suggests that the literary genre of artists' ‘Lives’ has led to the artist and his work being ‘inextricably entwined’ in a way that does not happen in the ‘Lives’ of poets or prose writers (Soussloff, 1990, p. 154). Although she overstates the case, as recent biographies of novelists, musicians, etc. demonstrate, artworks ca
1.2 The myth of the artist Consider Howard Hibbard's analysis of Caravaggio's The Martyrdom of St Matthew in the Contarelli chapel (Langdon Plate 19 – see the Web Gallery of Art at http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/c/caravagg/04/index.html) from his monograph, Caravaggio (1983). Hibbard identifies the figure at the rear to the left of the semi-naked executioner as the artist's self-portrait: ‘a bearded, saturnine villain who is none other than Caravaggio himself’. 1.1 Biography and art history The biographical monograph, that is, a book about a single artist and his or her works, is one of the most common forms of art history writing. Biography, as a literary form, applied to art history, is underpinned by the assumption that knowing about an artist's life can help to establish both the significance and the meaning of that artist's work. This is a very common, and it seems a reasonable, assumption to make in the interpretation of pictures. It is therefore a central theme in this un Introduction This unit investigates certain philosophical issues concerning imagination, creativity and the relationships between them, and considers the conceptions and varieties of imaginative experience. This unit is an adapted extract from the Open University course Thought and experience: themes in the philosophy of mind (AA308). Discography Details of the recordings of Schubert's lieder provided in this unit are as follows: 'Heidenrölein' Irmgard Seefreid, Hermann von Nordberg (rec 1947), TESTAMENT SBT 1026 'Wanderers Nachtlied' Hans Hotter, Gerald Moore (rec 1949), EMI CDH5 65196-2 'Gretchen am Spinnrade' 1 Schubert: introduction This unit focuses on a selection of short poems in German that were set to music by Franz Schubert (1797–1828) for a single voice with piano, a genre known as ‘Lieder’ (the German for ‘songs’). These are miniatures, but in Schubert's hands they become miniatures of an exceptionally concentrated kind. Their characteristic distillation of the emotional essence of a poem illustrates Romanticism at its most intimate. Schubert's Lieder, once they became widely known, influenced succeedin References 3.5 New light on compatibilist versus incompatibilist debate Strawson has attempted to throw new light on the compatibilist versus incompatibilist debate by showing that there are certain ‘reactive attitudes’ that are a necessary part of the framework of anything that is recognizably the life of a person. His argument has centred on the claim that is it ‘useless’ to question these attitudes. He argues this by showing the role they have in our lives, and arguing that they are part of the ‘framework’ of life. We could put the point as follows 3.4 Strawson: Section VI There is only one more section left in the paper. Here, as we would expect, Strawson returns to the way in which he set out the problem (in II:4) and makes good his promise to ‘[give] the optimist something more to say’. Introduction This unit asks what it is to be a person. You will see that there are several philosophical questions around the nature of personhood. Here we explore what it is that defines the concept. As you work through the unit, you will notice that this area of enquiry has developed its own semi-technical vocabulary. The plural of ‘person’ is, in this area of enquiry, ‘persons’ rather than ‘people’. It is easy to see the reason for this. The question ‘What are people?’ is potentially c Acknowledgements This unit was written by Dr Inga Mantle
Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce 4.2.2 Pronouns Pronouns are used to avoid repeating nouns and to supply the subjects for verbs. I, me, we and us are known as the first person pronouns, you is the second person pronoun, and he, him, she, her, it, they and them are third person pronouns in English. In Latin, pronouns are used only when really necessary for the sense of a sentence, or sometimes for emphasis. Often, a pronoun subject, such as I, you or she, can be understoo 4.2.1 Nouns Nouns are used to name people, places, things or concepts, for example Cicero, Italy, tree, happiness. Most nouns can be singular or plural, for example tree, trees. They each belong to a certain gender, masculine, feminine or neuter (from Latin neuter, neither). In English, nouns have natural gender; for example, boatsman is masculine, woman is feminine, student is of common gender (either masculine or feminine), and university and b 4.2 Parts of speech In describing the grammar of written Latin, the best method is to use the traditional classical grammar, as worked out by the Greeks and Romans themselves. As a preliminary, it may be useful to learn the ‘parts of speech’ in English. A very brief explanation follows, and then a much fuller discussion.
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