I need help understanding and summarizing the key points here in simpler terms. Examples would also help. Thank you isolated artefact, became central in all these later consumption theories. Ities. Naturally enough, the notion of the work of art as object, as text, as anme?', as it was later to be put in a much wider area of communication stud-object then became more overt. 'What effect does this work ("the poem" asObjes ordinarily described) have on me?' Or, 'what impact does it have onwas not only that the practices of production were then overlooked, thoughhis fused with the notion that most important literature anyway was fromthe past. The real social conditions of production were in any case neglectedbecause they were believed to be at best secondary. The true relationshipwas seen always as between the taste, the sensibility or the training of theeader and this isolated work, this object 'as in itself it really is', as mostpeople came to put it. But the notion of the work of art as object had a fur-ther large theoretical effect. If you ask questions about the work of art seenas object, they may include questions about the components of its produc-tion. Now, as it happened, there was a use of the formula of base and super-structure which was precisely in line with this. The components of a workof art were the real activities of the base, and you could study the object todiscover these components. Sometimes you even studied the components andthen projected the object. But in any case the relationship that was looked forwas one between an object and its components. But this was not only true ofMarxist suppositions of a base and a superstructure. It was true also of vari-ous kinds of psychological theory, whether in the form of archetypes, or theimages of the collective unconscious, or the myths and symbols which wereseen as the components of particular works of art. Or again there was biogra-phy, or psychobiography and its like, where the components were in the man'slife and the work of art was an object in which components of this kind werediscovered. Even in some of the more rigorous forms of New Criticism and ofstructuralist criticism, this essential procedure of regarding the work as anobject which has to be reduced to its components, even if later it may bereconstituted, came to persist. Critical Theory as ConsumptionWhat then are the implications of this general analysis for the analysis ofparticular works of art? This is the question towards which most discussionof cultural theory seems to be directed: the discovery of a method, perhapseven a methodology, through which particular works of art can be under-stood and described. I would not myself agree that this is the central use ofcultural theory, but let us for a moment consider it. What seems to me verystriking is that nearly all forms of contemporary critical theory are theoriesof consumption. That is to say, they are concerned with understanding anobject in such a way that it can profitably or correctly be consumed. Theearliest stage of consumption theory was the theory of 'taste', where thelink between the practice and the theory was direct in the metaphor. Fromtaste there came the more elevated notion of 'sensibility', in which it wasthe consumption by sensibility of elevated or insightful works that was heldto be the essential practice of reading, and critical activity was then a func-tion of this sensibility. There were then more developed theories, in the1920s with I. A. Richards, and later in New Criticism,* in which the effectsof consumption were studied directly. The language of the work of art as

The use of the products and services by the households is referred to as consumption in…

Critical Theory as Consumption What then are the implications of this general analysis for the analysis of particular works of art? This is the question towards which most discussion of cultural theory seems to be directed: the discovery of a method, perhaps even a methodology, through which particular works of art can be under- stood and described. I would not myself agree that this is the central use of cultural theory, but let us for a moment consider it. What seems to me very striking is that nearly all forms of contemporary critical theory are theories of consumption. That is to say, they are concerned with understanding an object in such a way that it can profitably or correctly be consumed. The earliest stage of consumption theory was the theory of 'taste', where the link between the practice and the theory was direct in the metaphor. From taste there came the more elevated notion of 'sensibility', in which it was the consumption by sensibility of elevated or insightful works that was held to be the essential practice of reading, and critical activity was then a func- tion of this sensibility. There were then more developed theories, in the 1920s with I. A. Richards, and later in New Criticism, in which the effects of consumption were studied directly. The language of the work of art as

14th Edition

ISBN:9781337794992

Author:William J. Baumol, Alan S. Blinder, John L. Solow

Publisher:William J. Baumol, Alan S. Blinder, John L. Solow

Chapter21: International Trade And Comparative Advantage

Section: Chapter Questions

Problem 2TY