Module 11 - Part 2: Explorations and Exercises

Other parts of this module include:
Index  |  Part 1: Overview  |  Part 3: Texts and Contexts  |  Part 4: Web Resources

Cross-Cultural Aesthetics in a Global Context

To respond to these exercises, it helps to have some appreciation of the cultural assumptions explored in them. Click on Web Resources for further insights into the way social, historical, and artistic ideologies color the literary texts that we are studying.

These questions are arranged into three color-coded categories.

Level A invites you to look closely at some specific aspects of individual texts. Answering these questions shows that you have read carefully and understand the significance of important words and ideas as they appear in context.

Level B asks you to think more deeply about the implications of some of the details that you have isolated.

Level C allows you to build on the findings of the first two categories to theorize broadly about the relationship of the text to social and historical forces beyond the work itself.

Topics in this module's Exploration and Exercises section include:

• Focus on In Praise of Shadows
• Focus on "Lapis Lazuli"
• Focus on Bertolt Brecht's cross-cultural aesthetics
• Focus on literary explorations of the cultural and aesthetic implications of costume, music, and movement
• Comparative perspectives on literary reflections of aesthetic practices
• Focus on Texts and Contexts

Focus on In Praise of Shadows

Level A

1. Explain the contrast that Tanizaki draws between glass and paper as materials from which to construct windows and doors. What qualities of glass make it Western? Why would it be preferred to paper in a twentieth-century Japanese house?
2. What, according to Tanizaki, is the difference between Japanese and Western paper? Why is the difference significant?
3. What is the function of gold leaf in the ancient statues, vessels, and articles of clothing that Tanizaki describes? How does he compare it to the effect of gilding materials viewed in electric light?
4. How were the female puppets of the Bunraku puppet theatres constructed? 
5. How does Tanizaki compare Japanese and Western complexions?

Level B

1. Tanizaki mentions, correctly, that paper was invented by the Chinese. Why does he bother to say this? What is the implied critique of the Western aesthetic that he goes on to describe?   
2. What is the tone of Tanizaki's use of the term "mysterious Orient" (p. 2059)? What is he implying about the views that Western foreigners have of countries like Japan?
3. Why does Tanizaki make a point of the attitudes about "Negro blood" (p. 2066) that prevailed for hundreds of years in the United States?    

Level C

1. Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel in Tokyo survived the earthquake of 1923, but was torn down by the Japanese in 1968, as were many old wooden temples during the Meiji Era and the years of the American Occupation of Japan. How would Tanizaki account for these acts of self-destruction on the part of his own culture? Can you propose any other examples of civilizations that tear down their own landmarks? Why does this happen? How should we view the products of our collective pasts?
2. How does Tanizaki harmonize his ideas about shadows with the blackened teeth that were considered fashionable in aristocratic Japanese circles? In view of the importance of this fashion in classical Japan, explain why readers need to be sensitive to the aesthetic conventions that contribute a special dimension to different cultures.
3. Do you agree with Tanizaki's analysis of the decorative aspects of the Western bathroom? Compare Marcel Duchamp's selection of a urinal as a "ready-made" suitable for contemplation in a museum. What do both of these artists want their audiences to reflect on by calling attention to the aesthetic elements of such mundane devices?

Focus on "Lapis Lazuli"

Level A

1. "Gay" is an important word in Yeats's poetry. Define the meaning that he ascribes to it, keeping in mind the ways in which language changes. How does his use of the term differ from the way it is typically used today?
2. Discuss the verbs that describe Western theatrical practice in "Lapis Lazuli." What is the tone of a word like "struts"? If you are familiar with the tragedies of Shakespeare, explain what it means to say that "Hamlet rambles and Lear rages." Do you think Yeats is being disrespectful of Shakespeare's accomplishment in these phrases?
3. What is the fate of the "handiwork of Callimachus"? How is Yeats challenging some of the pious assumptions that we make about the power of art by emphasizing its vulnerability to time?
4. As the poet's imagination reflects on the carved piece of blue stone, what happens to the figures it depicts?

Level B

1. What was happening in Europe in 1935? Why are the women to whom the poet refers in "Lapis Lazuli" "hysterical" and "sick of the palette and fiddle-bow"?
2. Contrast the "Aeroplane and Zeppelin" of line 6 with the modes of transport listed in lines 25 and 26. How do the differences among them help Yeats concentrate on the importance of taking the long view in discussing the way civilizations endure?
3. What values does the carving of the ascetic and his pupil embody? What is the significance of the crane? Why is there a musical instrument in the picture?
4. What has the carver made of the flaws in the piece of lapis lazuli that he had to work on? What idea about art does his resourcefulness imply?

Level C

1. Does Yeats seem to you insensitive to the political struggles of his own day in "Lapis Lazuli"? What function does he see for art and aesthetic refinement in the "real world"? 
2. Look at the links to commentaries on Yeats in the Resources section of this exercise. How does "Lapis Lazuli" reflect the poet's political views?
3. How do you feel about the choice of the term "Chinamen" in line 37? Compare the alteration in linguistic habits here with that observed in the use of "gay" throughout the poem.

Focus on Bertolt Brecht's cross-cultural aesthetics

Level A

1. Explain how the concept of the mask that Brecht connected with Asian theatrical practice makes possible the central plot device of The Good Woman of Setzuan.
2. Trace Brecht's references to biblical materials in The Good Woman of Setzuan and discuss the degree to which the play reflects his own Western heritage, despite its Chinese setting.

Level B

1. How does Brecht give himself creative freedom by appealing to his own stylized depiction of Chinese traditions in his treatment of the gods in The Good Woman of Setzuan?
   
   1. How are the gods characterized in the prologue of the play? 
   2. Would Brecht have been able to have the gods speak as they do if he were presenting them within a Western context?

Level C

1. Like Yeats in "Lapis Lazuli," Brecht shows an awareness of the symbolic importance of the crane in Chinese art and literature (there is a brief comment available on this symbolism in a link in the Resources section of this exercise). In scene 3 of The Good Woman of Setzuan, how does Shen Te's recollection of the crane with a broken wing make her sympathetic to Yang Sun's thwarted ambitions to fly? 
2. Does Brecht's play demonstrate an understanding of Asian culture equal to Tanizaki's insight into Western culture in In Praise of Shadows? 
3. Brecht encountered Chinese theater on a visit to the Soviet Union. How does The Good Woman of Setzuan show cross-cultural awareness of ideas that were dominant in Moscow in the 1930s?
4. Write an essay in which you weigh the importance of biblical, Russian, and Chinese influences in Brecht's play.

Focus on literary explorations of the cultural and aesthetic implications of costume, music, and movement

Level A

1. Example: Love in a Fallen City
   
   1. How does the way they meet show the ambiguous relationship of both Liusu and Liuyuan to their own native culture? Why is it telling that Fourth Mistress insists that women "from educated families aren't allowed to dance"? What kind of dancing does she mean? (See the discussion of ballroom dancing in the Resources section of this exercise.)
   2. Liusu's "specialty," according to Liuyuan, is "bowing the head." What cultural sensibility is revealed in this gesture? Is it consistent with her skills on the dance floor?
2. Example: Death and the King's Horseman
   
   1. What horrifies Amusa about the costumes he sees Mr. and Mrs. Pilkings wearing as they tango before going to the ball they will attend that night?
   2. What contrast is Soyinka drawing between the meaning of dance in Western and Yoruban cultures? 
   3. How are concerns about the Pilkings' casual appropriation of the egungun costume and masks still an issue in museums that display African artworks? How can one draw a line between aesthetics and ritual?
3. Example:  The poems of Lorna Goodison
   
   1. The Caribbean writers in our anthology see beyond skin color when they contemplate the mixture of cultures that form their ancestry. How does Lorna Goodison's Guinea Woman, a poem about her great-grandmother, convey a sense of the cultural identity communicated by her great-grandmother's walk? What happens to that style of movement as the poem progresses?
   2. How is the reference to Bob Marley's music in Heartease New England 1987 a way of implying the strength of cross-cultural aesthetics in the United States today?
4. Example: Zaabalawi
   
   1. What do the various interlocutors whom the narrator questions in his search for Zaabalawi wear?  How do the aesthetics of costume indicate where they fit on the continuum between Western and traditional Islamic culture typical of modern Egypt?
   2. What is the implied contrast between science and aesthetics in Zaabalawi? How do they serve as markers for modern and traditional culture?

Comparative perspectives on literary reflections of aesthetic practices

Level B

1. How would you compare the physical descriptions of Tanizaki's mother and Lorna Goodison's great-grandmother? How do costume and gesture modify the way bodies move and what they communicate? 
2. Compare and contrast the authors' attitudes toward Western-style dancing in Love in aFallen City and Death and the King's Horseman. How would you account for the differences?  Who are the dancers in each case? What does their style of movement and their mode of dress tell us about their cultural allegiances and attitudes?

Level C

1. Compare and contrast the understanding of other cultures and of their own that informs the work of Tanizaki and Mahfouz. In what sense are they advocates for their own cultural traditions? To what extent do they view these traditions critically? Cite at least one textual example for every response you offer.
2. Compare and contrasts ideas about theater and culture implicit in Tanizaki's In Praiseof Shadows, Yeats's "Lapis Lazuli", Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan, and Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman.
3. What has happened to styles in clothing and the way women present their bodies in the last half-century in the United States? How do observers from other cultures read the messages American fashion seems to send?

Focus on Texts and Contexts

Level A

1. Summarize the ideas proposed by Brecht in "Alienation Effects in Chinese Acting."
   
   1. Why does he think the "alienation effect" is a good tool for the kind of political theater he advocated?
   2. What kinds of devices does he use in The Good Woman of Setzuan to promote this alienation effect?

Level B

1. Explain the critique offered by Min Tian in "'Alienation-Effect' for whom? Brecht's (Mis)interpretation of the Classical Chinese Theatre."
   
   1. Why does Min Tian base some of his comments on the writings of Mei Lan-fang?
   2. How well versed was Brecht in his study of Chinese theater? How was he introduced to ideas about Asian dramatic practice?  Why was this kind of cross-cultural interest so great in the great cities of Europe in the early years of the twentieth century?

Level C

1. Write a paper that examines the significance of Min Tian's critical approach for literary studies in general. What risks do artists and audiences run when they try to draw cultural conclusions from evidence that may not be as reliable or as well understood as they think? Can you find other examples of possible misinterpretations of the culture and aesthetics of the Other in the anthology?