Page 88 - The Irony Board
P. 88
Into the World
An oyster if asked
What he’d do with grit
Won’t say make a pearl
But just let me spit
The final comment on art in this collection is also the first on the
natural world. Another pearl of popular wisdom postulates suffering
as prerequisite to creative ability. Literal pearls are produced to
neutralize inexpectorable irritations; surely the oyster would rather
not go through the effort and unpleasantness of transforming pain
into beauty. The question gone begging is whether or not the human
artist would choose miserable genius over pleasurable dullness—if
the choice were clear and possible. People, unlike animals, have
cultural values and individual neuroses leading them to believe, on
the one hand, that suffering is truly unavoidable; and, on the other,
that the works of an artist justify his unhappiness.
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