Re: conlangs as art (was: Re: Wikipedia:Verifiability - Mailing lists as sources

Hallo!

On Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:50:01 +0000, And Rosta wrote:

> I can say, truthfully & without hyperbole, that I have been saying on this
> list longer than anyone that conlangs can be art. Nevertheless I am also
> convinced that as an artistic medium conlanging does not lend itself to the
> creation of great art that, say, exalts us, or moves us deeply, or gives us
> profound insights into life.
Why not?  Where is the problem?  Why cannot be that a conlang moves
someone deeply?  A conlang can express the thoughts and feelings of
its author as much as, for instance, a piece of music can do.  That,
at least, is my opinion; for instance, I find Quenya and Sindarin
very expressive of Tolkien's mindset.

>       The same goes for, say, raffiawork, or origami,
> or flower-arranging, or dance, or model-railwaying. True, one can find great
> beauty and delight in all these things, but then one can find beauty and
> delight in anything if one views it in a sufficiently aestheticized way,
> even a dogturd;
A dogturd is not a product of artisanship.  It may have a shape that
someone may consider beautiful (I doubt that anyone will consider its
*odour* beautiful), but it is not a work of art or craft, so your
comparison is meaningless.

>       and I will adamantly not concede an aesthetic equivalence
> between a dogturd and the Moonlight Sonata. (To my mind there is a definite
> hierarchy of aesthetic value, with the Moonlight Sonata around the top, the
> dogturd around the bottom, and conlanging around the middle.)
A hierarchy of aesthetic value is a rather dubious matter to me.
Your words reflect a pre-modern way of thinking about the arts, from
times fortunately passed, from times when art was not free.

And forget about that dogturd.

... brought to you by the Weeping Elf

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