Probably the most common and naive intuition about literature is that it is a “representation of life.
I don't think I have ever thought about literature in this way. It's an interesting perspective! But I don't know if I would say it's "probably the most common and naive perception of literature"; that seems like he is just making a general assumption. What about it makes it so common? I've never heard anyone refer to it as such.
The problem with representation might be summarized by reversing the traditional slogan of theAmerican Revolution: instead of “No taxation without representation,” no representation without taxation. Every representation exacts some cost, in theform of lost immediacy, presence, or truth, in the form of a gap between intention and realization, original and copy
"No representation without taxation". I think that is an excellent way of summarizing the points made in the essay. The issue with representation, thus, is that it can never be perfect, and it always takes something away, either from the thing being represented, or from the person doing the representing.
Representations, Plato reasoned, are mere substitutes for the things themselves; even worse, they may be false orillusory substitutes that stir up antisocial emotions (violence or weakness), and they may represent bad persons and actions, encouraging imitation of evil.Only certain kinds of representations, carefully controlled by the state, were to be permitted into Plato's republic of rational virtue.
I don't really understand Plato's point of view. I can see how a representation of something bad might incite people to imitate it, but don't see how a representation is inherently bad for substituting the object represented.
all paintingsmay employ shapes, shades, and colors on a two-dimensional surface (and this may be called the painter's “code”), but there are many ways of depicting atree, many ways of applying paint to a surface. Some of them may become institutionalized as styles or genres, and these, like codes, are social agreements(“let us agree to represent this with that used in this way”), only of a more specialized nature. These “mini-codes” associated with styles of representationare usually called “conventions.” The difference between a code and a convention may be illustrated by thinking of the difference between a medium and agenre: film is a medium, a material means of representation with a complex set of rules for combining and deciphering its signs; whereas the HollywoodWestern is a particular kind of film, a genre that is recognized by the persistence of certain conventional elements
I like these two examples; I think they make the author's point very clear.
In fact, thedecision to let A stand for B may (and usually does) open up a whole new realm of possibilities for representation: B becomes a likely candidate to standfor C, and so on.
I don't really understand what he's saying here. If A represents B, then how can B represent C?
The paradigm for the arts shifts from the pure nonrepresentational formalism of abstractpainting and music to mass media and advertising, in which everything is indefinitely reproducible and representable as a commodity. Categories such as“the thing itself,” the “authentic,” and “the real” which were formerly considered the objects of representation (or as the presence achieved by formalpurity) now become themselves representations, endlessly reduplicated and distributed.
Are these objects then real (and thus the object being represented), or are they representations? Are they both at the same time?
a note or a musical phrase has meaning only in relation toa larger piece and familiar systems of tonality
I don't think that's necessarily the case; a musical note or phrase can be understood without the context of a larger piece. For instance, I can represent the note "A" by drawing a musical note on a staff and someone else can understand it. I understand that it would be necessary for the other person to know how an "A" is represented on the staff, and I think that's what he means when he refers to "familiar systems of tonality". But it doesn't need to be a part of a larger piece for it to represent something to someone.