“Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life
heightened and its deepest mystery probed? Can the writer isolate and
vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our
heats? Can the writer renew our hope for literary forms? Why are we
reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our
days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the
possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest
mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power?”
I was re-reading Annie Dillard's The Writing Life and came upon
this passage. Dillard states that when we read we are searching for
"beauty laid bare." When I first read it, I wasn't quite sure what to
make of the phrase. Does she mean beauty that is obvious, or beauty that
is stripped of any excess? I'm still not quite sure what the phrase
precisely means, but I feel like in the passage Dillard is trying to
express something we have discussed in class frequently: beauty can
express some truth to us that we cannot merely state, but need to
experience through art.
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