Political Aesthetics of Toni Morrison`s Jazz
Keywords : Politics, aesthetics, Harlem Renaissance, language, Jazz music, culture, black Identity.
ABSTRACT The following study attempts to understand the politics of aesthetics in the context of Toni Morrison's Jazz by using Rancière's idea that aesthetics is subordinated to politics. The title of the novel with its evocation of Afro - American musical form (aesthetic form) and its different sites (here in this case Harlem is the focus of attention) of black revolutionary struggle plays an explicitly political role in expressing the desire for the Black liberation in the U. S, Africa and the Caribbean. In Rancier's view aesthetic is distanced from action as opposed to politics but a sufficient split of action. Distance does not imply a lack of practical involvement. As for him aesthetic experience is not the experience of an aesthete, a drawing art for art's sake but the "distribution of the sensible", a dissociation of the body of the platonic artisan who is supposed to focus only on the art. In this sense aesthetic is not purely alludes to inaction but more of the contemplation of action and not just the beauty of the art itself. As in jazz is not a form of atual political action but it induces individuals to express their desire to act, towards liberation. This political aesthetics of Jazz is played out through the body of the text. The novel stimulates the style of jazz music to tell the falling marriage of Joe and Violet Trace. The novel focuses on the style as much as the narrative / stories of the Harlem communities in 1926. As in the forward Morrison talks about her aim to "establish the structure where meaning, rather than information, would lie; where the project came as close as it could to its idea of itself - the essence of the so-called jazz age … improvisation, originality, change. Rather than be about those characteristics, the novel would seek to become them." Her desire to convey the meaning through form/structure takes the ideas from jazz, it is jazz which creates much of meanings through sounds not words. It is in this way, study attempts to show how language becomes political, (it is by merging of language with cultural form 'jazz music'), it departs from the dominant representation of "Blacks" and rewrite the history of 'Black' Americans, what she claims as, "a cultural specificity that is Afro American". So, it is in this way aesthetics and politics come together.
"Political Aesthetics of Toni Morrison`s Jazz", IJSDR - International Journal of Scientific Development and Research (www.IJSDR.org), ISSN:2455-2631, Vol.7, Issue 12, page no.77 - 80, December-2022, Available :https://ijsdr.org/papers/IJSDR2212012.pdf
Volume 7
Issue 12,
December-2022
Pages : 77 - 80
Paper Reg. ID: IJSDR_202848
Published Paper Id: IJSDR2212012
Downloads: 000347319
Research Area: Arts
Country: New Delhi, Delhi, India
ISSN: 2455-2631 | IMPACT FACTOR: 9.15 Calculated By Google Scholar | ESTD YEAR: 2016
An International Scholarly Open Access Journal, Peer-Reviewed, Refereed Journal Impact Factor 9.15 Calculate by Google Scholar and Semantic Scholar | AI-Powered Research Tool, Multidisciplinary, Monthly, Multilanguage Journal Indexing in All Major Database & Metadata, Citation Generator
Publisher: IJSDR(IJ Publication) Janvi Wave
