Address and the Lure of the Aesthetic: Reflections on Monique Roelofs, The Cultural Promise of the Aesthetic

Authors

Carolyn Korsmeyer, University of BuffaloFollow

Abstract

Monique Roelofs argues that some of the aesthetic power of art is traceable to the way that works address their audiences, promising the creation of cultural community. Such communities become exclusionary when modes of address presume and perpetuate social hierarchies. This paper explores this notion in works where moral and aesthetic precepts seem to conflict and whose address induces attitudes that one would reject in “reality” but that are required for the full appreciative grasp of a narrative.