In one of those odd coincidences, I was reminded by something I read last night that nihilism and aestheticism - the topics, in a way, of my last post - have often walked hand in hand. The obvious example is Matthew Arnold, who as we know saw art as the last best hope of those who had lost their faith in everything else. I have called myself an aesthete in the past based on similar reasoning, which I guess you can also find in Wallace Stevens.
I don't like to write these awfully lengthy posts, and I won't add another tonight. But there are definitely more points I'd like to make about theory. In particular, I'd like to ask myself how exactly one goes about writing criticism in the absence of theory. Looking back on my undergrad years, I remember I was actually quite troubled by questions about what's worth committing to paper. But more on that later.
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re: nihilism and aestheticism, I am reminded of something Nietzsche, I believe, said: that, in the end, the world was only justified as an aesthetic phenomenon or experience.
As for "theory," you obviously need A theory—however consciously or unconsciously considered/constructed it may be—to make judgments and delineate significance. That you require what contemporary criticism calls "theory" to do so is surely false.
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