Art as embodiment of feeling: an aesthetic approach to contemporary novels

• Main Author: Siti Nadia Yanti Bte Alang M. K.
• Other Authors: Neil Murphy
• Format: Thesis-Master by Research
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Humanities::Literature; Social sciences::Sociology::Culture; Humanities::Language::Philology; Visual arts and music::Art criticism
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/172306
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The central question that drives this thesis is: what does it mean to call a novel a work of art? This question opens itself to the field of aesthetics with its traditional approaches to art and theories on what makes art important. Further investigation tells us that aesthetics have traditionally been informed by a mind-body discourse rooted in dualism which in turn drives the association of art with the cultivation of mind over matter. This paper attempts to approach aesthetics from an experiential perspective to theorise that an aesthetic experience is not just an activity of the mind, but an activation of feeling meaning the collective of emotional, mental, intellectual, psychological and physical processes that characterise our interfacing with the world around us. Thus, drawing from strands of contemporary Aesthetic theories, Body and Affect Studies, this paper charts the development of an aesthetic framework rooted in developing concepts that promote mindbody unity. The literary works that are examined in this paper serve a two-fold purpose: they contribute variously to the body-aesthetic theories and they are subjects for the application of the aesthetic framework. Analyses of contemporary works using the framework illuminates the literary techniques that contribute to a novel’s artistry, and tells us more about the relationship between language and feeling. It is hoped that this aesthetic approach to reading can cultivate the love for books into a deeper love for art and for life itself.