From: LouisFors <LouisFors@aol.com>
Message-Id: <1136cda4.352b8e54@aol.com>
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 10:48:50 EDT
To: emweb@fmgmt.mgmt.utoronto.ca
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Subject: Re: Pondering # 544
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In a message dated 98-04-08 10:05:19 EDT, Karin wrote:

> Subj:	 Re: Pondering # 544
>  
>  I had another thought about artists as martyrs this morning. I agree with
>  what others have said, but thought this might be another nuance: it
>  occurred to me that artists, or artistic people, often *feel* life more
>  intensely than do other people. ED, in particular, was so highly sensitive
>  that she didn't, *couldn't,* I would almost say, live the same kind of
>  life as her family members, friends, peers. In some ways I think artists
>  do and direct our hardest emotional and spiritual work for us; people who
>  love art *use* art to find their way through life -- use what the artist
>  has to say about his or her own pain to help ease and understand their
>  own. So the artist is almost "crucified" by his or her intense experience
>  of life, and through the expression of this intense pain and joy, saves
>  others. I think the "peace" is not for the artist, but for his or her
>  readers (or viewers, etc.). 
>  
>  This reading comes closer to satisfying the religious connotations the
>  word "martyr" has for me. 
>  
>  Karin

Forgive me for sending a prior message that simply repeated what you said,
Karin.
I pushed the wrong button.

I like the *feel* of your shift of "martyr" to its religious connotation.  I
had struggled with that meaning but came up dry.  The poem is loaded with
possibilities.

Louis Forsdale
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