Ocean, Bird Scholar the Ocean,

Ocean, Bird Scholar

The Ocean, the Bird, and the Scholar," by Helen Vendler

Helen Vendler discusses the importance of key humanities disciplines in human experience in her work "The Ocean, the Bird, and the Scholar." Specifically Helen Vendler proposes that the arts are central to mankind's physical, emotional and spiritual well being and that the arts are the most important humanities discipline, more so than philosophy or history. Vendler also argues that without experience in the arts mankind may fail to acknowledge his own history and truly learn to live life to the fullest during his/her short time on earth.

Vendler makes a strong case for strengthening support for the arts in The Ocean, the Bird and the Scholar. Details of her synopsis of the arts are discussed below.

Analysis of Work

Vendler proposes that the arts in particular are a vital component of the humanities discipline and may in fact be considered central to humanities studies (Gewertz, 2005). Vendler also suggests that the arts are more important than other humanities disciplines and encourages universities and educators to acknowledge the contribution the arts have to make within the humanities. Vendler argues throughout her lecture that the arts should be at minimum the focus of study in the humanities rather than traditional disciplines such as history and philosophy (Gewertz, 2005). According to Vendler the arts "present the whole uncensored human person" (Gewertz 1) including their emotional, intellectual and physical personas in a singe form which according to Vendler no other discipline can accomplish (Gewertz, 2005).

Art according to Vendler is something that allows humans to present themselves uncensored to the world, allows individuals to assert themselves personally. Art according to Vendler allows meaning central to human existence when "a vacant stretch of grass becomes humanly important when one reads the sign Gettysburg'... over the silent grass hangs an extended canopy of meaning' (Gewertz 1).

Vendler suggests that the fate of the bird and its decedents "whose traces are obliterated by ocean wave" may represent a physical condition where humans live a life physically dead though there are alive (Gewertz 1). The scholar on the other hand is someone that supports the work of the artists and encourages the artist through cultural memories, "history and taxonomy" (Gewertz 1). Vendler also suggests that many people would want to come back and relish life in a manner they did not when alive (Gewertz 1).

The arts according to Vendler "aim to be eternal" and Americans should aspire to eternity in a positive light (Vendler 1). Art is "an angel of the earth, renewing our sense of life and of ourselves" and allowing mankind to provide the other half of meaning (Vendler 1). There are those that would interpret meanings, labeled scholars who might propel people to a higher level of understanding.

Art is also powerful according to Vendler, capable of inspiriting interest and curiosity about other "aesthetic matters" including philosophy, history and other disciplines (Vendler 1). Vendler also states that the arts "are too profound and too far reaching to be left out of our children's patrimony" suggesting that the arts have a right in schools and should be considered as serious as other subjects including math or biology (Vendler, 2004; Field, 2004). Further, Vendler argues that the arts can teach individuals more about heritage than other subjects including philosophy and even history because the arts offer a picture of the way mankind was, has lived and may live in the future (Field, 2004).

Vendler suggests that people would be sleepwalkers as Wallace Stevens proposes in his poem "Somnambulisma" that wonder through life without conscious acknowledgment of their existence I they fail to participate in the arts and recognize the vital contributions the arts have to offer (Field, 2004; Craig, 2004). The arts offer mankind a unique vantage point from which "multiple perspectives on history and philosophy" can be examined (Field 1). No other discipline affords one the opportunity to explore the interrelatedness of the physical, spiritual and emotional components of living as art does.