“Good sir, how many angels may jig upon the point
of a needle?”
“The answer, friend, would be metaphysical, and
you must inquire of Aquinas.”
“But what of the dance itself?”
“That would lie within the physics, and you must
ask Aristotle.”
“And whether the jig be good or bad?”
“That must be aesthetical, and of aesthetics ’twere
best not to speak.”
—Papers of Methodius, Book III
A stranger asks me to write an Aesthetic Statement. He demands my notion of the ideal poem, so he’ll know the secret of my love of some poems and my distaste for others. I feel his pain. Perhaps he wants to prosecute me should I praise a poet who deviates from my Platonic ideal. An aesthetic statement is of little use to a critic unless he’s a lover of manifestos, a maker of quarrels, or a host who treats his guests like Procrustes. Aesthetics is a rational profession for the philosopher, but for the working critic it’s a mug’s game. To write about your aesthetics is no better than revealing your secrets, if you’re a magician, or returning a mark’s stolen wallet, if you’re a pickpocket.1
Most aesthetic statements are of value only if they’re vague enough not to offend a fly—and most sound like a Mozart sonata written by committee. Even the plain aesthetics concealed in a definition of poetry, when the definition is not merely clowning (Newton
