The Research About Susan Sontag’s "Aesthetics Of Silence"

Susan Sontag’s voluminous writing themes always converge to the middleshaft——art itself. Sontag devoted her lifetime to the defence of the dignity of art itself,and called the due freedom of life. Art on the way to the constant pursuit of the perfectwas in trouble, imprisoned by the interpretation﹑the historical and technicalconsciousness, which would chant the eternally moral rationality repeatedly, andbecause of the hypnosis of the instrumental rationality of the capitalist, people’ssensibility has been clamped. Sontag put forward “the aesthetics of silence” in order tocombat the moral ethics via the aesthetic form and make the fresh perception andcomplete consciousness get rid of the heavy yoke. She pursues “things-speaking” andadvocates that let the phenomenon itself speak, looking forward to the art as itself andthe voluntary presence of art. In Sontag’s view, art possesses the nature of naturalscenery in existence, and therefore she advocates the relationship between art andpeople can return to the original state, so that art will rest in its own way. Sontag’s“aesthetics of silence” which marks the nature of art strives to make people go out of theinterface of thought with the silent form, and aims to subvert the traditionally rationalview of literature, as well as completely change the status that the aesthetic serves themorality and ethics, and get rid of “the power” and “the moral atmosphere”, and finallyrealize that the perceptual win the rational. Sontag’s effort to make people attain theappreciation of the original sociology or ethics via art sets a standard on capturingthings so as to realize the human freedom without rationally habitual responses.This paper is divided into three chapters:The first chapter, the source of “silence”——create “myth”. The ruinous situationof life of the era and art’s self-regulatory requirement of expressing absolute myth, aswell as traditionally literary concept’s behavior that is still unabated to regard theaesthetic as ethical servant with enthusiasm, have become the real motivations of “theaesthetics of silence”. In addition, the ideological streams of the phenomenology, theexistentialism and the aestheticism, provided a philosophical basis for “the aesthetics ofsilence”.The second chapter, the purport of “silence”——pray to the original. Art focusesitself on the value of their own discipline, which will make every effort to get rid of theshell of the interpretation, and abandon the yoke of history, entering “the silence”.“Theaesthetics of silence” may rescue the art from ruins, of which the purport is the“pornography”﹑“initial look” and “transparence” of art, pursuing artistic oasis that “arose is a rose”(Gertrude Stein’s saying), and nourish pepole’s fresh perception andappreciation through the art like landscape so as to make them harmonious and sharp.The third chapter, the practice of “silence”. This chapter analyzes Sontag’s “theaesthetics of silence” in her works, and points out that the thirst for freedom isthroughout Sontag’s practice of life and spiritual quest.