Keywords

1
Keywords

• An examination of vocabulary through the eyes of
  Raymond Williams

2
Williams Reasons Behind Writing Keywords

• Returned from WWII to Cambridge University and
  encountered a new language
• We have different immediate values or different
  kinds of valuation, or that we are aware, often
  intangibly, of different formations and
  distributions of energy and interest (Williams
  11).

3
The Effects of Culture

• Language changed because of culture
• Culture
• Preferred word for a kind of social superiority
• In literature culture indicated central
  formation of values
• In general discussion culture was equivalent to
  society (a particular way of life)
• American Culture Japanese Culture

4
What exactly is Keywords?

• It is the record of an inquiry into a
  vocabulary a shared body of words and meanings
  in our most general discussions, in English, of
  the practices and institutions which we group as
  culture and society (Williams 15).

5
What is a keyword?

• Keyword single words or habitual groupings that
  are issues or problems inside the vocabulary
• Examples
• Aesthetic Alienation Family
• Ethnic Dramatic Wealth
• Peasant Work Unconscious

6
What are your perceptions of the word taste?
7
Williams Breakdown

• -States the origins of word
• -C13
• -oF tastare feel, handle, touch
• -Establishes two definitions
• -association with the mouth
• -more modern touch or feel
• -examples

8
Still Breaking It Down

• -17th and 18th century usage
• -quality
• -equivalent to discrimination
• -capitalized
• -Wordsworths attack
• -Further analysis of words evolving from taste

9
Other Keywords and their Relation to Taste

• -Cannot be separated from consumer
• -two ideas have developed together
• -responses to art and literature
• profoundly affected by development
• -See Aesthetic, Consumer, Criticism, and
  Sensibility

10
In honor of Arts Fest

• We will celebrate the word

ART
11
Arts History

• -derived from the Latin word artem (to fit)
• -1225 Telle me of 3oure art. Whi werrie 3e
  cristene men (St. Margarete)
• Skill its display or application
• -1300 Thyn erbes failith and thyn art! (K.
  Alis)
• Skill in applying principles of special
  technical science
• -1620 Spencer and Shakespeare did in art excell
  (J. Taylor)
• The application of skill to subjects of taste,
  as poetry, music, dancing, the drama

12
Less Used Defintions

• -1832 These men, belonging to the woollen art
  (Sismondi)
• A guild, or company of craftsmen
• -1410 So is he constryened and arted (Love)
• To confine, cramp, restrict, or limit
• -1374 What for to speke, and what to holden
  inne, And what to arten (Chaucer)
• To press, urge, insist on

13
Attacking Art

• -Specialization
• earlier v. later definitions
• -Current perceptions
• The knowledge that spinning wheels are perfectly
  good antique stuffhad been impinged uponby the
  desire to art up and decorate indiscriminately
  (American Magazine 1929)
• Should this be used as a verb or adjective?

14
Relationships between Distinct Definitions

• How are the different definitions reconciled?
• What other keyword-like words should be
  considered when attempting to define art?
• Are there any synonyms for art? Have there ever
  been?

15
ENJOY ART TODAY!