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i have a point i'd like to bring up. it is not related to any of prof dalke's questions, but it is on my mind and important, so here you go.

in grobstein's group, people made a connection between belsey's "renunciation of beauty" and his affairs, saying that he's more affected by beauty than he's willing to admit and that he's a hypocrite. i'm not sure if anyone quite said this, but i felt it was strongly implied in what many people said.

i would have to completely disagree with this. belsey does not actually "renounce beauty." i don't even think he's "against beauty." saying belsey is against beauty is like saying that foucault thinks no one in the 20th century actually authors texts: these are such exaggerations of subtler arguments that they are simply wrong. belsey is basically saying that viewing rembrandt's art through the traditional, overused and arguably superficial lenses of beauty and genius is misguided; beauty is not a significant aspect of rembrandt's art and rembrandt does not even qualify as a genius, he is an "artisan" who follows his patrons' wishes. he does not like looking at conventionally beautiful art, probably because it reminds him of all the philosophies he finds superficial, so he only includes nonrepresentational art in his house.

his argument does not extend farther than this. his argument has nothing to do with sexual desire and intercourse. therefore there is nothing hypocritical about him cheating on his wife and renouncing beauty in rembrandt. kipps is the hypocrite because he, as a bit of a political pundit, takes a strong ethical stance in his work and in his ardent religiosity, and he cheats. so cheating can make an ethical position look worse, but not an intellectual one.

i am guessing that smith views belsey as a hypocrite because most of the book is about his intellectual beliefs and his personal conduct; they're juxtaposed to be compared. one of the problems i have with this novel is the inappropriate connections smith makes between the intellectual and personal -- wait till you read the ending of the book. i'm not saying there are no connections between these two realms of life; i just think smith makes incorrect ones.

after all, the main way she criticizes intellectuals in her novel is by showing how awkward they are in person: at parties, at poetry readings, in boring ineffective meetings, etc. but all these awkward times have nothing to do with their ability as scholars. her criticisms of academics do not hold up to academic scrutiny.