Fantastique Interpretation

The primary source I am examining today caught my attention just because of how strange it is. We are working with a poem from issue 12 of Stooge oriented in 1974. The first read of the poem was very difficult because of how disjointed the poem is in wording and in layout. However as I read through the poem a few more times I think that poem is poking fun at the world of high art. Lines like, “no kidding, names for his two slippers? negotiating 60 dillion dollars for his memories” at first are so non-sensical, but I think that’s the point. How much do collectors pay for originals of manuscripts or first sketches of famous paintings?

When the Symphonie Fantastique debuted, it was a culture changing event or how Europeans viewed music. Looking back at it now, how much of the avant-garde hyper analyzed attitude towards art can be linked back to a telling of a story in the form of a symphony? Remember at the time of the debut, “Paris still had its medieval walls…which enclosed a much smaller area” (Kelly, First Nights p.183). The structures that people had been living in and with and growing around were still very obviously present when this piece premiered. Did anything think that telling a more personal story would lead away from the Greek classics that fueled previous musical story telling and open up the way for what the classical art world is today? And in relation to this poem, who would have thought that one person telling a story of an opium trip through instrumental music would lead to such an absurdist view of the art world in one short page.