Students personal reflections on the aesthetic experience
Date
1993
Authors
Bowker, Fredrick Osborne
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Abstract
During the nearly thirty years that I have been teaching English, I have had frequent discussions about the aesthetic experience, especially as it arises from reading poetry. Through conversations with my students I have formulated a theory about how people can be brought to an aesthetic experience with poetry, and for that matter, with any domains of art. Further, I had come to the conclusion that while analysis of poetry was clearly a cognitive function, the aesthetic experience was intensely emotional involving as it does, powerful feelings and sensations. The problem was to determine what students really experienced when they told me they had had an aesthetic experience. I wanted a more exact description of the feelings and sensations associated with the aesthetic experience. Was the aesthetic experience similar for all students? Or was each experienced unique?
In conducted two interviews with each of five of my former pupils. The first interview took place immediately after they graduated from school, the second two years later. With two years between interviews the students had time to reflect on the aesthetic experience and to distance themselves from any influence that I might have had during the first interview. Each pair of interviews was transcribed and examined for consistency; I looked at the phraseology, the expression of strong emotions and the ability to of the students to articulate these.
I concluded that a strong similarity in how my students described the aesthetic experience was apparent. They described the aesthetic experience as "transformative", as one of the most powerful emotional experiences of their young lives. Even Michelle, who has not had an aesthetic experience for over two years was in no doubt either as to its nature, or of its importance in her life; she described it as "a pinnacle of experience."
I have theorized that as a result of having analyzed intensely a work of art an individual comes to know the complexity and harmony of that work. Out of this ever deepening knowing comes the aesthetic experience which itself is characterized by intense emotions and sensations. The words of my students confirm this experience.