The Modern Eye: Literature and the Art Aesthetics - 'The Moon and Sixpence'

Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: A, Birkbeck, University of London (Humanities), course: Modernist Literature and Modern Art, language: English, abstract: Only few contemporary authors have been praised as highly and condemned as completely as W. Somerset Maugham. The present essay discusses Maugham's novel 'The Moon and Sixpence.' My concerns lay on key questions that I try to explore. First and foremost, what do we learn about the presentation of the early twentieth century artist from Maugham? Are, in fact, artistic techniques used in the literary portrait (depictions) of the artist? What do we learn about modern art from the text? Why is Maugham writing about an artist? How can literature depict artist and artistic processes? Now I propose to attempt at least to suggest the reasons for, if not to reconcile, opinions as widely different as the ones presented further in the essay and, at the same time, to offer a less impetuous and more carefully substantiated criticism of Maugham's fictional work, 'The Moon and Sixpence.'