Monday, September 28, 2009

Essay: "Notes on 'Camp.' " Susan Sontag. 1964.

10-second review: The best summary of "Camp" is in the last sentence: "It's good because it's awful." An attempt by the author to define the indefinable. Could serve as a model.


Quotes:

“Taste has no system and no proof.”


“Camp is a vision of the world in terms of style—but a particular kind of style. It is the love of the exaggerated.”


“The thing as pure artifice.”


“The hallmark of camp is the spirit of extravagance.”


“Camp…incarnates a victory of ‘style’ over extravagance.”


“Style is everything….”


“…that there exists…a good taste of bad taste.”


“Camp taste is, above all, a mode of enjoyment, of appreciation—not judgment....”


Comment: Still don't understand "camp"? Read the essay. RayS.


Best American Essays of the Century. Editors: Oates and Atwan. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. 2000.

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