Literary Works that Embody Each Stage in the Spiral

[DocWatts]

I was going back and revisiting some works of literature recently, which got me to pondering artistic expression at different levels of the Spiral.

As an interesting thought experiment I began consider which works of literature would perhaps best embody the ethos of the various worldviews, and thought that this might make an interesting idea for a Thread.

Here's what I've come up with so far:

 

Red - The Illiad and the Odyssey : Homer.

Blue - Crime and Punishment & The Brothers Karamozov : Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Orange - Les Miserables : Victor Hugo. Ulysses : James Joyce. Moby Dick : Herman Melville.

Green - Gravity's Rainbow : Thomas Pynchon.

Yellow - Infinite Jest : David Foster Wallace

[Bernardo Carleial]

 

15 hours ago, DocWatts said:

I was going back and revisiting some works of literature recently, which got me to pondering artistic expression at different levels of the Spiral.

As an interesting thought experiment I began consider which works of literature would perhaps best embody the ethos of the various worldviews, and thought that this might make an interesting idea for a Thread.

Here's what I've come up with so far:

 

Red - The Illiad and the Odyssey : Homer.

Blue - Crime and Punishment & The Brothers Karamozov : Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Orange - Les Miserables : Victor Hugo. Ulysses : James Joyce. Moby Dick : Herman Melville.

Green - Gravity's Rainbow : Thomas Pynchon.

Yellow - Infinite Jest : David Foster Wallace

Also Blue:

War and Peace: Leo Tolstoy

Also Red:

Gates of Fire: Steven Pressfield

Edited August 8, 2021 by Bernardo Carleial

[mandyjw]

I'm not sure this works out, I think good literature transcends all stages. Like try doing this for The Scarlet Letter, obviously it's about stage blue, but it's far more transcendent than to stage orange. 

[Bernardo Carleial]

2 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

I'm not sure this works out, I think good literature transcends all stages. Like try doing this for The Scarlet Letter, obviously it's about stage blue, but it's far more transcendent than to stage orange. 

Surely it cannot be applied for all the literary spectrum, there's a lot of artistic license that gets in the way throughout the narrative, and it varies from writer to writer...

but I also believe that it's possible to find a main theme and/or  core principles from a particular character that might resonate to a particular stage of the spiral.

[DocWatts]

@mandyjw It's more about each Stage having thier own transcendent Truths, which are informed by a particular meta-ideology, that can speak to people from beyond the context it was created in.

Which is why something like The Brothers Karamazov, created close to two centuries ago from an SD-Blue paradigm, is still a powerful work that speaks to people to this day.

But at the same time, being able to actually understand the work requires some knowledge of the context it was created in (18th century Russia), so knowledge of Spiral Dynamics can still be very informative.

Obviously using Spiral Dynamics as the only lens to look at a work would be highly reductive, but for putting a work in to some sort of a broader context it can be highly valuable.

And it's also undeniable that certain works can also be looked at as embodying certain worldviews or meta-ideologies. Something like the Illiad or the Oydessy is a good example of this, as it's almost impossible to make sense of the work in a modern context without knowing the system of values that were present in the Classical Greek world.

Edited August 8, 2021 by DocWatts

[ArcticGong]

@DocWatts Where would you place George Orwell's work on the spiral?

[DocWatts]

@ArcticGong

Tough one. Orwell himself was a democratic Socialist and probably closer to an emerging Green.

As far as his work I suppose you could say it perhaps resonates with the value systems of both Orange and Green, but I wouldn't say that it's a particularly clear cut embodiment of either one.

What's interesting about his work is that it's Universalist enough that several different ideologies have attempted to appropriate his work (sometimes misunderstanding it in the process).

Another thing about his work is that it doesn't really fit neatly into an established Literary style (such as Orange Modernism or Green Postmidernism), like some of the other works that have been mentioned.

Edited August 22, 2021 by DocWatts