As I usually find when I begin writing on a topic, I am not going where I thought I would.  I have ended up really focusing on three texts rather than the initial five, because I have found that two of the texts have a difficult time fitting into the conversation that my paper is forming.  My paper started as a focus on those who live their lives as art and this concept is still there, but I am now getting into the idea of the “genius” as well.  And I don’t see any problems with this; the genius and the artist are really two in the same as I am finding.  And they both fit into the master concept.  They both see the world in a way that most don’t.  Their passion drives them toward something abstract.  They see possibility where there should be none.  They both try to live their lives as art.  And this idea, I am starting to see, means being free to form a life in the way one sees as most beautiful regardless of what society says—to be free of all that may confine a human.  In this world, right and wrong become muddled.  I am beginning to see this as a choice all people have, and those who make it are usually pushed out of society—they are seen as crazy.

I also try to find out why people are regarded as crazy or insane and then, one day, they are genius.  How can the same person, the same idea, be both upheld and abhorred by society at the same time.  I have been using Yeats’ poem to guide me through the paper, but as I am finding, depending on who the speaker is on the subject of art (Wilde, Maugham, Yeats, Steiner), art can be many different things.  Most discussions of art come to a point where there is a question of its moral nature.  Are artists filled with evil spirits or are they reaching for the divine?  I am also finding it difficult to really understand the intent of the concept of the “master’s final lesson” being to make one’s self eternal.  Are we to listen to the master?  Are we to be this master?  Because if we are, as the literary texts that I am using show, there is a lot of harm that come to those who try to make themselves into art, as well as other people in their life.  The difficulty that arises seems to be that ‘life as art’ conflicts with a life that isn’t art.  Yeats wants to be a golden bird (art) and sing to the lords and ladies of Byzantium (not art).  Those who seek the eternal separate themselves from all others as a way to really connect with others?  So I guess this gets me back to a question that Dr. Sexson pointed out to me early on: “Is this something that is to be pursued?”