[Aiwendil]

(1) I think that allegory/applicability is too narrow and restrictive a definition for ‘content’. A haiku poem, for instance, cannot be said to be without content, yet most are neither allegorical nor applicable

Good point. It makes me think that what we often have in literature is really more of a three-tiered structure, rather than just form vs. content. There's form - the actual words used, overt meaning - the plot of a book, or the content of a haiku, and deeper meaning - the allegory in a lot of modern works, or the themes that can be found in LotR.

I’m not even really sure what you mean by the latter, I confess – I think you mean something along the lines of “provides some lesson or insight which is applicable to life”. Am I right? In the ballpark?

Exactly right; sorry I wasn't clearer about that. I use the word the Tolkien did, to mean the inevitable 'meaning' in a story, even when it is written without irony or allegory. 'Applicability' is what we can find in Tolkien when we talk about themes like the corruption of power, the nature of evil, etc - as opposed to the allegorical interpretations that he detested.

Come to think of it, I would contend that Beethoven is not without content as well. His music certainly creates a mood or triggers emotional responses.

All right, then change my example to a Haydn or Mozart piece, almost completely without emotion. The only mood that, say, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik really creates is aesthetic
pleasure. If you want to call that content (which you are free to do), then you have to accept art with the sole purpose of being pleasurable, as per my original definition.

Or, if you don't want to go that far, you have to deal with this problem: if content is what makes art good, and genuine emotion qualifies as content while being aesthetically pleasing does not, then you'd have to say that all Romantic music - Wagner, Mahler, etc. - is superior to all Classical music - Mozart and Haydn. Not because Wagner and Mahler were better at what they did, but because theirs was really art, while Mozart and Haydn just wrote pop tunes.

I'm not convinced that there is some abstract essence of Art which is universal to all mediums, especially since no one seems to be able to give a satisfactory definition of what that essence might be. Beethoven's Fifth is Musical Art and Citizen Kane is Film Art, but I'm not sure I can draw any meaningful universality between what makes each of them Art.

Fair enough. But then you're basicly saying: there are two (or more) fundamentally different things that just so happen both to be called art. This raises other interesting problems; one can no longer talk about 'the artist' and intend for it to apply to both music and literature; one can no longer talk about 'artistic freedom' and intend for it to apply to both. If you want to say that, I can't argue with it, but it raises a whole host of new issues.