On the Finer Points of "Fine"

The word fine is one of those lexical units whose meaning, or meaning potential, is frustratingly multiple. It spans the range from signifying satisfaction to reflecting dissatisfaction.  It is a little bit like, as I noted previously, "fuhgeddaboudit" in the fine film Donnie Brasco.  In an effort to clear up my own thinking about it, which stems in part from personal communication failure, I want to look at the finer points of what we mean by fine.

Freud and Woolf on Art

In Civilization and Its Discontents (1929), Sigmund Freud argues that “[l]ife as we find it, is too hard for us; it brings us too many pains, disappointments, and impossible tasks. In order to bear it we cannot dispense with palliative measures” (CD 23). Art is one such “palliative,” one that features prominently in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (1927). Whereas for Freud art is merely one means of substituting pleasure for the pain of reality by escaping reality, in Woolf’s novel art also has a palliative function, but it intersects with and merges with reality to induce pleasure, satisfaction, and intimacy within it.