When my older daughter was about six-years-old, my wife took her to a performance of a Shakespeare's
Much Ado About Nothing. Concerned that my daughter was "getting it," my wife leaned over and explained certain plot points as they went by (very quietly, of course). After a few times, my daughter stopped her and said "mom, I don't need to understand it to enjoy it."
Does understanding become the foundational metric of enjoyment only as we get older? Is there a way a work of art can appeal more directly to our emotions and leave us delighted without us having to process it intellectually? And, as we grow older, do we fight that phenomenon as we're experiencing it?
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