[ChrisW]

Art is a lie which tells the truth. -- Jean Cocteau

If you want to send a message, use Western Union. -- Samuel Goldwyn

Cocteau is pithily summing up a long tradition (arguably going back to Hesiod) when he says "Art is a lie which tells the truth."
If we apply this statement to literary texts, or at least to fictional texts, it becomes "(Fictional) literature is a tissue of falsehoods which tell a deeper truth." By means of the false claims about Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett, who never existed the artist somehow says something important about our own lives.
The trouble is that if telling us the truth is all the author is doing, then it seems we ought to be able to replace the round-about approach of the literary artist (poet, novelist etc.) with a bald statement of whatever truth the writer is trying to get across. And if one can do that why not do it? As Samuel Goldwyn says, "If you want to send a message, use Western Union."
This dilemma gives us apparently 4 choices:

1. Admit that literary language is merely "the adornment of thought". The literary work is just a sort of intricately embroidered sampler of some important truth.

2. Deny Cocteau's view and the tradition he is summing up. Literature isn't aimed at all at telling us the truth. There is no deep meaning, or if there is, it isn't very important to the aims of literature.

3. Admit that literature tells the truth, but insist that this truth is ineffable -- that it is in no way directly statable (though it can be indirectly revealed to us by the artist's indirections and fictions).

4. Say that literature aims not merely to "tell" the truth, but rather to show us the truth -- to persuade our hearts (our emotions) of a truth which our intellects may or may not already know. (Or perhaps I should say that they seek to have us fully understand, imaginatively and emotionally what we may already think we know.) In this case, the truth itself may well be stateable in other terms, but the writer's way of stating it may well be essential to the persuasion -- to the "showing" -- though not essential to the mere statement of the truth. In the case of Houseman's "When I watch the living meet", we can sum up the truth it tells as "we are all mortal." What the poem adds however is not mere embroidery on something all of us know intellectually, but rather a fuller awareness of what this truth really comes to -- it gets us to SEE what we mean when we say "we're all mortal." Art seeks not merely to communicate an intellectual truth, but rather to communicate a kind of practical and emotional wisdom (where an admission of a truth is at best only a first step).

I'm curious. Once position (4) has been stated, doesn't it seem like the best solution to the dilemma I started with? Or even after it has been stated, are there some who are more attracted to the other options? Is there something demonstrably wrong with option (4)? Are there any options I left out of my list?
[I post this here, because it is a continuation of a somewhat off-topic discussion which arose in another thread on this board -- "Politely depressed".]



[This message has been edited by ChrisW (edited April 29, 2004).]

[Chris Childers]

Hey man, I have so much to say about this (which makes me, in fact, not want to say it, since it would take forever). In fact, it's the exact topic I'm writing about in my paper on Ovid's Metamorphoses. I can certainly talk about Hesiod's Aletheia and the meaning of "truth-telling" in Indo-European and Archaic Greek poetry, but I'll save that. For now, I'll only say that the "adornment of thought" quote, which is from Dryden, is not specifically of literary language, but of language in general. The conceit is that the "thoughts," or the "truths," if you prefer, are the things with substance, the bodies, over which we drape now one account, now another. To use your example, "we're all mortal" would be a particularly plain and beggarly sort of garment to drape over this truth, while the Housman poem would be richer and more luxurious, and "In Memoriam" might be not only the royal robe but the Versailles to house it in.

In my opinion, literature is not essentially didactic, as your "persuasion of a truth" dictum would have it. The idea of multiple "truths" is incoherent to me; & as I'm sure you're aware from Plato, all mortal "truths" contradict each other anyway (by participating simultaneously in being & not-being). I think there's one Truth which neither knows language nor how to converse, that it's like the sea, and that writing poetry is like making shapes from foam, and that its purpose is to make consciousness bearable. Perhaps one might think that a foam language ought to be fit for a foam people, and that would be correct; but in that case the end would not be "Truth," but the self-indulgence of a fantasy, and "Truth" would be just as protean as the old prophetic god.

Chris

By the way, I think 4 looks like the best option because you adorn it in the most appealing cloak.

[This message has been edited by Chris Childers (edited April 29, 2004).]

[Susan McLean]

I think that art not only tells the truth, but makes it moving and memorable. I think always of Rilke's "You must change your life" as the message of art. We are changing our lives all the time, in small ways and large ways, and every shred of empathy, understanding, and wonder that we can get from art makes our lives richer.

Susan

[ChrisW]

Hi Chris

I take it then that you reject Cocteau's claim that art is attempting to get truth across (option 2) and that you also believe truth is ineffable (option 3)?

I interpret Plato differently from you. I don't think his objection is to "mortal" truths or knowledge, but rather to "opinion" -- where opinion is to be interpreted as the kind of "knowledge" given to us by common sense and sense perception. These beliefs, I think, participate in being and not being in the following fairly straightforward sense: each is true in some circumstances and not in others. (It is true that it's standardly just to return what you owe, but it is not always just in all circumstances -- if someone lent you weapons and asks for them back when he is in a psychotic episode, for instance.) Our common sense beliefs do (appear to) contradict each other because they are each adapted to particular purposes and particular conditions. We are in the position William James describes in the introduction to _Pragmatism_ -- ordinary people all have philosophical beliefs -- but most do not have a consistent set of such beliefs. Rather we switch from one position to another as we think about different situations and different topics. We keep our beliefs in different "compartments".
As I read Plato, he nevertheless regards these commonsense opinions as the starting point for an inquiry which could ultimately lead to genuine understanding and knowledge (e.g., knowledge of the correct definition of "justice"). The aim of the Socratic method is to find an account which unifies our apparently inconsistent commonsense beliefs.

In the current discussion, he would take Goldwyn and Cocteau as stating two such partial truths and the aim of the philosopher as trying to find an account on which both turn out to be partially perceiving aspects of the same overall truth about literature. (Plato's view of truth and its relation to our ordinary seemingly contradictory beliefs can be well represented by the story of the blindmen who touched different parts of the elephant and gave vastly different descriptions of its nature.) On this view, truth is stateable, but NOT in sensory concepts.

I would like to distance myself a bit from the connotations of the word "didactic", though I'll admit my view does give art a sort of educational function in a broad sense.
I think Socrates was right to be suspicious of people who think they can TEACH wisdom -- if we understand teaching as an active teacher implanting wisdom into a passive student. First of all, the student only really learns if he actively engages in the kind of pursuit I just described -- resolution of conflicts between HIS OWN beliefs. Second, the "teacher" himself is always being tested as much as his "student".
To apply this last point to literature, I'd say Goldwyn has a point against anyone who tries to merely translate some preexisting message into a story. The only chance the artist has of conveying wisdom is if he surrenders control, if he allows the practice of composition itself to teach him again the wisdom he's conveying. (Frost seems to make a similar point in
The figure a poem makes -- the essay where he says the poem "begins in delight and ends in wisdom".)
If such a joint inquiry into truth by reader and writer together is "didactic" then I'll accept the term.

Susan, I agree with you -- that's the sort of thing I meant when I said that literature is trying to teach the heart something which the head may (or may not) know.
For example, in my view the central moral truth is what my mother used to tell me "you are not the center of the world." We all know this abstractly, but just by showing us others' lives or feelings "from the inside", literature helps our hearts understand this fact (or reminds them of it). If we are unmoved, then our hearts don't really "get it".



[This message has been edited by ChrisW (edited April 29, 2004).]

[eaf]

With any debate, it's probably best to define your terms.

What do you mean when you say "truth"? Is this an intellectual concept, or an emotional one? Are they inextricably tied together? Intellectual concepts are easy to define in prose, but if you're looking for "emotional truth" or to recreate depth of feeling I don't really think you can do it in an essay.

This is very confusing.

-eaf

[ChrisW]

Sorry to have been confusing, eaf.
I don't know that definitions of terms are the best place to start a discussion, because definitions are themselves controversial.
Examples are probably the best place to start.

So far I have given two examples of "truths":
1. Every human is mortal.
2. No human being is the center of the universe.
You can add any number of further examples of "truths" -- the easiest kinds being things that don't play much role in literature (I live on the earth, water is H2O, I can't fly by flapping my arms). Truths that are more likely to show up in literature would be various psychological truths and moral truths. If you want I can give you examples of these too, but they may not be so uncontroversial as truths.

I have not distinguished between emotional and intellectual truth.
Rather I made a distinction between WAYS OF KNOWING one and the same truth.

We sometimes say that adolescents think they are immortal. We base this on their reckless behavior. If we were to ask them, I'm sure they would say that they know they are mortal. On the view that "actions speak louder than words" we might say that they don't REALLY believe that they are mortal, or not fully, and in a way I agree.
But I don't want to act as though they don't understand the evidence for human mortality. So I make a distinction between intellectual understanding and what we might call a PRACTICAL understanding of the same fact (that we are mortal).
Intellectual understanding is connected to our ability to answer unexpected questions about the topic we understand.
Practical understanding is connected to our skill in action -- our ability to actually perform well in new circumstances.
Those aren't exactly definitions, but they are at least gestures in that direction. The really essential point is that we can understand the very same truth (fact) in different ways, and these two different ways of understanding the same fact will have different effects on our actions.



[This message has been edited by ChrisW (edited April 29, 2004).]

[Zita Zenda]

Contradicting Truth Example #2
or One Way of Knowing

I am in fact, in truth, the center of
the Universe. For if there is no edge,
no corner, no beginning and no end,
then surely I must be its focal point.
It stretches endlessly away from me.


p.s. I do love philosophical discussions… do carry on, and on, and on…


------------------

Zita Z.

[Fred Longworth]

I certainly pick #4 as the best choice.

Now, each of us lives in his or her personal universe, each unique and distinctive from all the other personal universes. The artist usually makes the assumption that there is some commonality of experience among all these personal universes, and the artist tends to "speak to" that commonality. Whether this "speaking to" reveals truth is really a separate question. Perhaps, at core, the artist is wishing to say something interesting.

Fred

[Chris Childers]

This is how I read Plato: True knowledge is of the forms, which are immortal. The soul, which knows or can come to know the forms, is immortal. We are mortal because we're inherently contradictory, because of the soul / body split. The movement towards perfect unification is ultimately a movement towards immortality. We may see this in the Republic in that all of the craftsmen there exist only as craftsmen qua crafstmen; their other material characteristics are irrelevant to the immortal, and therefore never to be instituted, Politeia. To expunge all contradictions is to die (or be immortal); hence, the continuous discussion of "purity" in the Phaedo.

To say it in another way, here is a paragraph from a brief essay I wrote on the Gorgias:

In order for discourse to be possible, there must be a common ground to bridge the gap between individuals. In the first place, they must share a common language; words must mean the same thing for each. But in order to limit words by meanings, all of us must share some private “feeling” as a common measure; for humans as a whole, this feeling is eros (481d). There is therefore a certain level of consensus necessary for conversation; but there is also a point beyond which society seems to have deemed further regularization of meaning unprofitable, and this self-imposed horizon, according to Callicles, is the difference between the child and the adult (485d). Whether for the sake of a certain “ease in doing things” (459c), out of great violence of character (466c), or as consolation for the superhuman injustice of eros (511b), the practitioners of Gorgianic rhetoric seek to exploit the contradictions inherent in conventions (including language) for the purpose of their own animal gratification; while Socratic discourse, in its pursuit of absolute agreement beyond the jumble of day to day usages, seeks a harmony in word and deed that is purely human, and therefore divine.

I could probably say this a million other ways; everything points in this direction for Plato.

As far as what I believe, I think I believe that words are irrelevant to Truth, and that the silly "truths" you've offered are just chattering. I think your more serious "truths" are arguable, on the postmodern grounds that "I am not I." If I were going to let art be didactic, I would want it to "prove" things (or better, convince us of things) we need to believe, not true things. I think, however, that language is inherently false, or that by its nature it falsifies. In other words, this sentence is false.

Chris

[ChrisW]

Hi Chris,
It's very hard to argue over Plato here -- we'd need a lot more than a paragraph on each side. In any case, I'm not sure how far I disagree with what you say in your last post or how far I have to disagree.
What seems central to our disagreement is this:

"I think there's one Truth which neither knows language nor how to converse, that it's like the sea, and that writing poetry is like making shapes from foam, and that its purpose is to make consciousness bearable."


You seemed to cite Plato to support this, yet I don't really see that Plato thinks the truth can't be spoken. On your view, The Philosopher Kings themselves couldn't talk to each other about the nature of Justice or the Good, because language would somehow get in the way. I don't see any such implication in Plato.

But, whatever Plato thinks, I wonder how you would defend the view that the truth is really unsayable.
That's a tall order though.
Perhaps you could tell me how poetry and other literary productions are supposed to make consciousness bearable.

One possibility is that it provides a pleasant distraction from life -- an escape. This is the most obvious explanation of how it could make consciousness bearable. But I suspect it isn't one you would want to accept. What is your alternate account?

On my view, I would say that great art does try to reconcile us to the hard realities of life -- to give us a way to deal with unalterable realities, like death. (The things we "need to believe" on my view are quite often true -- and we need to believe them because they are true.) This too would be a part of practical wisdom, on my view -- coming to terms with what is unalterable.
But this requires art to be faithful to the reality beyond itself -- not to diminish suffering or death in order to reconcile us to it too easily. But I don't see so much room for faithfulness to reality in your account. If you deny art the ability to tell the truth (or show reality), aren't you left with a view of art as escape?