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Truth versus poetic license
| Philosophy 101 |
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Truth versus poetic license |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
In 2005 Katie Melua released a song called Nine Million Bicycles that contained the following lyrics: We are 12 billion light-years from the edge, That's a guess, No one can ever say it's true, But I know that I will always be with you. Simon Singh, a physicist, took exception to the inaccuracies in the song and published an article in the Guardian newspaper suggesting that the lyrics should be changed to be more accurate, his suggestion was as follows: We are 13.7 billion light-years from the edge of the observable universe, That's a good estimate with well-defined error bars, Scientists say it's true, but acknowledge that it may be refined, And with the available information, I predict that I will always be with you Katie, to her credit, accepted Singh’s tounge-in-cheek critique and actually re-recorded the song with the revised lyrics for a BBC Radio 4 broadcast. To cut a long story short my question is just how much deviation from reality is allowed when writing, I’m thinking specifically here about elaboration of an actual event to manufacture interest. Does such elaboration move the output from a factual to a fictional work divorcing the final product from the original intent entirely? If so how much deviation does poetic license allow? |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
I just wish we could ask Oliver Stone. (I believe someone did and he answered with a shrug--it's a movie.) I only take offense when it is presented as fact and distorted, such as Michael Moore's unnecessary convenient editing. In poetry, I have been known to write "true serenity stories"--and those contain the facts, but I do consider the facts like, say, the outlines drawn in a coloring book. I can fill those lines with colors of my choice. If I opt to color outside of the lines, however, I tend to tell people so. But--it's poetry--not journalism. (even though, *ahem*, some people call what I do "journaling") *grin* Dream on, oh critics. The day I let anyone read an entire journal of my life...well, I'd have to write that, now wouldn't I?  It ain't happening. (Unless someone offers me a big fat advance check.  ) |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Grinch, Even people who fact check and are scrupulous succeed, at best, only in approximating truth. That's because truth gets shoved around by such factors as point of view, or whose truth told from which political religious and temporal perspective. An attempt at objective truth shifts the point of view of reports of the truth from those of, perhaps, observers or participants to a different set of points of view, those of measurable data that are commonly agreed upon, but which still must be presented as somebody's point of view, either as synthesized and gathered text or lists or in some other form. The text or lists or raw data presents somebody else's selection of point of view, though it may be editorial. Often times this leads to an overt or covert proxy war of authorities in which representitives of various points of view duke it out on the basis of a somewhat more sophisticated version of My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad. How much more sophisticated is open to question the more political or religious the particular "truth" in question happens to be. So far, the kinds of truth we have been trying to talk about may have some sort of referent in the wold of facts, whatever that may be. But when one starts to talk about literary truth, simplicity goes out the window. We are talking about more than the weather on D-Day, we are talking about the emotional rightness of the weather on D-Day. We are talking about why Iago is whispering all these nasty lies into Othello's ear. We know that Iago says he simply wants to destroy Othello for the pleasure of it, but if Iago is lying to Othello, then why, dear friend, do you expect that he's telling you the truth? I would suggest, G., that poetic license is permission to tell the story in the way that works best, nothing more. If you are telling a true story, a poem or a fiction, you still have the same responsibility here. You need to get the story told the best way you can. If the story is journalism, you need to understand the facts as best you can and present them as simply and straightforwardly as possible. Here, your loyalty is to the facts as you understand them. Your poetic license extends to the ways you may do that most effeciently. In fiction as in poetry, your poetic license extends to the work itself. Your loyalty is to that work. Your question is what that work needs to achieve its most effecient independant shape. If it's effecient but not independent, the piece will never see a second reader, let alone publication. If it's independant but not effecient, its themes will be too minor to make an impact. Lies in this context are perfectly useful and even beautiful. If the lies are effecient enough, they help give the work meaning and depth in a way that attempting to tell an ill understood truth would not. More perhaps later, Grinch. I'm interested to hear what you or others think, and to see how that affects my own thinking on the matter. Very interesting topic. Thanks for bringing it up, and it seems well worthy of more thought. BobK. |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
BobK I understand that factual is a questionable term being, as it is, based on the writers perception and point of view, although holding hard to that definition and following it through to it’s inevitable conclusion would relegate all factual writing to works of fiction. My question is aimed more specifically towards blatant inaccuracy in fictional work which is supposedly anchored in, and reflective of, reality. Another example, perhaps clearer than the first I gave, would be these two lines from Tennyson: Every moment dies a man, Every moment one is born. Charles Babbage (another man of science) was quick to point out that this is actually nonsense, it’s very poetic nonsense, but nonsense just the same. If this were true the population would be in a state of stasis, never increasing nor decreasing. How then can we accept anything Tennyson says as being anywhere near correct or reasonable if he’s willing to claim factual status for an obvious fiction? [This message has been edited by Grinch (01-29-2008 02:52 PM).] |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Still interesting, Grinch, I think you treat readers as though they were fools here. Were somebody, even somebody as compellingly bright as Babbage, think to offer me a correction on Tennyson's point, I would be compelled to reflect somewhat ruefully on the lack of analogic imagination poor Babbage must have suffered under throughout his entire life to miss the point of Tennyson's lines and then to take such apparently spectacular glee in doing so. Yes, I admire Babbage's ability to construct lines of precise digital reasoning without getting distracted. His capacity is rare. But Tennyson is not offering a syllogism for our evaluation here. Digital and analogical are capacities that each occupy their own brain hemispheres, roughly. Similar digital reasoning applied to lines such as "My love is like a red red rose," would yield similar analyses from the digital brain. A rose is a plant, your love is a human being. If you're a woman, you probably love a guy; the red red rose is by definition female. And no human being has ever had a body that color, nor is it likely that you would want to embrace them if they were that thorny. Poetry uses high amounts of conotative and symbolic language along with straightforward imagry and accounts of actual events. Babbage is uncomfortable with this, and in all likelihood didn't understand symbolic discourse all that well. Denotation he understood. Mathamatical "symbols" are insofar as I understand them not actual symbols at all in the philosophical sense, as in Susanne Langer's PHILOSOPHY IN A NEW KEY, but denotative signs with pretty exacting definitions. Not like symbols are used in poetry or literature as unparaphrasable whole complexes of analogy and meaning; or as in music, which Langer brilliantly calls "the unconsumated symbol." In literature, as in no other field that I can think of, it is frequently more possible to tell the truth with a liberating lie than it is to tell it by sticking to the facts. That is why it is a novice's mistake to excuse one's self for a poorly written piece of poetry by blurting out, and Heaven forgive us all for making this mistake at one time or another, "But that's the way it R-e-e-e-e-ly happened!" I hide my own face in shame here for the boyish Mr. Bob of decades past. More thoughts, though, on your part, Grinch? Very interesting so far. Best from here in LA, BobK. |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
quote: That‘s a little harsh, Babbage showed sufficient poetic knowledge in his letter to Tennyson to at least suggest that your assumption is incorrect, but concentrating too much on Babbage won’t get us very far. Any novice for instance could explain the lines as not so much a statement of fact but a claim of “like for like” replacement and that Babbage’s extra sixteenth didn‘t need to be referenced. quote: Does that include facts in literature like those in the Bible, stories that we are told “R-e-e-e-e-ly happened!" |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Well, if songs need to be more accurate, the first thing that needs to be done is eliminate the ones dealing with "broken hearts", since hearts don't actually break. Ella will never be able to sing of "crying a river" any more and forget about Alley-Oop since we all know that humans and dinosaurs did not inhabit the earth at the same time. In other words...gimmee a break! |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
Consider saying something such as "sea-steed" instead of "ship". Could this kenning work without the very literal term "sea"? Not really. It needs that part in order to direct the mind to a very literal and important association. How then can it get away with saying "steed" and still refer accurately to a ship, when a ship is not really a steed? That is because the manner of accuracy in the second element is not based on just the ship, but on a likeness of the ship to a steed. Therefore, it does have accuracy, but in a way of comparing and generalizating, not just mechanically listing physical details. Not every accuracy need to live up to physical specifications in order to be accurate, but accuracy also involves comparison, qualities, emotional associations, and generalizations, appearances, etc. "Sea-steed" works poetically because it directs our mind to the "sea" but then imaginatively refers to what the ship has likeness to, a steed, but still truly refers to a ship. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Grinch, " Does that include facts in literature like those in the Bible, stories that we are told “R-e-e-e-e-ly happened!" If you think that's what I really mean, I suspect you wouldn't be asking me. You can follow the disjunct on that conclusion from the context in which I make my point. I don't intend to annoy you, Grinch; I have included myself in the silliness, though I do like to think that I've progressed to new and more spectacular silliness as I grow older. My memory is not what it once was. I've been saying that since I was eighteen, and it's always been true, but if you'll forgive me getting some of the details wrong, I'll try giving you an example from Herman Hesse. I think it's from The Glass Bead Game. The speaker at one point casually drops into the conversation, "The last person who knew everything died in 1605." The speaker, I think, even goes so far as to give (or make up, for all I know; I hope the speaker's made it up) the name of this scholarly paragon. This is a complete lie. Nobody has ever known everything, ever, or even come close to it, no matter how limited the pool of knowledge was. And there is simply no better way from Hesse to characterize the speaker, the era from which he speaks, that world, our world and our own than to have the speaker say exactly that thing at that time. That lie creates the complete truth of that particular scene with a simple gesture. Hesse's ability to make that sort of gesture is probably what earned his the Nobel in literature. "An aged man is but a paltry thing,/ a tatttered coat upon a stick, save soul clap its hands and sing..." Babbage could quite correctly have noted that souls and hands don't go well together, and that coats don't sing very well. Baggage said no such thing. It's unfair of me to put such words in his mouth. It's perfectly acceptable to write poetry without such tropes if you chose, as you well know. In fact, since you seem to be pushing for such an intellectual position, It might be an interesting experiment for you to try a few poems that avoided many of these things you seem to find objectionable. This really is how poets learn things about poetry. Rather than carrying this out of a purely theoretical level, why not see if we can't get the exact specifics of what you object to down on paper? Then you and/or others of us who have an interest can take a shot at your hypothetical new form and see how well we can make it work. We might get some interesting poems out of it. What do you think? More interesting all the time, Grinch! Bob K. |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
Grinch, I believe the story in the Bible and I think that a poet shall write whatever he wants and imagine as fancy as possible. Why shall a poet care about what a sientist says if the poem is talking about fact or not? For all published scientific papers, above 80% can not be repeated at all let along some are really intentionally faked data? so why? it is the dream brought out the shape of phenol ring. Ya know. |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
Grinch, I believe the story in the Bible and I think that a poet shall write whatever he wants and imagines as fancy as possible. Why shall a poet care about what a scientist says if the poem is talking about fact or not? For all published scientific papers, above 80% can not be repeated at all let along some are really intentionally faked data. So why? It was the dream that brought out the shape of phenol ring. Ya know. The DREAM |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
One can say "I was so hungry I could have eaten a horse". And while that may not be strictly accurate, we all know what is meant, and wouldn't consider that person dishonest. One question: Why the pedantry of absolute accuracy, when we don't even communicate from day to day in that manner? Personally I think strict accuracy would be boring (and impossible BTW -the temperature doesn't really 'rise', and no one can 'lose' their temper-). There's quite a difference between lying and lilting.  And about believing or not-believing the trustworthiness of Bible, I'll consider the charge of being gullible, if you'll consider the possibility of being obdurate. Stephen |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Stephanos, Alas, I cannot speak for Grinch. Obdurate fits fairly well here a fair amount of the time, though I don't consider you gullible. You would seem very difficult to gull and from what I've seen of your prose, quite willing to grant the loyal opposition what you believe to be their justly earned due. Your beliefs are honestly held, and while I don't share all of them, I believe the process by which you arrived at them was reasonable. You weren't duped, fooled or gulled. Your motives are decent and near as I can tell, you don't have a nasty bone in your body. You might at times want to sign up for obdurate as well, but there have been times and places when obduracy has been called integrity with a certain amount of justification. It may be we have different notions about how and where the bible was written and how it was assembled, though I don't even know that. Grinch seems to feel that taking some of the biblical stories literally leads to problems such as the ones he was talking about earlier. My disagreement with him is more along the lines you were voicing. I had hoped to avoid the notion of taking the biblical text as literal, since it tackles the sort of issues you point out so tellingly in your last posting above as well as more serious disagreements about the nature of fact and revelation. If the bible at some point uses a metaphor that's the ancient hebrew equivalent of "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse," for example, it lands us in trouble because we know exactly what the bible means to be saying there in the same way we know what you or I would mean to be saying if we said the same thing: The equivalent of, Boy, I sure am ravenous! I don't know what a belief in biblical literalism does to an understanding that seems so clear in a non-biblical context. All in all, it makes me curious about what might be possible by trying some poetry without this sort of ornament, just by staying very descriptive and literal. Thoughts, Stephanos;anybody? |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
Hi, Grinch, being a great fan of Dylan Thomas, how do you use his poems which you are all familiar with answer your own question? |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
BobK: quote: Yes, I'm stubbornly sure of that myself. quote: Perhaps YOU are the gullible one, then. lol. quote: It think that it would cease to be poetry the minute you insist upon hyper-literalism. You could make a poem (more likely) that would poke fun at the insistence upon cold calculative language. That might be worth a try. Stephen |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
quote: That’s an odd statement, I’m not pushing for anything, or haven’t so far, apart from explaining why I thought Babbage’s observation taken as a critique of Tennyson didn’t stand up to much scrutiny, I simply quoted two examples and asked a couple of questions. If you’d like my opinion though here it is: We, as readers, accept a certain amount of fictional embellishment or poetic license in literature that expresses ideas or notions as fact, generally this acceptance occurs in works whose main focus isn’t to educate but to entertain. However at some point, when enough deviation from fact or reality is reached the work is re-categorised as fiction, that is apart from one piece of literature that contains enough fiction to put any Harry Potter book to shame yet which is still accepted by some as absolute fact. Why do you think that is? |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
What piece of literature would that be Grinch? Stephen |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
You took the words right out my mouth! Seriously, I would be inclined to agree with your joke had Darwin not been so cautiously agnostic in his presentation of his theory. And BTW, I think Charles was being a bit too poetic and fanciful when he put the word "favored" in his rather lengthy title. Stephen |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
quote: It wasn’t a joke Stephen, and even if Darwin was cautiously agnostic does that make the facts he presents any less fictitious? |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Are you recanting your espousal of Evolutionary theory? I find it difficult to think you were earlier referring to Darwin's book, but okay. Stephen |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
quote: Yes, or to be more precise I’m suspending it for arguments sake. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. “po•et•ic li•cense noun Definition: freedom to disobey writing conventions: deliberate misuse of or disregard for the normal rules of fact, style, or grammar by a writer or speaker in order to achieve a special effect" Pathetic Fallacy . . . Propaganda . . . “If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.” Wilfred Owen . |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Grinch, what was your argument again, exactly? Stephen |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
Shall poets be lectured by scientists? no.  May I borrow a thread here, Ron cause' they are smooth and strong Fixed by Balladeer's free verse I will string the light into a song----(ah, light does have characters of both particle and wave) Let the lady Universe to wear around My,my, my, are you expecting again before he is delivered headlong? [This message has been edited by TomMark (01-31-2008 02:05 PM).] |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
I've never been a soldier, but I did work for a year on an internship on a VA psych ward. Wilfred Owen as Propaganda? I don't think so: His was a bitter address to the propagandists of his day, as you surely must know. I hope I'm completely missing your point here. I must be, and you've been simply too gnomic for me to follow. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
I've never been a soldier, but I did work for a year on an internship on a VA psych ward. Wilfred Owen as Propaganda? I don't think so: His was a bitter address to the propagandists of his day, as you surely must know. I hope I'm completely missing your point here. I must be, and you've been simply too gnomic for me to follow. |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
quote: I don’t really have an argument Stephen, I was just wondering at which point fact becomes obvious fiction and obvious fiction becomes acceptable as fact and why. My definition of fact here is some reasonable approximation to reality as we know it and fiction the opposite. Can a book riddled with obvious fiction ever be accepted as fact? |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. "Can a book riddled with obvious fiction ever be accepted as fact?" The Protocols of the Elders of Zion . |
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Ron
Administrator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-05-19
Posts 8669Michigan, US |
I'm reminded of a line from Absence of Malice, starring Sally Fields and Paul Newman. At the close of the movie one reporter asked Sally Fields, also a reporter, if the rumor is true that she had a relationship with Newman's character. Fields replied, "No, it's not true, but it is accurate." It would be a shame, I think, to confuse facts with truth. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
quote: I suppose that would depend upon the book, its specific content, and the intent behind the writing. Books written as reportage, that contain glaring untruths, are not exactly "fiction" ... they are merely false, though there may be a mixture involved. Books written as mere art or entertainment are certainly fiction, and were intended in that vein. Didactic literature containing the equivalent of "parables" and rich in metaphor may also have elements of fiction, but are not for that reason wholly fictive. Its not always easy, but I think one needs to determine the kind of writing that comprises whatever work is in question (and it may be more than one). At any rate, your question can hardly be answered in a general way ... It seems a better question when asked of specific works, where textual criticism can be discussed and considered. For when you say "obvious fiction", it strikes me as obvious only to you, as long as we're talking generalities and not particulars. Stephen |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
How about Santa Clause? You can find those in reality, right? 1.gift giving 2.red suit 3.fat belly quote: Not all fiction writings follow the definition of fiction. They are mostly true human stories with the names and places and time changed. If you wrote like 'I turned the switch on and I know tomorrow I shall see light. or I know that it will rain tomorrow because my memory told me yesterday." I shall say, fiction. |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
I find fictional additions, when used wisely, often help bring out important facts better. A story needs some completeness, and usually some dialogue, but the plain and cold facts, often don't supply us with the "whole picture", what exactly people said in certain circumstances, etc. Instead they often give us a "puzzle" with pieces missing. Therefore, when we are dealing the facts, in the form of a story, it needs that we fill in the missing pieces with fiction, in order to enliven the facts and give the story a sense of wholeness. A cold list of facts does not work as a story and especially does not work as poetry. Fiction is a needful part in conveying facts in an artful and memorable way. It is better for important facts to be remembered imperfectly or inaccurately than for them to be darkened over by forgetfulness and ignorance because men fail to express them in a form that people may understand and remember well. |
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Christopher
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-02
Posts 8296Purgatorial Incarceration |
Truth is something that is true regardless of who is looking at it and remains true no matter their perspective. All the rest are stories. Let people tell their stories and judge them on their own merit, not their percieved level of truth which, if you really think about it, is an overrated concept that serves more to confine people, rather than free them; if we accepted "truths," I can imagine much of this world that would differ greatly from what we see of it now... and not necessarily for the better. |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
"Truth is something that is true regardless of who is looking at it and remains true no matter their perspective." Therefore, that truth that I have youth And hair ungrey, Shall be for ay? |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Mere art or entertainment? Any of us should be so lucky as to be guilty of producing "mere art." The notion is an oxymoron, and meaningless on its face. If we're lucky our entertainments may graduate to the level of art and may heal us in profound ways where we may not even be aware of being torn. To despise or denigrate even slapstick comedy, movies that can make us laugh with no pretense at value beyond the merely quotidian, is to ignore their value. These things can help and heal people in physical and spiritual pain. In our search for lasting values, we do ourselves damage when we discount the very real value of the things that are not to be designated as higher or more special. "A Night at The Opera," a whirl on the merry go round, "Groundhog Day," or even some seriously wonderful detective fiction by Raymond Chandler or Ross MacDonald or a good comic book or two can all be very healing things. There's no need to denigrate them. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Please, in context ... by "mere" I did not mean to devalue art. It was used by me to indicate a work which aspires to nothing other than what art may aspire to. For "Crime and Punishment" is still fiction, no matter how inspiring. It's not a devaluing statement by me, but a limiting one. Historical documentary would aim at (and claim) something quite different than a novel would. You do raise a good point to Grinch however, that even fiction may hold much wisdom, truth, and power, and influence history. Stephen. |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
I think it is chiefly the token of truth pursued with much wisdom and strength that we go by, rather than how many or how much "facts" or "fiction" is part of a work. Facts, when used unwisely, may bring about and establish lies and misconception, just as much as fiction when it is used unwisely. Without truth and wisdom, facts and fiction are useless. |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
Dear Grinch, for all those late discussions: truth, free verse, Dylan Thomas' Altarwise by Owl-Light, may I ask you what shall we read out from a poem? 1. to read truth from a imaginary poem? 2. to read clear meaning from a obscure verse? 3. to read form from free verse? I don't know. I try to get whatever I can based on my knowledge. Sometimes, to read one without using a dictionary brought great satisfaction to me. truly And I read The Altarwise again this morning. I shall find something about his attitude toward Christianity in the net. |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
TomMark My answer would be yes but why ask me? He didn't write his poem specifically for me. |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
Dear Grinch, do you really expect truth from a poem? ( I myself have given up the expectation) |
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Ron
Administrator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-05-19
Posts 8669Michigan, US |
Truth is what makes a poem or story good enough to even bother reading. Form, rhyme, pacing, tropes, dialog, even grammar and spelling -- those are just techniques, things anyone can learn. It is Truth that separates art from craft. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
And the places truth is to be found are elusive. An experiment that has on occasion paid off for me and which may or may not work for you: I take a place in a poem where I have become stuck, and instead of trying to think my way through the problem, which does sometimes work, I go back and look for rhymes to the words that give me problems and then plug those in to the difficult places in the text. Or I will re-write the offending lines as the exact opposite of what I've been trying so earnestly to be saying. These things are sometimes closer to the truth I'm searching for than my original attempts, which have been clouded by my assumption that I know the truth in the first place. The truth I am looking for may not actually be the truth I am initially so certain I need to express. I may need to re-write the entire poem around the new insights. In looking for truth, I guess I'm trying to say, I must first be willing to acknowledge that I may be shocked to discover what it is. If I already knew, there would be no need for poetry, would there? We could all spend our time telling each other stuff everybody already understood, as if it were shocking, important and new. We need to find truths that surprise us. That's why we can talk about poetry as risky, too. Nobody likes to look foolish in public. Anyway, I'm meandering too much. |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
From memory: The only way to tell the truth is through fiction. --more than one guy The ordinary is not ordinary, it is extra-ordinary. --Heidegger To the degree that a poem is true, it must be comic. The more serious the poem, the more the need to be fictive. --[horribly paraphrased]John Hollander |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
"Truth is something that is true regardless of who is looking at it and remains true no matter their perspective." ---Christopher "Truth is what makes a poem or story good enough to even bother reading." ---Ron "We need to find truths that surprise us. That's why we can talk about poetry as risky, too. Nobody likes to look foolish in public." ---Bob K "From memory" ---Brad ? A poem, one may like the best but another may not like it at all. A poem may not reflect the author's feelings A choosing word may not bear its original meaning A walk on the rainbow is simply impossible. So, what is the truth in a poem? I think that "It is what it is".(I don't think I can know the truth of a poem because the author himself may not know at all or simply the author has died.) But when I read it, I only acknowledge the truth of how I feel or I may feel differently from how others feel. My thought. |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
quote: So, truth or not truth is based on if you want to bother yourself to read? quote: May you explain more, Dear Ron. Craft is a skill and a product Art is a skill and a product ? [This message has been edited by TomMark (02-03-2008 01:06 AM).] |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
I am greatly enjoying this thread, and everybody's contributions to it. It is good to be here today. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. "Truth that separates art from craft" What is Dada then? . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
I'd ask Mama, if I were you. That's Dada. |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
WARNING: The following is a little boring. Dadaism could be viewed as a rebellion against the establishment or an antipodes to accepted standards in art. The main claim of Dadaist supporters being that society was a bad judge when in came to major decisions in areas like politics and questions with global implications and so by inference could not be relied upon to decide what was art. To emphasise this Dadaism sought to counter all recognised standards, to become anti-art, similarities could be drawn with the emergence of Punk rock which railed against popular music and commercialism. Dadaism however suffered from the same inbuilt self destructive fault that afflicted Punk, the most popular proponents became the thing they were railing against, commercialism and popularity made them the target of their own ideology. Dadaism could be viewed as a very good example of fiction turned fact in it’s own right in that it’s followers sought to replace the existing predominant truth regarding the question “What is art?” with their own construction. As I mentioned though when the popular answer to the question “what is art?” became “Dadaism” the movement was condemned to become a snake eating its own tail. There are several discussions bubbling along in various threads at the moment that I believe are all interconnected. They all seem to be attempts to quantify poetic worth; to structure forms and styles into a hierarchical list promoting one above the other , to my mind they all boil down to the same question asked by the followers of Dadaism, “What is art”. My own belief is that to find the answer you need, as Stephen suggested, to examine specifics, however it isn’t specific examples of art that need to be examined but individual and personal beliefs regarding art. My thought process regarding this is convoluted and may be flawed but here it is just the same, those people who abhor tongue twisters should look away at this point. Art, like quality, is a label bestowed by group acceptance, it is defined democratically and as such is a manufactured fact subject to change. Belief that non-art is in fact art is a fictional notion until that belief becomes factual in the eyes of a significant minority, at that point the fiction becomes fact and a relative truth based on popular belief. That would seem to suggest that the label “art” cannot be attributed by an individual however this raises the paradox that the individual is the source from which the label is democratically decided. So it must be the individual that decides fact from fiction based on personal belief which becomes a relative truth. Which leads back to my original question: Can a book riddled with obvious fiction ever be accepted as fact? My opinion is similar to Ron’s, unless I’m misreading his post. It can only be good\fact\true\art if you believe it. [This message has been edited by Grinch (02-03-2008 08:10 AM).] |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Form, rhyme, pacing, tropes, dialog, even grammar and spelling -- those are just techniques, things anyone can learn. It is Truth that separates art from craft. Right, Ron. Actually, brain surgery, astronomical physics, and electrical engineering are also things anyone can learn I assume. p.s. Before anyone says poetry ain't brain surgery, don't be so sure. To many who can't grasp it, it is. |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
quote: I think they’d be closer to craft than art so I’m guessing the answer would be yes. |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
Sand without the form of a sandcastle is not a sandcastle, nor is language that expresses truth poetry without the form/structure of poetry. Without poetic structure, or with exceedingly little partakingness thereof, it is but prose or a very weak echo of a form of poetry, such as "free verse". |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
Dear Ginch, what is the truth here Deft tricksters these letters Prove my disgrace, Sentencing spies; Mocking words peck at my eyes. ----Wordless by Grinch. esp, Mocking words peck at my eyes There is a truth in here. |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
Sir Essorant quote: Sir Balladeer must like this very much and there is no gold either Do we use sand to build a fancier castle in our brain before we even get to touch the sand? |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
quote: I'd say yes, but why are you asking me? I didn't write it for me. |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
We use the "sand" of language in our brain, but we may not form it to anything as strong in our brain as we may thro practicing a tradition that has already been cultivated and proven thro many ages of practice, as a continued inheritance of success, instead of "starting at scratch" so to speak. That is how you may have a strongly cultivated part of the work of many ages and practice in your own brain and practice, and build thereupon, that is to say by taking into hand the goods and weal, the strengths and foundations left behind by the past, as an inheritance for the present. If we don't stand on the strengths of the past, we fall into a weakness in the present. Unfortunately this is happened to the art of poetry today with the excess of free verse and many obscure manners of writing. Many other areas of our civilization are having more and more success in the world, such as Government, Law and Medicine. It is unfortunate that Poetry can't share the same success, but is losing more and more of its familiar form and characteristics all the time because people keep trying to "free" from the strong traditions and "revolutionize" things out of the evolutionary success of the past. [This message has been edited by Essorant (02-03-2008 03:41 PM).] |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
Ess, “My wife is beautiful” I said to an ex-friend, he shuffled his feet, coughed and said “No my wife is beautiful, yours is downright ugly”. Trying to impose your preferences or beliefs on other people regarding what they consider art or what is beautiful isn’t a good way to make friends or influence people, it’s also futile and likely to cause offence. Art is in the eye of the beholder. |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
Dear Grinch, this white lady is for you. Is this a fiction or fact or truth. |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
Yes, but why are you asking me? Jim didn’t write the poem for me. |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
Sir Essorant, you did intentionally not use music to support your opinion. |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
Dear Grinch, this is only for you by Tom. How do you read this? The temperature gradient dispelled your spark So many flirting tongues enticed you not A few of furry sticks the monkey's ark If floating the flood but not under pot. |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
I take each letter and string them together until I make recognisable words then I check the context of the word with the words around to form sentence structure. I then try to determine the form of writing, prose poetry etc. Once I’ve done that I try to make sense of the sentences using previous experience, if the sentences don’t make direct and obvious sense, and I believe it’s a poem, I select individual key words and try to find an association within the text the suggests the underlying meaning. I also look for devices, metre, metaphor etc. |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
Dear Grinch, you made reading poem a rocket science. |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
Actually I over-simplified it - reading is a complex task. |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
No, it is easy |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
Tom, This was especially useful. quote: It‘s complex |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
you are right, you are right!!!! At least you answered your own question.  |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
The conversation seems to have gotten less and less understandable. This may be a limit on my own understanding of things. Essorant's comment about free verse being a weak form of anything is one I find difficult to grasp. There are enough talented poets who are able to turn their abilities to both and who have done so to suggest that to categorize free verse as an inferior modality is probably not a well considered position. James Wright, Galway Kinnell, Donald Justice, John Berryman, Theodore Roethke, W.S. Merwin, Robert Lowell and Ted Hughs come to mind without difficulty. Kinnell did a book length translation of Francois Villon twice, once in rhymed and metered verse, once in free verse. None of these people are (or, as the case may be, were) ignorant of the tradition, and have made choices to write in free verse over metered verse for specific poems because they thought it was a modality that was better suited for the poem, not because it was somehow weak and inferior. There are, I notice, several Pulitzers in Poetry on that list. Essorant is a good writer, but I must disagree with him here in the strongest terms. I know that he has well developed theories of his own about the way poetry works and the way it should work. I don't know how well read he has had time to become in the contemporary and modern poets. Many of them have, from time to time, been known to say they thought that free verse was in fact more difficult to write than traditional verse. I have never myself thought this to be a universal truth. Formal verse I find simpler to simply abandon than to revise through difficulties to a satisfactory conclusion. Free verse simply takes me years. The jury is out here. Maybe I will be able to finish up one of my sonnet type poems in the next few years, and I'll be able to say. (And yes, I intended the split infinitive "to simply abandon;" it seemed to work more gracefully. I put off commenting till later because I thought I shouldn't call immediate attention to it.) |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
I have nothing against acknowledging that freeverse is a form of poetry and one that may sometimes work fairly well. But to put it on the same level as the long and strong traditions that are far more established, I find is incorrect. Why? Because freeverse abandons the important characteristics that have been established and that strongly distinguish poetry as poetry in the first place. When you take away poetic patterns of meter, and rhyme, you assimilate poetry much to prose and plain speech. Who says prose and plain speech don't have virtues and greatness? Not I. But they are not poetry without poetic form. To say that after divorcing important parts of form for freedom it is still just as much a form of poetry I think is a bit of a delusion. That is the only part that I don't agree with. What more? |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
Dear Sir Essorant, My old neighbor Mr.G has planted his little garden for 27 years. Mrs G told me that he has been planting the same kind flower for 27 years, the impatient. When April come (MO) I saw him using a meter long ruler to do the measure. I could not help laughing aloud at him. Even if he was a mathematician, (he was teaching Math in University after retired) he did not need to measure everything. later at the spot where he used to plant line by line, he asked me to plant a lip shape with impatient. You may have a garden by measuring You may have a garden by not measuring All we want is the beauty. my thought. PS, 20 years ago, the average age of my friends were 65. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Essorant, "[F]ree verse abandons the important characteristics that have been established and that strongly distinguish poetry as poetry in the first place. When you take away poetic patterns of meter, and rhyme, you assimilate poetry much to prose and plain speech." In poetry, the argument by appeal to tradition actually makes more sense than usual. When women began to use ether to assist with management of pain in childbirth, there was a wide cry of reaction against it, initially on the grounds that it hadn't been done before; then later because women's suffering during childbirth was supposed to be their punishment for the loss of paradise. The general hue and cry subsided, if I remember my sixth grade research paper correctly, only after Queen Victoria made a point of using ether to aid in the delivery of her children. The number one cause of hospital death for women during much of the 19th century was Childbed Fever. The cause? The doctors loved their authority symbol coats that never seemed to get washed, and the doctors never seemed to get around to washing their hands. They scoffed at the guy who pointed this out, and ran him out of the profession. Semmelweiss, I believe his name was, Ignaz Semmelweiss. They'd always worn their coats, they'd never had to wash their hands before; obviously Semmelweiss was a dangerous quack and had to go. In cases like this, so far away from the subject at hand, the relationship of tradition and truth is a bit easier to look at; we don't have anything to defend. I've stacked the deck using examples absurdly favorable to the notion that tradition is a threat to a rational examination of reality. That's because I'm being a weasel here. The truth is that it could go either way, and that you have to examine each new proposition on its own merits. Even, as I said to start off with, that with poetry there's a good case for not throwing tradition out. I wouldn't. But Essorant is suggesting that with free verse we're going through a process we haven't gone through before in poetry, and I respectfully disagree with him. The poetry the Greeks had was very different than the poetry the Romans had. The poetry of the Romans was very different from that of the Anglo-Saxons. The poetry of the Norman-French was different from that of the emerging middle-english, and so on. A good case can be made that the contempt of people today who write "formal" verse directed toward those who write "free verse" is no different than that expressed across any of these other cultural gulfs. Two exceptions apply. The contempt is slightly more distasteful because we have to deal with it. And, contradicting myself in virtually the same breath, because there is an even more awesome gulf opening between practitioners of "other kinds of verse and "L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E POETRY." The original Greek poetry was bardic. It was oral. It was in meter to be accompanied by music as an aide memoire. It was memorized verse, and it wasn't written down for hundreds of years. Homer was like that. Think of the revolution between poetry that was composed out loud and memorized, and revised by endless recitation into some sort of final form and poetry that was written down. Can you image the mud-slinging that went along with that shift? People who didn't have a muse inside them to guide them versus the improvisers, who did? or the people with a decent memory versus those who needed a crib sheet? HA! By the time a Latin literature started to develop, there was a similar pool of bad blood there too. Essorant, you're far more scholar than I am. You'd be the first to tell me where the word Barbarian came from. You know what an inferiority complex the Romans had about Greek poetry, and how every Roman with pretensions to culture and to poetry had to be fluent. And how that still wasn't enough. It took centuries before Latin had a respectable literature (in its own eyes) of its own. The same thing has happened at every cultural turn and twist, when a language has emerged or reinvented itself. This contempt for the future is tired and predictable. In time, all these past movements get clumped together into one revered mass called the tradition. The new one will eventually be added to it. The contempt in the meantime is sad and tired, and it's been going on for thousands of years to no good point. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
, “What is truth?” Pontius Pilate “Archaeology is the search for fact... not truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall.” Indiana Jones "Quick definitions (truth) noun: a fact that has been verified " Quick definitions (fact) noun: a concept whose truth can be proved . |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
hmmm... I wonder if an older wiser Indy would concede that Philosophy has been most concerned in recent centuries with convincing itself (like Pilate) that there is no such thing as truth.  Did you know that there's yet another Indiana Jones movie coming out, with Harrison Ford? Does he have a walker or a cane in this one? |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Stephanos, I can't really say what modern philosophy is about. I'm trying to get through stuff about parrhesia by Foucault which is interesting, but its take on truth has to do with truth spoken against power. Truth spoken in a democracy, as I understand it, may not even be a matter of discussion, though it does have some glancing relation to concepts of "logos." We always seem to go back to roots in order to get ahead, I've noticed. I think sometimes, we need to check our feet are still firmly rooted before we allow our heads to do any wandering. Linguistic philosophy is not necessary a way of avoiding the notion of truth, though. It's a way of approaching truth that I've never been entirely certain I've understood. I do like the notion of performative language: That is, language that is an action. The whole sticks and stones business goes out the window, where I suspect it's always belonged. The prototypical situation for a piece of performative speech is in the marriage ceremony, where either of the two celebrants says "I do." That single sentence changes everything about the lives of both parties forever. Language as action. Or oath taking is another situation of the same sort. When one says," I so swear," reality is in that moment changed. A case can probably be made for language being the arena for the functioning of the performative, and that this is one of the reasons for the depth of meaning in the word "Logos." My understanding is that modern philosophy is ill-served by your description of it. I believe in a similar fashion, however, that a decent examination of religion has not been undertaken by modern philosophy since Teilhard, though some theologians have tried. Religion has been under-served and perhaps ill-served and has cause for complaint. All my best, Bob K. |
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