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oceanvu2
Senior Member

since 2007-02-24

Posts 1066
Santa Monica, California, USA

0 posted 2009-03-19 03:32 PM

Two contentions:

1. Fiction is the best place for telling lies.

2. Poetry is the best place for telling truths.

Yes, No, Maybe?

Jimbeaux

Ron

Administrator

Member Rara Avis

since 1999-05-19

Posts 8669
Michigan, US

1 posted 2009-03-19 07:21 PM

Ah, you separate the two so easily, Jim.

Are we talking about effective fiction? Lasting fiction?

If so, I'll agree only on the condition that fiction's lies have to ultimately be true. Art without truth, by any other name, is drivel.

serenity blaze
Member Empyrean

since 2000-02-02

Posts 27738

2 posted 2009-03-19 08:54 PM

Jesus Jimmy.

thwomp

I'm very happy to see you.

And more than a little excited too.

But to answer your question, don't we have to agree upon truth? Is truth reality?

Is reality collective agreement?

"...in reaction against the eighteenth-century Enlightmenment values, the Romantic poetrs condemned Newton for banishing mystery from the universe, and reducing everything to fact and reason. 'Art is the Tree of Life. Science is the Tree of Death,' proclaimed William Blake. John Keats agreed that Newton had 'destroyed all the poetry of the rainbow by reducing it to prismatic colors'- an opinion he versified in Lamia:

We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catologue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an angel's wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line...

(I'm skipping part of the quote because I didn't write the book)

But let me get to the point about my confusion regarding truth and reality:

"There is no light or colour as a fact in external nature. There is only motion of material. Again, when the light enters your eyes and falls upon the retina, there is only motion of material. Then your nerves are affected and your brain is affected, and again this is merely motion of material...The mind, in apprehending, experiences sensations, which, properly speaking, are qualities of the mind alone."

from The Faber Book of Science

edited by John Carey

and yep, it just confuses me all the more...

but it's lovely that my mind perceives you back!

(edited by me: TYPOS, I tell ya! TYPOS!)

[This message has been edited by serenity blaze (03-19-2009 10:08 PM).]

Bob K
Member Elite

since 2007-11-03

Posts 4208

3 posted 2009-03-20 09:28 PM

I'd think that poetry would be the better place to tell lies, myself. You should always strive to surprise yourself in poetry, and I haven't met many people who can surprise themselves with what they think to be the truth. It's when you start flipping things over and turning them on their heads that the truth comes rolling out of their pockets. Paradoxically, then, lie to discover the truth that surprises you and the way to say it. If you start out to tell the truth, odds are that somebody else's cliche will have gotten there first. My initial thought, anyway; and already voiced by me elsewhere. And by others.

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