M
Micawber
Guest
Hi all!
There are a lot of very smart people here and I’m hoping I can get some advice on an issue I’ve been wrestling with for quite a while. (I posted a shortened version of this elsewhere, but I’ve decided that this is probably a better place. I’m sorry if this is not the right catagory
)
I’m a writer of fiction and I feel a little guilty that I make copious use of pagan myths.
Not because I believe in them; not because I want others to believe in them (though I’m convinced that much of it foreshadows Christianity, and may in some cases be prophetical, etc…) But because they have a way of structuring plot and situations and characters in a way that truly evokes genuine psychological verisimilitude. These myths are permanent aspects of our reality, particles thrown off from some long ago numinous experience that is, still and somehow, part of us. It may well be that they are a result of the Fall itself, for they describe an immensely complex and tortured relation of the human to the divine. They are thrilling; they are felt to be real; they tell of Good and Evil; of our encounter with the numinous; of our fallen human predicament.
And yet, while I think there is tremendous psychological and human truth in these myths, they do not (in my opinion) embody or describe ultimate Truth, even if they point to it. Yet still, they possess a medusa-like stare that transfixes (and even potentially imprisons) our souls. Therein lies both their power - and yet their danger. Thus my guilt.
There are two provisos to this: first, the general reader wouldn’t necessarily be aware of this in my work. Second, while not explicit, my work is (ideally at least) ultimately rooted in Catholic values, sensibilities, and doctrine/theology. To give you an example of what I mean: King Lear (ummm, not mine…heh
) strikes me as shot through with Catholic Truth - yet it’s an explicitly pre-Christian, and searingly pagan world that’s depicted.
But maybe this is okay?
In the first place, I suppose I feel that we don’t go to fiction (or plays or poetry) for doctrinal truth anyway. We don’t go to see a horror movie because we assent to the worldview therein; we go to horror movies to be horrified.
In the second place, let’s face it: we are more fascinated by evil than we are by goodness. Simone Weil remarked: “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvellous, intoxicating.”
There’s some truth in that ^^. I think that’s why we prefer, say, the Inferno to Paradiso; and *Paradise Lost *to Paradise Regained. And is there really a danger in this? To paraphrase Lewis loosely: who in his right mind would try to decide between the claims of materialism and theism by reading Lucretius and Dante? But who in his literary senses would not delightedly learn from them a great deal about what it is like to be a materialist or a theist?
Moreover, in the third place perhaps Christianity is not aesthetically evocative for the simple reason that - to Christians - it is not myth, but fact. As C.S. Lewis said: when “myth becomes fact” - as it did in Christianity - it gains immensely in our assent to it as Truth; indeed it is obviously and frankly earth shattering; a*nd yet, it also loses something of its literary/aesthetic value simply because, well, now IT IS Truth. *
Take the following example: a Mother who (say, in a Greek play) slaughters her children and hangs herself might very well send tingles up your spine, and fill your soul with the sense that a great truth - cosmic and human - has been presented. But what if you really met such a women? What if you actually witnessed such an act? Would your aesthetic pleasure increase or decrease?
I think that’s why most Catholic fiction is pretty bad - except and unless it is implicitly Catholic, i.e., that the values, sensibilities, doctrines have seeped into the work throughout. Not that a Catholic writer should avoid explicit aspects of his faith out of “shame” - but rather out of a sense of purpose: if one wishes to present doctrine, one should write apologetics or serious theology.
However, when I write fiction I focus on the story/characters and let the Catholic doctrine/themes emerge implicitly; it seems to me that this is how all great fiction (or poetry or drama) of ANY age was written and works - whether we’re talking about King Lear, or Oedipus Rex, or the Iliad, or Greene/Oconner, etc.
Am I nuts? On the right track? Care to advise?
There are a lot of very smart people here and I’m hoping I can get some advice on an issue I’ve been wrestling with for quite a while. (I posted a shortened version of this elsewhere, but I’ve decided that this is probably a better place. I’m sorry if this is not the right catagory
)I’m a writer of fiction and I feel a little guilty that I make copious use of pagan myths.
Not because I believe in them; not because I want others to believe in them (though I’m convinced that much of it foreshadows Christianity, and may in some cases be prophetical, etc…) But because they have a way of structuring plot and situations and characters in a way that truly evokes genuine psychological verisimilitude. These myths are permanent aspects of our reality, particles thrown off from some long ago numinous experience that is, still and somehow, part of us. It may well be that they are a result of the Fall itself, for they describe an immensely complex and tortured relation of the human to the divine. They are thrilling; they are felt to be real; they tell of Good and Evil; of our encounter with the numinous; of our fallen human predicament.
And yet, while I think there is tremendous psychological and human truth in these myths, they do not (in my opinion) embody or describe ultimate Truth, even if they point to it. Yet still, they possess a medusa-like stare that transfixes (and even potentially imprisons) our souls. Therein lies both their power - and yet their danger. Thus my guilt.
There are two provisos to this: first, the general reader wouldn’t necessarily be aware of this in my work. Second, while not explicit, my work is (ideally at least) ultimately rooted in Catholic values, sensibilities, and doctrine/theology. To give you an example of what I mean: King Lear (ummm, not mine…heh
) strikes me as shot through with Catholic Truth - yet it’s an explicitly pre-Christian, and searingly pagan world that’s depicted.But maybe this is okay?
In the first place, I suppose I feel that we don’t go to fiction (or plays or poetry) for doctrinal truth anyway. We don’t go to see a horror movie because we assent to the worldview therein; we go to horror movies to be horrified.
In the second place, let’s face it: we are more fascinated by evil than we are by goodness. Simone Weil remarked: “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvellous, intoxicating.”
There’s some truth in that ^^. I think that’s why we prefer, say, the Inferno to Paradiso; and *Paradise Lost *to Paradise Regained. And is there really a danger in this? To paraphrase Lewis loosely: who in his right mind would try to decide between the claims of materialism and theism by reading Lucretius and Dante? But who in his literary senses would not delightedly learn from them a great deal about what it is like to be a materialist or a theist?
Moreover, in the third place perhaps Christianity is not aesthetically evocative for the simple reason that - to Christians - it is not myth, but fact. As C.S. Lewis said: when “myth becomes fact” - as it did in Christianity - it gains immensely in our assent to it as Truth; indeed it is obviously and frankly earth shattering; a*nd yet, it also loses something of its literary/aesthetic value simply because, well, now IT IS Truth. *
Take the following example: a Mother who (say, in a Greek play) slaughters her children and hangs herself might very well send tingles up your spine, and fill your soul with the sense that a great truth - cosmic and human - has been presented. But what if you really met such a women? What if you actually witnessed such an act? Would your aesthetic pleasure increase or decrease?
I think that’s why most Catholic fiction is pretty bad - except and unless it is implicitly Catholic, i.e., that the values, sensibilities, doctrines have seeped into the work throughout. Not that a Catholic writer should avoid explicit aspects of his faith out of “shame” - but rather out of a sense of purpose: if one wishes to present doctrine, one should write apologetics or serious theology.
However, when I write fiction I focus on the story/characters and let the Catholic doctrine/themes emerge implicitly; it seems to me that this is how all great fiction (or poetry or drama) of ANY age was written and works - whether we’re talking about King Lear, or Oedipus Rex, or the Iliad, or Greene/Oconner, etc.
Am I nuts? On the right track? Care to advise?