Tragedy and the Whole Truth

Tragedy and the Whole Truth

By

Aldous Huxley

There were six of them, the best and bravest of the hero?s companions. Turning back from his

post

in

the

bows,

Odysseus

was

in

time

to

see

them

lifted,

struggling,

into

the

air,

to

hear

their

screams,

the

desperate

repetition

of

his

own

name.

The

survivors

could

only

look

on

helplessly,

while

Scylla

“at

the

mouth

of

her

cave

devoured

them,

still

screaming,

still

stretching

out

their

hands

to

me

in

the

frightful

struggle.”

And

Odysseus

adds

that

it

was

the

most

dreadful

and

lamentable

sight

he

ever

saw

in

all

his

“explorings

of

the

passes

of

the

sea.”

We

can

believe

it;

Homer?s brief description (the too poetical simile is a later interpolation) convinces us.

Later, the danger passed, Odysseus and his men went ashore for the night and, on the Sicilian

beach,

prepared

their

supper

—prepared

it,

says

Homer,

?expertly.?

The

Twelfth

Book

of

the

Odyssey concludes with these words. “When they had satisfied their thirst and hunger, they thought

of their dear companions an

d wept, and in the midst of their tears sleep came gently upon them.”

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth

—

how rarely the older literatures ever told

it! Bits of the truth, yes; every good book gives us bits of the truth, would not be a good book if it

did not. But the whole truth, no. Of the great writers of the past incredibly few have given us that.

Homer

—

the Homer of the Odyssey

—

is one of those few.

“Truth?” you question. “For example, 2

?

+

?

2

?

=

?

4? Or Queen Victoria came to the throne in

1837? Or light travels at the rate of 187,000 miles a second?” No, obviously, you won?t find much

of that sort of thing in literature. The ?truth? of which I was speaking just now is in fact no more

than an acceptable verisimilitude. When the experiences recorded in a piece of literature correspond

fairly

closely

with

our

own

actual

experiences,

or

with

what

I

may

call

our

potential

exp eriences

—

experiences,

that

is

to

say,

which

we

feel

(as

the

result

of

a

more

or

less

explicit

process

of

inference

from

known

facts)

that

we

might

have

had

—

we

say,

inaccurately

no

doubt:

“This piece of writing is true.” But this, of course, is not the whole story. The record of a case in a

text-book of psychology is scientifically true, insofar as it is an accurate account of particular events,

But it might also strike the reader as being ?true? with regard to himself—

that is to say, acceptable,

probable, having a correspondence with his own actual or potential experiences. But a text-book of

psychology,

is

not

a

work

of

art

—

or

only

secondarily

and

incidentally

a

work

of

art.

Mere

verisimilitude,

mere

correspondence

of

experience

recorded

by

the

writer

with

experience

remembered or imaginable by the reader, is not enough to make

a work of art seem ?true.? Good art

possesses

a

kind

of

super-truth

—

is

more

probable,

more

acceptable,

more

convincing

than

fact

itself.

Naturally;

for

the

artist

is

endowed

with

a

sensibility

and

a

power

of

communication,

a

capacity to ?put things across,? which events and the majority of people to whom events happen, do

not

possess.

Experience

teaches

only

the

teachable,

who

are

by

no

means

as

numerous

as

Mrs.

Micawber?s papa?s favourite proverb would lead us to suppose. Artists are eminently teachable an

d

also eminently teachers. They receive from events much more than most men receive and they can

transmit

what

they

have

received

with

a

peculiar

penetrative

force,

which

drives

their

communication deep into the reader?s mind. One of our most ordinary reac

tions to a good piece of

literary art is expressed in the formula: “This is what I have always felt and thought, but have never

been able to put clearly into words, even for myself.”

We are now in a position to explain what we mean when we say that Homer is a writer who

tells the Whole Truth. We mean that the experiences he records correspond fairly closely with our

own actual or potential experiences

—

and correspond with our experiences not on a single limited

sector,

but

all

along

the

line

of

our

physical

and

spiritual

being.

And

we

also

mean

that

Homer

records

these

experiences

with

a

penetrative

artistic

force

that

makes

them

seem

peculiarly

acceptable and convincing.

So

much,

then,

for

truth

in

literature.

Homer?s,

I

repeat,

is

the

Whole

Truth.

Consider

how

almost any other of the great poets would have concluded the story of Scylla?s attack on the passing

ship.

Six men,

remember,

have

been

taken

and

devoured

before

the

eyes

of

their

friends.

In

any

other poem

but

the Odyssey, what

would the survivors have done? They, would, of course, have

wept, even as Homer made them weep. But would they previously have cooked their supper and

cooked

it,

what?s

more,

in

a

masterly

fashion?

Would

they

previously

have

drunk

and

eaten

to

satiety? And after weeping, or actually while weeping, would they have dropped quietly off to sleep?

No, they most certainly would not have done any of these things. They would simply have wept,

lamenting their own misfortune and the horrible fate of their companions, and the Canto would have

ended tragically on their tears.

Homer,

however,

preferred

to

tell

the

Whole

Truth.

He

knew

that

even

the

most

cruelly

bereaved

must

eat;

that

hunger

is

stronger

than

sorrow

and

that

its

satisfaction

takes

precedence

even

of

tears.

He

knew

that

experts

continue

to

act

expertly,

and

to

find

satisfaction

in

their

accomplishment, even when friends have just been eaten, even when the accomplishment is only

cooking the supper. He knew that when the belly is full (and only when the belly is full) men can

afford to grieve and that sorrow after supper is almost a luxury. And finally he knew that, even as

hunger takes precedence of grief, so fatigue, supervening, cuts short its career and drowns it in a

sleep all the sweeter for bringing forgetfulness of bereavement. In a word, Homer refused to treat

the theme tragically. He preferred to tell the Whole Truth.

Another author who preferred to tell the Whole Truth was Fielding. “Tom Jones” is one of the

very few Odyssean books written in

Europe between the time of

Aeschylus and the present

age;

Odyssean,

because

never

tragical;

never

—

even

when

painful

and

disastrous,

even

when

pathetic

and beautiful things are happening. For they do happen; Fielding, like Homer, admits all the facts,

shirks nothing. Indeed, it is precisely because these authors shirk nothing that their books are not

tragical.

For among the

things they don?t

shirk are the irrelevancies which, in

actual life, always

temper

the

situations

and

characters

that

writers

of

tragedy

insist

on

keeping

chemically,

pure.

Consider,

for

example,

the

case

of

Sophy

Western,

that

most

charming,

most

nearly

perfect

of

young women. Fielding, it is obvious, adored her; (she is said to have been created in the image of

his first, much-loved wife). But in spite of his adoration, he refused to turn her into one of those

chemically pure and, as it were, focussed beings who do and suffer in the world of tragedy. That

innkeeper

who lifted the weary Sophia from

her horse

—

what

need had

he to

fall?

In no tragedy

would

he

(nay,

could

he)

have

collapsed

beneath

her

weight.

For,

to

begin

with,

in

the

tragical

context weight is an irrelevance; heroines should be above the law of gravitation. But that is not all;

let the reader now remember what were the results of his fall. Tumbling flat on his back, he pulled

Sophia

down

on

top

of

him

—

his

belly

was

a

cushion,

so

that

happily

she

came

to

no

bodily

harm

—

pulled her down head first.

But head first is necessarily legs last;

there was

a momentary

display

of

the

most

ravishing

charms;

the

bumpkins

at

the

inn

door

grinned

or

guffawed;

poor

Sophia,

when

they

picked

her

up,

was

blushing

in

an

agony,

of

embarrassment

and

wounded

modesty. There is

nothing intrinsically improbable about

this

incident,

which is

stamped, indeed,

with all the marks of literary truth. But however true, it is an incident which could never, never have

happened to a heroine of tragedy. It would never have been allowed to happen. But Fielding refused

to

impose the tragedian?s veto; he shirked nothing—

neither the intrusion of irrelevant

absurdities