Creating Order in Order to Create

William Barrett writes, in his book Irrational Man, of the “almost intolerable” classical Western form for music, or art of any kind, which used to demand a beginning, middle, and end. The Western perspective was caught up in the view that the universe – life – was rational. I think his argument is flawed because every work of art – every creation – has a beginning, middle, and end. It may not be structured so, but its existence proves it. Kids in the Hall performed a sketch in which Kevin MacDonald stepped forward to say he had not written much for the show lately, so he wrote a sketch with no beginning or end, just middle. It was humorous for its imagery, but it was nonsensical; there was no narrative. But the sketch was written; it had not existed before that. There was a time when Kevin began to write it, was in the middle of writing it, and finished writing it. The sketch, as it was performed, began when the lights came up and ended when the lights came down. Every creation, even the nonsensical, has rationale behind it. The artist has displayed his work in public for some reason. If the artist wants to convince people life is nonsensical or irrational, then his rationale is to persuade, or to reveal some truth. Barrett has some rationale for writing Irrational Man.

Barrett writes “The final intelligibility of the world is no longer accepted” (56). Why, then, study philosophy or poetry? Why create one’s own if we are not trying to make some sense of it all? Doesn’t every philosopher and every poet attempt alchemy – to create the philosopher’s stone? In order to create I must create some order. I must arrange the elements – my experience, my knowledge, the images, the language, the medium, etc. – to create the poem that did not exist before. If I believed the world had no order, had no intelligibility, I would not create, which I believe is a reflection of Divine Intelligence. I don’t expect to create the philosopher’s stone, but I will continue to attempt it.

The World Without Allegory

“...truth hidden in beauteous fiction.” Dante, Convivio.

In the twentieth century, and I expect the twenty-first to be a continuance, allegory was generally derided. In a century of disillusionment, of deconstruction, straightforward speech was appreciated. That is one reason I despise politics, and the worminess of those who would escape justice by ambiguity, such as by redefining words, like “the”, “a”, or “is”. In politics all words are under suspicion of allegorical or double meaning. This desire for truthful words meant disdain for figurative speech. In allegory not only the speech but the concepts are figurative.

There was a time, prior to the twentieth century, when all arts – poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, music – were concerned with beauty. The twentieth century gave that up, for the most part. Dante’s quote reflects the usefulness of allegory – to convey truth in beauty, a statement that was prevalent five centuries later as Keats echoed the statement. But the twentieth century has no use for beauty. Any artist who still expressed the old motto was not taken seriously. Avante-gardism and novelty were the important methods, and thus became the subject of art, or rather, the art became subject to them. Beauty had grown old, irrelevant, delusional.

She still has her servants, the lineage, perhaps, of Dante, Chaucer, and Keats. They may no longer have the role in society they once had – they are the old house staff of the old lady, still not convinced that such servitude is archaic, or that we should give her the finger and proclaim our freedom by smearing her picture with dung.