Wisdom’s Fire, Radiant and Unfading. Part XIV-1: Literature

Part XIII

Words have been granted the power of sub-creation,
Because all things have been made through the Word.
Through them, we produce worlds of our own imagination,
And, through his mediation, not one need be deemed absurd.

Inspired, the author who follows their ideas to the end,
Will find what is made reveals something about the Real.
Through them, author and readers alike apprehend
More of the Great Mystery which gives life its appeal.

Being creatures whose existence reflects Divine Sophia, we share with Divine Wisdom qualities such as the desire to create, and to do so in ways wherein we put something of ourselves in our creation. Nonetheless, we also allow that which we create to take on its own form, establishing something which is at once a reflection of our own thoughts and yet something which exists outside of them and takes on a life of its own. When we see what it is we create do this, and achieve its own proper end, we delight in it, the same way Divine Wisdom takes delight in us as we find our proper end,  united to Christ.

Since we are mere creatures, our efforts do something for us which God’s creation cannot do for God. We find our thoughts, ideas, experiences, come not only from ourselves but from experiences in and of Divine Wisdom. Our creation therefore merges our thoughts with that which is outside of ourselves, creating something which we not only delight in, but something which can make us better, or worse, because of its existence and how effective we have in producing it. Because it comes from us and our thoughts, it acts as a mirror, showing us something about ourselves. If what we produce ends up as negative and harmful, it shows the kind of corruption which is affecting our soul, but if it is positive and good, it shows that, at least in the experience which led to our creation, we have a holy experience and properly used it in our sub-creative act. Through our work, creation itself, created Sophia, can be become more manifest; Divine Sophia has made room for us, and all of creation, to share in the glorification of creation. “In humanity creation is to become aware of its own sophianic character and recognize it in intelligence, the seminal reason of creation, and its flower. And therewith humankind will recognize the likeness of the Wisdom of God in himself.”[1]

Even though this is true in regards to all the different creative capacities of humanity, this is especially true about our story-telling activities (in whatever form such story-telling takes: oral tales, plays, books, movie scripts, et. al.). The Trinitarian character of Divine Sophia with the Father producing a Word which is revealed by the Spirit is reflected in our own story-telling actions, where we produce words which are given life by our own spirit. The Logos gives birth to our logoi, and indeed, by becoming human, has given great depth to the power of the human word.  “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father (John 1:14 RSV). It is in and through the word which we receive and learn of the Word: “That word is the good news which was preached to you (1Peter1:25b RSV). Of the power of words, George MacDonald said it well:

Words are like things that may be variously employed to various ends. They can convey a scientific fact, or throw a shadow of her child’s dream on the heart of a mother. They are things to put together like the pieces of a dissected map, or to arrange like the notes on a stave. Is the music in them to go for nothing? It can hardly help the definiteness of a meaning: is it therefore to be disregarded? They have length, and breadth, and outline: have they nothing to do with depth? Have they only to describe, never to impress? Has nothing any claim to their use but the definite? The cause of a child’s tears may be altogether undefinable: has the mother therefore no antidote for his vague misery? That may be strong in colour which has no evident outline. A fairytale, a sonata, a gathering storm, a limitless night, seizes you and sweeps you away: do you begin at once to wrestle with it and ask whence its power over you, whither it is carrying you? The law of each is in the mind of its composer; that law makes one man feel this way, another man feel that way. To one the sonata is a world of odour and beauty, to another of soothing only and sweetness. To one, the cloudy rendezvous is a wild dance, with a terror at its heart; to another, a majestic march of heavenly hosts, with Truth in their centre pointing their course, but as yet restraining her voice. The greatest forces lie in the region of the uncomprehended[2]

It is, therefore, no wonder our words have become powerful and effective tools, capable of leading us beyond ourselves even as we learn about ourselves through the stories we tell. What Hans Urs von Balthasar sees with the drama contained in theatre is true not just with theatre, but with all forms of story: “Existence has a need to see itself mirrored (speculari), and this makes the theatre a legitimate instrument in the pursuit of self-knowledge and the elucidation of Being – an instrument, moreover, that points beyond itself. “[3]

When we tell stories, either ones based upon history or ones which we create, Sophia (Divine and created) provides a foundation for our work, to make it something of value. We are illuminated by Wisdom, and through that illumination, create that reflection of being necessary for our words to be of value:

Wisdom illuminates man so that he may recognize himself; for man was like all the other animals when he did not understand that he had been created of a higher order than they. But his immortal mind, illuminated by Wisdom, beholds its own principle and recognize how unfitting it is for it to seek anything outside itself when what it is in itself can be enough for it.[4]

If one asks a writer what it is that inspires them, they will tell us many things in reply. Some will say it is the experiences of their lives, and this is what has made the modern novel so effective and value. For what they write is about life itself, based upon the angle they view it. The good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, will have a part of their work, because they have a place in the world around us. This, of course, was something literature had to come to grips with: while there is place for some stylized form, for one angle in which to view the world, we need other angles, other perspectives, and this August Derleth points out is what happened:

When writers quietly set about to write of life as they saw it all around them, breaking away from a pattern of life wishful thinkers, moralists, and romantics had imposed upon literature, they found that life was composed of many more aspects than those rose-colored and highly moral designs with which the fiction of the past century abounded”[5]

Others will point to images and ideas which, almost mysteriously, find their way into their psyche:

In the Author’s mind there bubbles up every now and then the material for a story. For me it invariably begins with mental pictures. This ferment leads to nothing unless it is accompanied with the longing for a Form: verse or prose, short story, novel, play or what not. When these two things click you have the Author’s impulse complete.[6]

Whatever it is that inspires the writer, some element of Sophia is involved, and this is what allows their work to have the depth necessary, not only to teach us about ourselves, but even to create something which attracts us, that is, what allows our works to also be works of entertainment, even to be primarily works of entertainment above all else, for that which is beautiful is good and so this aspect of story telling must also be affirmed:

The notion that a novel needs a moral or message is a bourgeois concept. In the days of the aristocracy it was recognized that art did not need to instruct or elevate; it could be a success by merely entertaining. One should never look down on entertainment; Mozart string quartets do not instruct – show me a moral or message in, say, the late Beethoven. Music is pure; literature can be, too; it becomes more pure as it drops its intention of improving and instructing the audience.[7]

Though a tale could be told with an intended moral or message, those which entertain nonetheless will reveal something of life to its audience; it’s meaning will be that which its audience makes for it, what it is they find in it they leads them to like it as they do. This means, as C.S. Lewis points out (as compared to the message which an author might want to put in their story) is one which no author can force upon their audience, but at best, help create:

Of a book’s meaning, in this sense, its author is not necessarily the best, and is never a perfect, judge. One of his intentions usually was that it should have a certain meaning: he cannot be sure that it has. He cannot even be sure that the meaning he intended it to have was in every way, or even at all, better than the meaning which readers find in it.[8]

Human freedom, so cherished by us, is presupposed by story, and certainly, for many audiences, this is a part of the story which entertains them the most: what will happen to this particular character, what choices will they make, what will be the results of their choices? Chesterton is right in saying that this is an element which Christianity excels in, because Christianity understands the existential angle of life: it is the defender of freedom, and as such, Christians are capable of producing some of the greatest stories:[9]

But the point is that a story is exciting because it has in it so strong an element of will, of what theology calls free-will. You cannot finish a sum how you like. But you can finish a story how you like. When somebody discovered the Differential Calculus there was only one Differential Calculus he could discover. But when Shakespeare killed Romeo he might have married him to Juliet’s old nurse if he had felt inclined. And Christendom has excelled in the narrative romance exactly because it has insisted on the theological free-will.[10]

We must understand that different genres of stories, including and especially those genres which deal with fantastic visions (such as fantasy and science fiction), give us insight into the world, because we are grasping after some sophianic element of creation, and seeing it put into action: this action shows the sophianic content in a concrete fashion, leading us to understand it better than if we kept it in the abstract:

I do believe that you can deepen your own orthodoxy by reading if you are not afraid of strange visions. Our sense of what is contained in our faith is deepened less by abstractions than by an encounter with mystery in what is human and often perverse. We Catholics are much given to the instant answer. Fiction doesn’t have any. Saint Gregory wrote that every time the sacred text describes a fact, it reveals a mystery. And this is what the fiction writer, on his lower level, attempts to do also.[11]

But, as literature itself is a humanistic enterprise, geared for the edification of humanity in its self-reflective cooperation with Sophia, we must also understand this humanism is a necessary component of the good writer: “A man who has no sympathy for his fellow human beings has no business being a writer, if one understands by sympathy I do not mean sentimentality, but only consciousness of common bondage and appreciation of humanity.”[12] This, of course, is why religious writers, no matter their faith, (when not trying to write pedantic literature, but rather, when trying to write literature reflective of their heart), are capable of producing great works of literary art. Christianity, through its incarnational teachings, must be humanistic, must be productive and creative, producing such beauty to enrich the world and fellow humanity:

Yet it remains true that human creativity – thought, science, art – is in its data and its principles sophianic. It is the revelation of Wisdom through humankind, and its reception in the world. Only a sophianic world-view can establish and justify the creative mission of humankind, made known to it in the fact of its humanity, with all its creative capabilities. [13]

Indeed, “Christian humanism, which presumes the development of all creative capacities of man, may be understood as a new comprehension, a new revelation of Christianity.”[14] In the classics which humanity creates, David Tracy points out, we get more than mere objectification of knowledge, but an experience of reality, in its full integrity, including the mystery which lies behind that which we come to know:

In the paradigmatic expression of the human spirit – in those texts, events, persons, actions, images, rituals, symbols which bear within them a classic as authoritative status, we find in our experienced recognition of their claim to attention the presence of what we cannot but name “truth.” The truth we find there may not be adequately expressible in the propositions of objective consciousness. Yet, that truth as at once a disclosure and a concealment of what, at our best and most self-transcending in interpreting the classics, we cannot but name “reality.”[15]

Nicholas Berdyaev, for example, points out how this is found in the writings of Dostoevsky. His writings have become classic, because they reveal something of the inner nature of the world by revealing the inner nature of the human psyche itself. Freedom exists in this world, a world which often manifests itself as hell on earth, but a hell which can be, and is redeemed:

The modern age served its apprenticeship to human freedom and man’s powers were given full opportunity, but at the end of that period this experiment in liberty was carried over to another plane and another dimension, and it is there that man’s destiny is now working itself out. Human freedom abandoned the psychic world in whose daylight it had existence since the Renaissance and plunged into the depths of the spiritual world. It is like a descent into Hell. But there man will find again not only Satan and his kingdom, but also God and Heaven; and they will not longer be revealed in accordance with an objective order imposed from without but by way of a face-to-face meeting with the ultimate depths of the human spirit, as an inwardly revealed reality. All Dostoievsky’s work is an illustration of this. Therein man has a very different place from that given to him by Dante or Shakespeare: he neither forms part of an unchangeable objective order nor exists on the surface of the earth or of his own soul. [16]

Our stories, moreover, can and will also contain mirth; we must, at times, come to terms with the worldview around us and mock it, and in that mocking, in that laughter, find once again the joy of the real. Satire, as Solovyov saw it, is a necessary genre for the well-being of humanity:

Let no one tell me that a satire that mocks the contemporary reality of a certain epoch or society does not have its ideal transcendental reality, but simply the same phenomenal reality, only of a different epoch or society. The latter is true only of a type of superficial satire that attacks the surface evil, without reaching toward its roots. True satire presents us not with such and such partial phenomena, but with the human state itself. It mocks our entire apparent reality and man himself, insofar as he subordinates himself to that reality. And if that state of misery were our definitive state, if that contemptible reality were the sole reality, one would do well to commit suicide. Instead, we defy it and laugh.[17]

Even that which allows a story to be a story, such as its plot and characters, provides the foundation for something which transcends them. Though plots are important, and indeed a good plot can make for a great story, it is this richness beyond the plot which vitalizes the story and leaves its mark on us:

To be stories at all they must be series of events: but it must be understood that this series – the plot, as we call it – is only really a net whereby to catch something else. The real theme may be, and perhaps usually is, something that has no sequence in it, something other than a process and much more like a state or quality. Giantship, otherness, the desolation of space, are examples that have crossed our path.[18]

Though some might not like to talk about the task of art, we must understand that it does have a task, it has a role to play in the development of the world around us. Our literature, as one form of art, shares with all other art the destiny which Solovyov sees for art:

The highest task of art is the perfected incarnation of this spiritual fullness in our reality, a realization in it of absolute beauty, or the creation of a universal spiritual organism. It is clear that the fulfillment of this task should coincide with the conclusion of the entire universal process. [19]

As this is a sophiological task, we should expect and will find reflections of Sophia in literature. Indeed, the sophianic content is part and parcel which much which makes our literature full of depth and meaning to its readers. Some will only express the mood and experience of sophianic revelation; others, however, will capture a glimpse of this sophianic content of their literature and actively seek it out. The more honest the author, the more this reflection will be noticed and draw the reader in, even if the work itself is poorly executed or written:

Law is the soil in which alone beauty will grow; beauty is the only stuff in which Truth can be clothed; and you may, if you will, call Imagination the tailor that cuts her garments to fit her, and Fancy his journeyman that puts the pieces of them together, or perhaps at most embroiders their button-holes. Obeying law, the maker works like his creator; not obeying law, he is such a fool as heaps a pile of stones and calls it a church.[20]

This is where we will turn to next: the sophianic content of literature, and how, as literature advances, this sophianic content can sometimes capture the writer so much, their whole life is turned upside down and becomes a search for the proper way to express their sophianic experiences. To do this, we will draw in a few examples, chosen mostly from my own reading and what I have loved, because, it is only this which allows me to also see the sophianic element of what I have read – the element which lies at the heart of what attracts me to certain authors and stories.