Truth and Poetry
Steven E. Callihan (callihan@callihan.seanet.com)
Wed, 11 Jun 1997 18:46:36 -0700 (PDT)
"_Alleged 'real reality'_. -- When he describes the various professions --
e.g., that of the general, the silk-weaver, the seaman -- the poet poses as
_knowing_ of these things to the very bottom; indeed, when it comes to the
conflict of human actions and destinies he acts as though he had been
present at the weaving of the whole nexus of the world; to this extent he is
a deceiver. And he practices his deception only before those who _do not
know_ -- and that is why his deception is succewssful: the latter commend
him for his profound and genuine knowledge and in the end induce in him the
delusion that he really does know these things as well as do the individuals
he is describing, indeed as well as the great world-spider itself. Thus at
last the deceiver becomes honest and believes in his own veracity. Peaple of
sensibility, indeed, even tell him to his face that he possesses a _higher_
truth and veracity -- for they are for a time tired of reality and accept
the poetic dream as a beneficent relaxation and night for head and heart.
What this dream shows them now seems to them more _valuable_, because, as
remarked, they find it more beneficent: and men have always believed that
that which seems more valuable is the truer and more real. Poets _conscious_
of possessing this power deliberately set out to discredit that which is
usually called reality and transform it into the uncertain, apparent,
spurious, sinful, suffering, deceptive; they employ all the doubts that
exist as to the limitations of knowledge, all the extravagances of
scepticism, to spread a wrinkled veil of uncertainty over things: in order
that after this darkening their sorcery and soul-magic shall be
unhesitatingly taken for the path to 'true turth', to 'real reality'.
(Human, All Too Human, "Assorted Opinions and Maxims," 32)
For Nietzsche here, truth may not even be grounded in _poesis_ in that it,
itself, is a poetic invention, if you will. And yet there is no _other_
truth, no counter-poetic truth that can itself stand outside of poetry, for
all truths are, at bottom, merely successful lies.
"The 'real world,' however one has hitherto conceived it -- it has always
been the apparent world _once again_." (Will to Power, 566)
Steve C.
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