Theory vs. Reality

This week I had a real-life lesson in things I’ve been studying theoretically. My current dissertation chapter deals with Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s theory of “the willing suspension of disbelief” when reading (or viewing) a text. Research in this area spans everything from virtual reality (including “presence” or the mental “fantasy” you create while reading any text online – including this one!) to Aristotle’s distinction between doxa (beliefs) and phantasia (impressions). I had just finished up a tough theoretical section on Monday night, and I was thinking a lot about how Aristotle differentiates between poetry and rhetoric.

He says poetry, and literature in general – especially tragedies – is supposed to provide a cathartic experience, in which the suffering or pain of which you read gives you pleasure. You can learn from it, but the poetic experience is mainly about giving vent to your emotions and taking pleasure in tragic situations that you would never enjoy in reality. Also, literature is not supposed to affect your doxa, only your phantasia.

I wondered if Aristotle was right. I know, it sounds arrogant to go up against him, but I was interested in those times when literature actually does affect doxa, when it’s not just a passing cathartic experience but a life-changing moment. After all, many authors actually want their literature to be transformative in this way.

I also thought about poetry as a vehicle for catharsis. Undoubtedly, we do take pleasure in pain when reading poems or watching tragedies. But I was also interested in that difference between real life and the text; how much pain is too much? Where is the line between pleasure and sympathy, etc.?

Unfortunately, I have more reason to think about this distinction. On Tuesday night, my real-life lesson happened. My small neighborhood experienced a tragedy when a young boy caused a car wreck, fled the scene to his parents’ house, had a stand-off with police, and took his own life. This all happened just across the street from my house. It was very shocking and confusing, as we had no idea what happened until afterwards. All we saw were all the police cars, fire trucks, and, eventually, medical personnel. Our neighborhood has never experienced anything like this before. Everyone was very upset, as you can imagine.

The suffering of that poor family is “dramatic,” but watching things unfold in life provides no pleasure, and I can’t imagine this situation being enjoyed in a text. Yet I know plenty of tragic novels, plays, or even poems often use material like this. Even my own poem on a car wreck victim – written as a way to purge myself of the haunting images from my childhood – still seems vampiric when I stop and realize that I used someone’s life and death and tried to make her pain a “pleasure” of sorts. But this is actually the point both Aristotle and Coleridge make -- literature provides a "safe place" through which we can experience tragic emotions with no consequences.

I guess I’m still wondering what tragic poetry’s role should be. Should it be used to commemorate the loss and suffering we as humans often experience? To draw attention to pain? To purge the audience’s emotions so they can enjoy the false tragedy without the real experience? It’s easy to write about theory in an artificial academic world, but seeing real anguish in someone’s life makes poetry seem a little selfish and irrelevant.