HISTORIAN AND THE POET

I do not have to be pressed hard-- in fact, I do not have to be pressed at all-- to admit that in too many cases where my versions of historical events sharply differ from the “facts in evidence,” there is no way for me to independently corroborate my stories. Most of my counter-conventional sources are dead by now, but, had they been alive, it wouldn’t have made any difference. The stories which I am telling have been known to a fairly substantial number of people, and the fact itself that these people have not come out with them so far, tells me in no uncertain terms that they may never surface, unless I unbind these other people’s underwater hostages just like Harry Potter tries to do it in The Goblet of Fire.

But, ironically, had any of my silent sources, by sheer magic, admitted to their veracity, and even produced a document or two, in their corroboration, their essential veracity would not have been soundly established even then, as history by its nature relies on a mixture of spurious fact and enlightened fiction, and the only solid truth about it is that nothing about it can ever be trusted as what really-really happened.

But this is all a purely casuistic dilemma. There is actually no need to dig up the unknowable truth, as long as the fiction it stands for, rises to the level of greatness and fits in seamlessly into the overall consistency of the big picture. Those truth-digging laborers of history, whom I have mentioned before, in my comment on Nietzsche’s critical historians, are in fact no better than nitpickers, in so far as they miss that big picture in their quest for some official confirmation, which no one can successfully obtain, as I have also observed before. In this respect, no historian, even the most thorough of all, can ever rise to the level of the poet imagining history, unless he wishes to stand side by side with the poet, learn from him, and then, and only then, venture to write about it.

One of the best treatises on this point belongs to Schopenhauer in his Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, which I am delighted to quote at some length here, due to this passage’s enduring importance:

“The poet from his deliberate choice represents significant characters in significant situations; the historian takes both as they come. He must regard and select the circumstances and the people not with reference to their inward significance which expresses the Idea, but according to the outward, apparent and relatively unimportant significance, with regard to the connection and the consequences. He must consider nothing in and for itself in its essential character and expression, but must look at everything in its relations, in its connection, in its influence upon what follows, and especially upon its own age.

“Therefore he will not overlook an action of a king, though of little significance and in itself quite common because it has results and influence. And, on the other hand, the actions of the highest significance of very eminent individuals are not to be recorded by him if they have no consequences. For his treatment follows the principle of sufficient reason, and apprehends the phenomenon, of which this principle is the form.

“But the poet comprehends the Idea, the inner nature of man apart from all relations, outside all time, the adequate objectivity of the thing-in-itself, at its highest grade. Even in that method of treatment, which is necessary for the historian, the inner nature and significance of the phenomena, the kernel of these shells, can never be entirely lost. He who seeks for it, at any rate, may find it. and recognize it. Yet that which is significant in itself, not in its relations, the real unfolding of the Idea, will be found much more accurately and distinctly in poetry, than in history, and therefore, however paradoxical it may sound, far more really genuine inner truth is to be attributed to poetry than to history.

“For the historian must accurately follow the particular event according to life, as it develops itself in time in the manifold tangled chains of causes and effects. It is however impossible that he can have all the data for this; he cannot have seen all and discovered all. He is forsaken at every moment by the original of his picture, or a false one substitutes itself for it, and this so constantly, that I think that I may assume that in all history the false outweighs the true. The poet, on the contrary, has comprehended the Idea of man from some definite side which is to be represented; thus it is the nature of his own self that objectifies itself in it for him. His knowledge is half a priori; his ideal stands before his mind firm, distinct, brightly illuminated and cannot forsake him; therefore, he shows us, in the mirror of his mind, the Idea, pure and distinct, and his delineation of it down to the minutest particular is true as life itself. (Compare this to my idea of truth in creation!)

“The great ancient historians are, therefore, in those particulars, in which their data fail them, for example, in the speeches of their heroes, poets; indeed, their whole manner of handling their material approaches to the epic.” (Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, #51.)

Compare this luminous deliberation to a similar idea, also expressed by Nietzsche, as a recurring leitmotif throughout his writings, but certainly finding its spiritual source in this passage from Schopenhauer. There is no indignity then in walking in the footsteps of these two inspired giants, and in expressing my desire to write history along their lines, namely, as a creator, a poet, rather than a simple recorder of other people’s recollections.

Therefore, I am willing to make one additional step forward in my current presentation, hereby attesting to the fact that I am assuredly representing my history not as some odd bits and pieces, some scraps collected from others, but as a vision of history entirely of my own. In doing this, I am the only authority behind my effort, and consequently I am in no need of any footnotes or attributions otherwise required, but in my case required not.