The
romancers and weavers of fairy tales, on the other hand, instead of
choosing the vivid moments of real life, in order to stimulate the
emotions, accomplish the same end by exciting wonder and amazement at
the exaggerations and unheard-of novelties which they create. Yet even
they give us truth, not truth in the sense of fact, but in the sense
of a world which arouses the same elementary emotions, intensified
though they be through amazement, as are aroused by fact. It matters
not how outlandish their tales so long as they do this. Love stories
are so widely interesting because love is the one very vivid emotion
in most people's lives, although there are other experiences--warfare,
the pursuit of great aims, the clash of purposes and beliefs, the
growth of souls--equally intense. Dante's three themes, Venus, Salus,
Virtus,[Footnote: See his _De Vulgari Eloquentia._] broadly
interpreted, cover the range of literary subjects.
Of course, since we secure no personal triumphs in reading, and every
one wishes to play his own part successfully in real life, literature
cannot become a substitute for life, except with the artist who triumphs
in making his story. Nevertheless, as Henry James says, fiction may
and should compete with life, and this it can do by giving us the
feelings aroused by action without imposing upon us the responsibilities
and the fateful results of action itself; there we can learn new things
about life without incurring the risks of participation in it.
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