From the Editor: Fiction as Universal Truth

Publication date

2019-12-26

Authors

van Gerwen, R.C.H.M.ORCID 0000-0002-0920-9404ISNI 0000000078421623

Editors

Advisors

Supervisors

Document Type

Editorial
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Abstract

Works of art are not supposed to be true to the world, some are true to their authors — they express their views or emotions —, but preferably they are true to themselves, to the works themselves. Their coherence dictates their meaning. This is the mark of great fictions. Not that they express the author, nor that they are true to the world. Aristotle's view that poetry delivers universal truths, combined with the insight that said universal truth should be viewed as particular truths, about the types of person in the type of circumstances portrayed in the work explicate this view.

Keywords

truth in art, Aristotle, Diane Arbus, universal truth, particular truth, truth to the work, truth to the world, truth to the author

Citation

van Gerwen, R C H M 2019, 'From the Editor: Fiction as Universal Truth', Aesthetic Investigations, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. i-iv. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4084546