“All art is quite useless” (Oscar Wilde). Debate this proposition in relation to Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song
In this essay I will demonstrate that the argument put forth by Wilde for this statement is antithetical and hypocritical, that it deconstructs[1] itself and becomes a politicised, instrumental argument while purporting to be the opposite. I will then demonstrate how instrumentalist criticism similarly deconstructs itself and becomes aesthetic(ist) while purporting to be the opposite. As such I will be arguing for the conclusion that the title statement and the argument for it are self-contradictory and that the (binary) opposition between instrumentalism and aestheticism is a false dichotomy. I will use Sunset Song as an example of a text that doesn’t sit in either camp but that very much succeeds in its author’s twin aims of being both “of definite literary value” and “explicit or implicit propaganda” (Gupta and Johnson, 2005, p49). Sunset Song is a socialist propaganda novel (though like Orwell, to whom I’ll also refer in this essay, Gibbon has nothing but contempt for most of the British revolutionary Left[2]) that weaves together it’s political agenda and it’s literary techniques so well that it seems pointless to privilege or highlight one over the other.
Art is useless only to those who produce it to be useless or those who view it as useless. The title statement standing alone is a glib and ineffective argument, particularly from a man who said that “the pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple”. Of course, it is only the signature statement, Wilde’s argument and the whole gamut of aestheticist criticism extends beyond this statement alone. “The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim.” (ibid, p7) The word “aim” here is a slip that demonstrates Wilde’s latent instrumentalism, an instrumentalism that he shares with all aestheticist critics. For Wilde art is useful (hence the word “aim”) but it has only one valid use, namely, the production of beauty. The title statement is just as much a statement of aim, of purpose, of a delimiting teleology (of art) as when Gibbon says, “I hate capitalism; all my books are explicit or implicit propaganda.” (Ibid) Aristotle stated that, “Every art and every enquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good - Man is born for citizenship.” (Cooper, 2002, pp30-37) In the case of aestheticists the “good” at which they aim is beauty, pure and simple(sic). We see a similar slip in Pater’s Conclusion to Studies in the History of the Renaissance, “Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself is the end.” (Gupta and Johnson, p36). This somewhat awkward phrase is completely at odds with the aestheticist aim of producing beauty, as indeed is all aestheticist criticism. The greatest argument for aestheticism is to produce beautiful things, not to argue the case for particular notions of beauty being more important (to art) than particular political philosophies, which is invariably a more ugly business. Furthermore the existence of the criticism itself means that aestheticists move beyond the aesthetic to the instrumental, politicising their beliefs, “Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.” (Orwell, 2004, p5)
One might say a similar thing about instrumentalist criticism; that the best argument for the various ideas and agendas is to write explicit political commentary, propaganda and philosophy and that arguing with those who are hypocritically telling people what they should think of beauty is a waste of the instrumentalists’ time. One can certainly see a latent aestheticism in instrumentalist criticism just as one can see the same vice versa. In Orwell’s typically satirical and biting view of aestheticist theory in his Review of The Novel Today, he has to resort to metaphors rather than reason to make his point effectively, thus deconstructing his own argument, “The artist was conceived as leaping to and fro in a moral, political and economic void, usually in pursuit of something called ‘Beauty’, which was always one jump ahead.” (Gupta and Johnson, 2005, p9) “Leaping” “void” “pursuit” and “jump” are all slips, used in a non literal fashion as rhetorical crutches for Orwell’s apparently “reasoned” argument against aestheticism. The opposition between the aesthetic and the instrumental cannot be upheld when the aestheticists are making a political case for their beliefs and the instrumentalists are abandoning reason in favour of metaphor. The language of each infects the other, deconstructing the distinction between the two. From reading the rest of Why I Write I have concluded that Orwell’s being categorised as an instrumentalist is inaccurate and that he, like Gibbon, seems to be concerned with literature that is both political and beautiful, “Above the level of a railway guide, no book is quite free from aesthetic considerations.” (Orwell, 2004, p5) The deconstruction of this opposition underpins both my reading of Sunset Song and the association I make between Gibbon’s novel and the work of Orwell.
Sunset Song is a socialist propaganda novel that seeks to subvert certain then-established notions of Scotland, “Few things cry out so urgently for rewriting as does Scots history - A real people once lived - and hoped and feared and hated and was greatly uplifted.” (Gupta and Johnson, 2005, p50) The protagonist, Chris, has an antagonistic life yet, like the land, endures despite it all. There is an ongoing struggle between the various aspects of Chris, or the various different Chrisses, “Chris Guthrie, Chris Tavendale and another that comes to the fore by the end of the novel; and Chris Guthrie is herself split in two, the Scots Chris” and the more refined ‘English’ Chris." (Gibbon, 1988, viii) In particular this latter struggle, between the Chris of the land and the Chris who dreams of a BA from Aberdeen, is a metaphor for the class struggle that Marxists in general believe underpins all political change[3]. The Scots Chris is what Marx would call proletariat and the English Chris is bourgeois. Though Gibbon himself doesn’t ever seem to use such terms I have no doubt that this is the analogy he sought to construct. Likewise Chris’s burgeoning sexuality is an analogy for what Marx and Lenin would call “class consciousness”, the difficult but necessary struggle that the proletariat (the Scots Chris) has to undergo. This is demonstrated by her contrasting reactions to being kissed on the lane one night walking home from the Knapp, “It was in her memory like being chased and bitten by a beast, but worse and with something else in it, as though she’d half liked the beast.” (ibid, p91) In using the metaphor “beast” to describe the contrary feelings sexuality causes in Chris in this earlier section of the novel Gibbon draws our attention to the fact that Chris’ sexuality itself is metaphorical, an analogy for the enduring revolutionary spirit of socialism. Thus the aesthetic and the instrumental are bound together by the density of Gibbon’s construction, simultaneously illustrating both his political philosophy and his desire to create a work of complexity and beauty.
The allegory extends to the very vocabulary of the book. It is written in the third person and in a hybrid dialect somewhere between English and Scots, “He has soaked his English in the Scottish rhythm and turn of phrase so that one seems to be listening to the village itself speak.” (Gupta and Johnson, 2005, p57) This third person perspective and blending of vocabularies, using “meikle” and "kailyard"and “bairn” and so on, emphasises that Gibbon was not merely seeking to “rewrite” Scots history but also to advance a philosophy of international socialism[4]. By avoiding the dominion of either English or Scots or of a single narrative perspective Gibbon creates a communal, familiar tone, once again weaving together the aesthetic qualities of his book with his political persuasions, as well as transcending petty nationalism (as noted by Barke, ibid p59-61). That this blending of languages hasn’t always been aesthetically appreciated[5] merely serves to underpin the analogy of class struggle that underpins the whole book in that as a revolutionary text Sunset Song is bound to meet with such friction and resistance. One cannot expect to inspire revolution without directly confronting preconceptions and assumptions.
A further deconstructive literary technique used by Gibbon comes in the form of the polysemic “you” used intermittently by the folk narrator. As noted in the introduction, “Gibbon often uses ‘you’ in a way quite rare in fiction which he may even have invented - ‘self-referring you’, as Graham Trengove has called it. Self-referring you serves to dramatise a character’s thought; while generic you, equivalent to everybody, strengthens the impression of universality.” (Gibbon, 1988, pxi) The generic “you” is used to add to the communal tone of the novel, “The Mill was a place you could take your quean to, you’d lean your bicycle up by the wall.” (Gibbon, 1988, p245) The self-referring “you” is used solely with reference to Chris’s thought and feelings, “You hated the land and the coarse speak of the folk and learning was brave and fine one day; and the next you’d waken… the smell of the earth in your face and you’d cry for that.” (ibid, p32) “You” refers to both Chris’s private sensations to which the reader is privy and to the community of which the reader is a part. By using “you” as a polyseme the text not only enhances our sympathy with Chris (and therefore socialism) but also deconstructs the line between her impressions and beliefs and those of the relatively omniscient narrator, “By running the two together when dealing with Chris, Gibbon creates the overpowering conviction that even in the most particular and intimate moments of her life, Chris’s experiences are universal.” (ibid, xii) Furthermore this innovation deconstructs the line between the reader and the story, situating us as part of the general communal events via use of the generic you while simultaneously affirming socialist philosophy via use of the self-referring you with regard to Chris. Once again the aesthetic and the instrumental are inextricably linked though this is, presumably, what Gibbon meant by “implicit” propaganda in that the method is subtle.
The title statement runs contrary to the argument put forth for it. If art were useless then all talk of appropriate aims would be futile, that aestheticism even enters into criticism in the first instance renders it instrumental, politicised and therefore contradictory. The title statement deconstructs itself as soon as someone tries to argue for it. The apparently opposing theory, instrumentalism, cannot avoid the allure of rhetoric, of “literary value” as opposed to philosophical/historical significance. As such instrumentalism, like aestheticism, deconstructs itself and becomes the Other to itself. The line that each draws to distinguish itself from the other is permeated by the very language used to draw that distinction, rendering it perpetually deconstructed or just false. No book is free from aesthetic considerations or political bias, least of all Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon. Aspects of the protagonist Chris are an extensive analogy for socialist philosophy, the struggle between her different selves being a metaphor for class war, her difficulty with her developing sexuality being a metaphor for class consciousness. By using metaphors within those passages when Chris’s life is analogical Gibbon signposts the fact that he fully intends the analogy and that he is writing “implicit or explicit [socialist] propaganda”. The blending of languages used to create the lexicon of the narrator demonstrates Gibbon’s lack of nationalist or revivalist dogma and his commitment to cosmopolitan internationalism. By refusing to let either English or Scots to dominate the vocabulary the story is told from a communal perspective, sophisticating the analogy one again, the communal being a vehicle for the international. The polysemic use of “you” deconstructs the boundaries between the communal narrator, the feelings of Chris and the position of the reader. This series of techniques situates the reader in the text and tries to persuade them of the validity of Gibbon’s cosmopolitan socialism thus inextricably interweaving the instrumental with the aesthetic.
Notes
[1] Via a series of rhetorical slips
[2] “If revolutionary writers believe that they can - talk the monster to death by calling it ‘bourgeois’ and ‘decadent’ they are living in a clown’s paradise.” (ibid.)
[3] “The History of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.” - the opening line of Marx’s The Communist Manifesto
[4] Lenin, for one, argued that socialism was always an international movement because it sought to ultimately dissolve the state, Gibbon would appear to agree
[5] See, for example, the anonymous review in Modern Scot, “Two Scottish Novels”, in Gupta and Johnson, 2005, p56-7
Bibliography
Orwell, George, 2004, Why I Write, London, Penguin
Marx, Karl, 2004, The Communist Manifesto, London, Penguin
Grassic Gibbon, Lewis, 1988, Sunset Song, Edinburgh, Canongate
Cooper, David E. (ed), 2002, Ethics, Oxford, Blackwell
Gupta, S. and Johnson, D. (eds), 2005, A Twentieth-Century Literature Reader, Oxon, Routledge
