Question Why is subtlety ("showing" and not "telling") valued in art and literature?

Accepted:
August 26, 2006

Comments

I think there are actually two questions here. First, the question about the value of 'subtlety'; second, about the value of 'showing' rather than telling. In other words, I'm not convinced that the latter is a definition of 'subtlety'; it seems to me that one can tell with subtlety, and show crudely. So, with apologies, I’ll just look at the showing/telling distinction.

We’ll define ‘telling’ as straight-forward, careful, factual (or apparently factual) description. Showing, by contrast, means somehow to make the subject-matter seem real to us, as well as to make it seem important, affecting, and interesting. Since the subject may not be real at all, this involves creating an illusion. Probably the two are not entirely distinct: it may be impossible to show without also telling something.

Now, what you call 'telling' is valued in many areas: in journalism, science, history, documentary film-making, and so forth. I suggest that an answer to your question may also be the answer to the question of why these types of activity are not normally considered 'art'. The most famous answer comes from Aristotle. In his Poetics Aristotle argues that poetry (which we’ll have to take to stand for all art and literature) is ‘more philosophical’ than history, because the former deals with ‘universals’ while the latter deals with factual particulars. Roughly, he means that poetry has meaning or significance beyond its narrow setting; history is just a record of what happened. So, a play about Oedipus might have something to tell us about the nature of man, of knowledge, of faith, or of destiny. It might also have an emotional impact that a telling of the story would not. (This is probably an impoverished view of the discipline of history, by the way.)

One, but only one, of the reasons that poetry (and art) can do this is because it tends to show rather than tell. The meaning and significance of poetry is clearly related to the effects of showing discussed above.

Question Why is subtlety ("showing" and not "telling") valued in art and literature? Accepted:August 26, 2006

Question Why is subtlety ("showing" and not "telling") valued in art and literature?

Accepted:
August 26, 2006