Art and Vicarious Living

So, this “passion project” is something that we (believe it or not!) are still passionate about, despite the lack of activity on this blog the past six months... Alas, life seems to have gotten in the way of my literary passions.

Or maybe I shouldn’t say “alas.”

In order to avoid getting overly personal, I will simply say that I spent the last six months of my life decidedly apart from literature and academia, an entirely new and different thing for me. My pre-2013 life mainly comprised of going to college and grad school and doing all that that that entails—studying, researching, reading, writing, thinking, discussing problems and ideas with family, friends, professors, classmates, etc.—in other words, everything but living. At the moment, I’m wondering if writing this post will mark a return to that former life or if it will somehow transcend it and cross over into actual, real, here-and-now-life itself. Of course, the lines between life and literature have always been blurred for me, so maybe this post is my one last desperate attempt to separate them. Or maybe, after writing this, I’ll discover that it’s okay if those lines aren’t as clearly defined as I’d like. In any case, what you should know is that my purpose in writing this post is to explore the relationship between life and literature, or more specifically, the role of literature and art in vicarious living.

One of my favorite poems of all time is Lord Alfred Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott.” The poem is about this woman, the Lady of Shalott, who lives in a tower on an island all by herself and only sees the real world outside her window through a mirror she uses to weave this tapestry she’s making. Of course, she’s lonely and tired, but she sings as she weaves, which not only makes her a weaver, but also a musician—or more explicitly, an artist. Everything seems more or less fine until one day she sees Sir Lancelot’s face in the mirror and falls in love with him. She immediately decides to leave the safety of her tower and the isolation of her artistic world, but doing so leads to her premature death (she, unlike Anne of Green Gables, drowns in her boat on the river because there is no Gilbert to rescue her). When Sir Lancelot later sees her corpse on the shores of Camelot, all he can comment on is the beauty of her face, which, of course, is shallow and obnoxious. Or maybe it’s what the Lady of Shalott deserves for risking her life for the sake of Sir Lancelot’s beautiful face. Yes, the romance in this poem is purely superficial, but then again, that’s also how it is in Romeo and Juliet, which is, supposedly, the greatest love-story of all time (sorry, another rant for another time).

Why do I like this poem so much? Well, despite its lack of healthy dating advice, “The Lady of Shalott” provides an excellent metaphor to describe the conflict between art and reality. Central to this poem is the struggle between the need to be alone to create or experience art and the need to be with others to create and experience real life.

Is isolation a prerequisite for artistic creativity then? You could easily argue that if the Lady of Shalott’s art wasn’t created in isolation, it probably wouldn’t exist. She’d probably have a lot of others things to do, especially if she were married to Sir Lancelot and had to deal with his shenanigans and kids (and Genevieve and the monarchy). However, this leads to a difficult egg/chick, cause/effect debate. Does the Lady of Shalott create because she’s isolated, or is she isolated because she creates? Can a passion for art, literature, theater, film, music, or dance actually isolate someone from society with all the hours of isolated practice that these media require? I’ve always seen art as a means of bringing people together—of facilitating improved communication and deepened empathy. However, as I look at my own life and realize how in many ways I’ve been stuck in the world of art, I begin to question my ability to communicate and empathize with others who haven’t had the same exposure to art (and don’t necessarily speak its obnoxious, ivory-tower language) and who probably need the inspiration and hope it offers more than I do.

Of course, the Lady of Shalott doesn’t communicate or empathize with anyone either. In fact, anything she does experience in the real world is seen indirectly through the mirror she uses to see the progress of her weaving or her art: “And moving through a mirror clear / That hangs before her all the year, / Shadows of the world appear” (lines 46-48). Accordingly, the mirror itself represents art, since art can be used to mirror reality. Because the Lady of Shalott spends all her time weaving, she only sees the outside world (reality) through her mirror (art). Interestingly, if she looks directly at the outside world, she will be cursed, as stated in the poem: “She has heard a whisper say, / A curse is on her if she stay / To look down to Camelot” (lines 39-41).

What Tennyson exactly means here is hard to decipher. Certainly, his use of the word curse indicates that looking directly at reality, rather than looking at through art, would be a harmful thing to do. And yet, Tennyson’s use of the word shadows to describe art, along with the word curse to describe reality, also demonstrates his ambivalence about art as a way to perceive and interpret reality. While the word curse suggests that the Lady of Shalott would be wise to continue seeing reality through art, the word shadows indicates art’s limitations in representing reality. When shadows are compared to reality, they simply don’t measure up. However, when reality is looked at without art, the effect can certainly be depressing and sometimes feel meaningless. Can art truly mirror reality then? Can it at least help us cope with reality? Can it replace reality? And if it can do all or any of these things, should it?

In “The Propriety of Theatrical Amusements—Instructions Relative to Conducting Them,” Brigham Young discusses how theater and art can be used to experience evil and its consequences vicariously, precisely so that we don’t have to experience them in real life. In addition, Jeffrey Holland cites Shakespeare’s Othello in his address “How Do I Love Thee?” to demonstrate the consequences of being uncharitable in dating and romance. Holland’s main point is that while we do need to experience “an opposition in all things” (2 Nephi 2:11) to know and appreciate the difference between good and evil, we don’t necessarily have to strangle our spouse in his/her sleep to know that doing so is wrong. C. S. Lewis makes a similar point in his Mere Christianity in chapter 11 on faith when he discusses how those who resist evil are the ones who truly know and appreciate how strong it is. While some may view these ideas as didactic interpretations and uses of art (and snub and shun them as such), I think that can art can (and should) be a means to vicarious living because it can often increase our awareness and empathy.

Meridith Reed makes this same point in her blog post, “Why I Wasn’t Offended by Les Miserables and Other Thoughts on Mormons and Media,” more beautifully than I ever could. For her, art and media exist so that we can “respond to others in a sensitive, caring way.” Thanks to a play I saw while I was studying abroad in London, I became more aware of various forms of human suffering, and decided to serve a mission for my church as a result. Of course, the play also did a good job of exposing art’s limitations in solving world problems, which is why I realized that serving a mission might be a better way of helping others than studying theater and art in London and Paris. The irony of that play was that, as good art, it successfully exposed art’s failings and weaknesses.

The tragic irony in Tennyson’s poem, though, is that once the Lady of Shalott leaves her tower, she ceases to create and exist. Basically, the moment she decides to live is the same moment she chooses to die. I realize that this dichotomy between art and reality that Tennyson has set up here may be a false one. However, it is certainly something that he personally believed in and lived by. In Memoriam, arguably Tennyson’s greatest poetic work, took him seventeen years to complete. During that period, Tennyson mourned the death of his friend, postponed his marriage (yes, he had a seventeen-year-long engagement), and wrote some of his best poetry. Admittedly, Tennyson wasn’t secluded in a tower during those seventeen years, but perhaps he was socially isolated in other ways (by, maybe, not getting married and having kids just like the Lady of Shalott?). He also wrote many other poems featuring protagonists in isolated situations. Thus, his life-long focus on art in isolation, both in his own work and life, suggests that Tennyson, at least, viewed isolation as a prerequisite for artistic creativity, even though he was well-aware of the drawbacks of art as vicarious living.

And, even after writing all this, I’m still not certain if I agree with him.