Agnes Callard

“My simple theory is also broad. It applies to narrative fiction broadly conceived, from epic poems to Greek tragedies to Shakespearean comedies to short stories to movies... My theory is that art is foreseeing evil. I am using the word evil to encompass the whole range of negative human experience, from being wronged to doing wrong to sheer bad luck.”

“The primary function of art is to show us evil — suffering, wrongdoing, and misfortune — which ordinary life systematically censors from our attention.”

“Plato, otherwise fond of noble lies, is in this case a spokesman for the ignoble truth. To permit art, we withhold the truth about it.”

“Perhaps the story of rebranding to great begins with Aristotle. His is the first complex theory of art... One might have thought that the natural label for the books most finely attuned to wretchedness and vice would be something like the evil books.”

“The reader stands where Joyce describes the artist as standing, in the background, indifferent, paring our fingernails... Unlike Kitty, we don't need to condemn Anna for being a fallen woman. Unlike Levin, we aren't duty bound to turn away from her as quickly as possible.”

“When Tolstoy writes philosophy, he is concerned with the transmission of morally edifying sentiments. But when he writes novels, he wants to show us evil. Even when he shows us good, he does it to show us evil.”

“Poetic thinking, in the sense that applies to Benjamin, is the point of view from unhappiness... artists give unform to unbeing.”