Late in chapter 3 of John Gardner's Grendel, our young creature-narrator is drawn in by the Shaper's song. Like everyone else in the room, Grendel is swept up in the art of the Shaper's craft, the weaving of music and mythology, with little bits of fact stuck here and there as decoration. Yet, unlike the Danes who roar with approval after, Grendel is stricken.
He claims to be "torn apart by poetry."
What a ridiculous sentiment, gentle reader! After all, poetry is, well, poetry. And we tend to hate (too strong... whole-heartedly disdain?... strongly dislike?) poetry. But it's not poetry Grendel means. It is the Art, capital A. It is the inspiration that seeps forth from the art, the inspirado that motivates men and women to do great feats afterward.
It is the jam tape before the big game.
It is the favorite playlist during the jog.
It is the comfort movie played at the end of a rough day.
It is the Art that tears Grendel apart. Check that. It is one step further: for Grendel, it is the content of the art which moves him to stress.
The Shaper is lying. Transmuting history. Changing names and dates and outcomes. Minimizing faults and exaggerating honor. He is changing Fact. And he is doing it so well as to raise his story up to the level of Art.
If only the rest of the audience could make that distinction. But maybe they do. Which causes this to be a very dangerous notion. After all, stories are important. And whether they are fiction or not, they have the chance to stand as Art if they are told well enough, by someone with the power to elevate it. They have the chance to endure. But do we not also have the responsibility to look into what we are allowing to endure? I don't know. Do we?
Poetry can tear nothing down (or build anything up, as it were) unless it has the teeth to do so. Do we not supply the teeth?
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