Jim
Stabenau
Stabenau: Here
we are in the Grecian Urn Taverna on the Elysian slopes. Let us seek beauty and
truth in our discourse today. When Keats wrote the "Ode on a Grecian
Urn" he drew on deep memories, not tracts of certainty. This provides us
imagery where Truth and Beauty may be found. He believes the urn to be a friend
to man with much to tell us. Keats summarizes the drawing on the urn in poetic
rhetoric: “Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty; that is all ye know on earth and all
ye need to know.”
Socrates: I’ve seen the urn but had not read the poem until Dr. Stabenau
handed it to me. Before I dazzle you with my famous “Socratic method,” allow me
to say that whereas the urn shows images as if each were in its own space and
time, the poet clearly takes the artist’s purpose to be to convey a single
concept: the idea of Beauty as Truth. Keats adds Truth as Beauty. Poetic truth
conveys the beauty of language. Truth and beauty are expressions of the two
halves of our consciousness. One half expresses our thoughts through rhetoric
and the other through imagination. Together they form the unity of truth and
beauty. Thus we have an eternal dialectic between Beauty and Truth. Cleopatra,
Clarissa, do you see this as true for you?
Cleopatra: Oh great thinker, I will
speak first because I am young and beautiful. When majestic Caesar came to my
kingdom I presented him youth and physical beauty. I felt no need for truth
because I am able to lie well and copiously. This did not impress the old man.
But he saw my potential and tutored me in seeking truth. He said that I should
value truth in others more than I value beauty in myself. Then I would become
truly a queen. Upon his return to Rome he would ask Mark Antony — strong, with
muscular round arms — to come to Egypt and be my lover. So I believe that if
you have beauty and guile you don't need the truth.
Stabenau (to himself): Perhaps her
left and right brain were trying to come together but didn’t make it.
Mrs. Dalloway (Clarissa): I too have
been young. Preparing for my recent party I had cause to ruminate upon my
romantic past, no pun intended. Get it? Romantic? I did not have your beauty,
Cleopatra, but I did have class. I knew passion with Peter and with Sally. But
I passed over them to marry Richard, solid and steady, a choice that followed
reason. Alas, that makes me simply Mrs. Dalloway. Virginia Woolf summed this up
on the last page of my story. “What does brain matter,” said Lady Rossiter,
getting up, “compared with the heart.” I
watch the old woman across the street prepare for bed and wonder if when I face
death I will ponder whether I have given away the truth and the beauty that
could have been mine with Peter or Sally.
Stabenau: Well said,
my friends. We struggle in a quest for beauty to have a meaningful life. Such a
life should be based upon truth with oneself and with others.
Socrates: Bartender,
one more round of drinks, but hold the hemlock.
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