From character to parable and allegory: varieties of moral imagination in fictional literature

Abstract

It is often argued—or perhaps more commonly assumed—that the narratives of much if not most imaginative human literature (or oral tradition) are of serious moral import or value. But, given the inherently fictional nature of such narratives, it may well be asked in virtue of which features or characteristics, such imaginative constructs might claim this significance. In a paper entitled ‘The sublime and the beautiful revisited,’ published in the Yale Review (1959), the distinguished British philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch argues at some length for a particular conception of the moral purpose of novel (or such other fictional literature as drama). Following detailed analysis and critique of the largely negative influence, she takes Kantian aesthetic formalism and subsequent nineteenth century idealism and empiricism to have had on development of modern imaginative literature, she defends a very particular conception of the proper role of such literature largely inspired by such of her own favoured authors as William Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Leo Tolstoy. In a nutshell, the work of such authors is extolled by Murdoch for its close, essentially realist, exploration of the complexities of human character as primarily exhibited or implicated in discernibly moral association and conduct. While Murdoch was not herself a modern virtue ethicist, her essentially character-focused account of good fiction is notably consistent with recent virtue-ethical defences of the moral value of literature as well as with her own professed aims as a novelist. However, it is the aim of the present essay to show that Murdoch’s perspective on the purpose of novels and other imaginative literature is unacceptably narrow. Briefly, apart from the fact that many good or even great novels are not necessary concerned with the exploration of moral issues, there may be great fiction of significant moral worth that is not especially concerned with the exploration of human character. In this regard, much present attention is devoted to extensive fictional and imaginative fiction of parable and allegory of the kind that Murdoch seems to dismiss as ‘neurotic’ fable. In sum, the present paper precisely celebrates the diversity of modern and contemporary literary treatment of moral and other issues that Murdoch appears to reject.