Social myth, literary narrative, and political aesthetics

pp. 65-78

in: Tudor Balinisteanu, Violence, narrative and myth in Joyce and Yeats, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

Abstract

In this chapter I will examine the ways in which Georges Sorel's theorisation of social myth can be seen as a theory of political aesthetics. This examination will also show that anarchist and syndicalist ideas provide a framework for a theory of art that takes into account both art's value as an individualistic experience lived in the here and now of one's moment in time, and its value for practical politics, that is, the value of that experience of art as a medium conducive of transformations of narrative language into the language of action. Sorel's concept of social myth accommodates most of the terms enunciated above in a unified theory. This theory is concerned with the passage from principles to actions, as Sorel put it in his Introduction à l"économie moderne (1903, revised edition 1922), a passage which Sorel saw as impossible to describe without appeal to myth.¹ In applying this theory to art, one is concerned with the passage from narrative symbols, which express the principles of identity and action, to actuality, that is, to act and action in the material world. As with social myth, the passage from art to action may imply one's engagement in practical politics. In this perspective, myth and art mediate a transformation of consciousness, and the translation of this transformation into socially transformative action.