“Are we able to “choose” incidents and situations of common life and throw upon then a certain colouring of imagination?”
Since the beginning of time, men have wondered about whether it is possible to see what reality really is or not.
In Indian’s Vedas (ca. 5000 b.C.) the myth of Maya is introduced: after having created the Earth, the goddess covered the entire surface of it with a veil, in order to protect humans, since reality was not accessible to them and life wouldn’t be possible with the knowledge of the truth.
A different vision of Maya’s veil will then be portrayed by Schopenhauer in the XIV century. He explained that Maya’s veil is what keeps men from knowing the truth and it is necessary to remove it. This could only be possible through mercy, ascesis, and art, which are the three paths of redemption.
In poetry arts are frequently used to protect men from what makes them suffer; for instance, in Foscolo’s literary production, art( intended as poetry), is one pf the three illusions that keep men safe from the brutal reality, and they are : art, tomb, and beauty. Through them it was possible to “escape” from the historical events of that period.
Another example is represented by the works of Wordsworth and Coleridge, who both described life through the two degrees of imagination. With the primary degree of imagination, Wordsworth would describe simple aspects of life while throwing a colour of imagination upon them; while with the secondary degree , Coleridge would create a whole new world ruled by supernatural elements would be created, destroying everithing common in life.
The theme of a veiled reality has been impactful not only on poetry, but, in the future, it would be on films and novels as well.
As it also happens in the film “Matrix”. The film is set in a post-apocalypse world, in which the Matrix manipulates humans’ mind, letting them feel like they see the truth, while actually they dont’t. The most vital scene shows the protagonist, who’s given a chance to know the secret behind the world he lives in, otherwise he could keep on living the lie. He chooses to discover the truth, and that’s when he wakes up in one of the capsules in which humans are living, giving life to the Matrix. The theory of an evil “God” who controls human minds had already been proposed by the philosopher Descartes through the hyperbolic doubt. From this doubt a certainty was born: since we are able to think and doubt, we exist (cogito ergo sum).
Another fundamental philosopher who discussed about reality, is Plato with the myth of the cave. At the beginning there are some slaves tied to a rock at the end of a cave, obliged to look at its wall. Behind them was the end of the tunnel, so, when people passed by with some objects, shadows would be projected onto the wall. That was the only way they perceived the real world. One day, one of them was freed, and the moment he stepped out the cave, he couldn’t bring himself to believe to reality. He then proceeded to tell what he saw to his friends, who made fun of him for saying such impossibke things, choosing to live in ignorance.
Like the man who tried to show his friends the truth and was made fun of, in the famous book of “ The Little Prince”, the protagonist, who had drawn a boa snake that ate an elephnat, was criticised by the adults whom he had shown the drawing to, since they couldn’t see the reality he had displayed to them. Again, in another episode, the Little Prince asks the protagonist to draw him a sheep that could protect his planet, although, what was drawn was a box. At the question of the prince of why there was no sheep on the paper, the aviator replied that the sheep is was inside the box. This way, the prince imagined the perfect sheep that could satisfy his expectations. This conception of a desired reality, will be written by Leopardi in his poem about the bush that blocked his view. On one side, it keeps him from knowing the truth that’s behind it, but form the other side, it allows him to believe in a reality that satisfies him the most.
This behaviour of ignoring a more cruel reality, while preferring an idealistic image of it, is common with everyone’s life, and while that surely helps with coping with our personal problems, it could also lead to the complete dissociation from reality and to real issues, which need to be faced by us so as to create a better environment to live in, not just for us, but for everybody else too.
Written by : Sara Stile , Beatrice Todisco , Giovanni Filippo Ferreri , Federica De Simone