worlds of works of art

Worlds of Works of ArtAuthor(s): Nicholas WolterstorffReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Winter, 1976), pp. 121-132Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The American Society for AestheticsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/430370 .Accessed: 04/07/2012 08:51

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NICHOlAS WOLTERSTORFF

Worlds of Works of Art

WHAT IS THE WORLD of a work of art? And what is to be reckoned as included within the world of a given work of art? Those are the questions whose answers I shall pur- sue in this essay.

We can usefully begin with the opening paragraph from an article by Seymour Chat- man titled "Towards a Theory of Narra- tive." 1 "The elements of the formalist- structuralist theory of narrative . . . can be epitomized as follows. Each narrative has two parts: a story (histoire), consisting of the content, the chain of events (actions and happenings), and what may be called the existents (characters and settings), the objects and persons performing, under- going, or acting as a background for them; and a discourse (discours), that is, the ex- pression, the means by which the content is communicated, the set of actual narrative 'statements.' "

What the structuralists call the story of a narrative is one species of what I call the world of a work. The genus as a whole also includes the worlds of such non-narrative works as individual representational paint- ings, and passages of prose consisting wholly of state descriptions and including no indi- cation of happenings. I intend what I say about the worlds of works of art to be as applicable to these as to stories. Neverthe- less, to give some focus to this brief discussion I shall choose most of my examples from narrative works. In that way our at- tention will be focussed on those worlds

NICHOL.AS WOLTERSTORFF is professor of philosophy nt Calvinl College.

which are stories. Also, here I shall not at all discuss what Professor Chatman calls the "existents" of a story.

Since the concept of world of a work includes but is broader than the concept of .story of a narrative, we need a correspond- ing concept broader than the structuralist concept of discourse. I shall speak of the artist as projecting the world of his work. However, here I shall not at all discuss the nature of the action of world projection. My topic is rather the nature of the worlds projected.

In the first part of my discussion I shall often use concepts whose force will be clear enough in context but to which I will give a theoretical articulation later when I discuss the ontological status of works' worlds. In particular that is true for the concept of a state of affairs. I shall speak repeatedly of the worlds of works as including states of affairs. Probably everything Professor Chat- man calls an event is what I would call a state of affairs. But among states of affairs are those whose occurrences are something having a certain property, or some things standing in a certain relation. And these, I take it, Professor Chatman would not call events, since occurrences of these are not acts nor happenings.

If we are to attain clarity on the concept of the world of a work it is necessary first to have a sharp sense for the difference between a state of affairs's being included in some projected world and its being included in our actual world. We are prone to fall into confusion on this matter. And one root of such proclivity is surely the fact

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that the same sentence can be used to claim either sort of inclusion.

Take that familiar example of the phi- losophers, the sentence "Pegasus is a wingedl horse." This can be used to claim that included in the world of the Greek myth is the state of affairs consisting of whatever has the properties assigned to the character Pegasus also having the property of being a winged horse. But also it can be used to claim that that state of affairs is included in the actual world. In either case, what would be asserted is undoubtedly true. But not so for that other familiar example, "Pegasus does not and never did exist." That can be used to claim that included in the world of the Greek myth is the state of affairs of there being nothing having the properties assigned to the character Pegasus. And that is most emphatically false. In the world of the myth Pegasus exists as surely as Pegasus is a winged horse. On the other hand, the sentence can also be used to claim that that state of affairs is included in the actual world. And that claim is probably true. In the actual world there has never been such an entity as Pegasus. Or take another example of the very same point. Suppose that someone assertively utters the sentence, "A melancholy disposition is caused by an excess of bile." If he thereby claims that included in the world of Shakespeare's Hamlet is bile's excess causing a melancholy disposition, tlhen what he claims is probably true. But if his claim is that that state of affairs is included in our actual world, then what he claims is false.

We dig yet deeper into the matter if we consider sentences in which occur both the name associated with some fictitious character in some projected world and a name for some particular entity in the actual world. For example, "Gogol created the character Chichikov in the late 1830s or early 1840s." If by assertively uttering this sentence we claim that the actual world includes Gogol's creating the character Chichikov in the late 1830s or early 1840s, then in all likelihood what we say is true. But if on the contrary we claim that the world of Gogol's Dead Souls includes this, then what we say is certainly false. To

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speak truly about that world we would have to say that Chichikov is a person, not a chiaracter; and was born of woman, not created by some writer. And certainly not created by Gogol. For in the world of Dead Souls Gogol nowhere puts in an appear- ance. He is not to be found among the fictionis personae.

Or suppose that one of the incidents in Dead Souls had been Chichikov drinking vodka with Tsar Nicholas I. Then surely I would be speaking truth if, making a claim about what is included in the world of Dead Souls, I assertively uttered "Chichikov drank vodka with Tsar Nicholas." But now suppose further that I am writing a biography of Nicholas I, an exhaustive biog- graphy, if you will. Am I then to write down, "On one occasion at least Pavel Chichikov drank vodka with Tsar Nicho- las?" Certainly not. The most accurate and exhaustive account of Nicholas's appoint- ments will reveal no such encounter. What could correctly be written down would be "Tsar Nicholas was portrayed in Dead Souls as drinking vodka with someone named 'Chichikov.'" But tlhen in turn, it would not be the case that included in the world of Dead Souls was Nicholas's being portrayed in Dead Souls as drinking vodka with someone named "Chichikov."

When we move to drama the distinction between what is included in some projected world and what is included in our actual world becomes even more subtle to make out and fascinating to observe. Suppose that I have gone to see a performance of Hedda Gabler. And suppose that I remark after- wards to someone that it was staged in suchi a way as to allow us to see Hedda shoot herself. How are we to understand this? Surely in some rather straightforward sense of the words one can see Hedda shoot herself. But suppose that I go again the next night, and again am observant. Then again I will see Hedda shoot herself. How odd. Did she not kill herself with that shot I saw her fire the night before? How does she come by these marvelous resuscitative powers? How often does Hedda shoot herself? How often has she shot herself in the world's history? But I - how could I see


Hedda shoot herself? George could have seen her. And Lovberg. But I? Am I among the dramatis personae of Ibsen's play?

If we keep clear the distinction between the world of Ibsen's play and our actual world - and correspondingly the distinction between what is included in the former and what is included in the latter - then we are well on the way to unravelling this snarl. If the discussion concerns what is included in the world of the drama, then certainly it is not the case that I saw Hedda shoot herself, since in that world I don't even exist, and so can't see Hedda. And in that world Hedda shoots herself just once. What I can see is someone playing the role of Hedda. That is, included in the actual world is my seeing someone playing the role of Hedda, whereas in the world of Hedda Gabler no one plays the role of Hedda. But of course those who play the role of Hedda do not customarily shoot themselves while so doing. Speaking strictly, I did not see anyone shoot herself. What I saw was someone playing the role of someone who shoots herself. By a sort of elision we speak of, say, Maggie Smith as Hedda, and then ascribe to this dual "person" attributes belonging to the two different members of the duality.

In performances of the drama MacBird one of the actors impersonated Lyndon B. Johnson. Now suppose Lyndon B. Johnson had gone to a performance of MacBird. Would he then have been watching himself? Could he thus, for example, observe himself dying? Can one, in the theater, observe one's own funeral? Evidently not. And though this situation is more subtle than the one we have just analyzed concerning Hedda Gabler, yet the way to unravel it is the same. In the world of the drama Johnson does not observe himself from a distance. And in the actual world, too, Johnson would not have observed himself from a distance but rather wvould have observed an actor from a distance.2 But what are we to say about a character which realizes its own fictionality? A state of affairs of this sort is included in the world of Pirandello's Six Characters. But such a one couldn't possibly be included in our actual world, just as it couldn't possibly be included in our actual world that a

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person should realize his fictionality. On the other hand, a state of affairs consisting of a person's realizing his fictionality is included in the world of John Barth's "Life Story." 3

In a passage in Brecht's Messingkauf Dia- logues the following bit of dialogue occurs:

The Dramaturg: What about the fourth wall? The Philosopher: What's that? The Dramaturg: Plays are usually acted as if the

stage has four walls, not three; the fourth being where the audience is sitting. The im- pression given and maintained is that w*hat happens on the stage is a genuine incident from real life, which of course doesn't have an audience. Acting with a fourth wall, in other words, means acting as if there wasn't an audience.

The Actor: You get the idea? The audience sees quite intimate episodes without itself being seen. It's just like somebody looking through a keyhole and seeing a scene in- volving people who' e no i(lea they are not alone.4

In objection to this fourth-wall theory of drama the Philosopher, who is probably Brecht's spokesman in the dialogue, says that few people labor under the illusion which the theory suggests they do, and that it would be a mistake for anyone at all to do so. Surely the Philosopher is right in thus rejecting the illusionist theory of theater, so popular among realists earlier in our century. Yet the defect in the fourth-wall theory is deep and is not dispelled by the Philoso- pher's anti-illusionist comments. For the theory regards us as watching the dramatis personae. Thus in subtle fashion it confuses what is included in the world of the drama with what is included in our actual world. What we actually see when we go to a dramatic performance is some real life persons -the actors. What we also sometimes see is three rather flimsy walls. But what is represented is a room of four walls; and it is not the case that the room represented is something we see. Likewise what the actors represent is the various dramatis personae; and it is not the case that the dramatis personae are people we see. Of course it is possible to include in the world of a drama some people observing others by looking through a keyhole. And it is even possible in the

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actual world for us, who bought our tickets expecting to be an audience, to be placed in a situation where we are playing the role of someone looking into a room spying on someone. But to regard us as watching the dramatis personae - that is just confusion. The only exception will occur in those rare cases in which an actor impersonates himself.

It must not be concluded that the differ- entiation between what is included in the world of a dramatic performance and what is included in the actual world can always be clearly made out; nor must it be concluded that it should always be something that can be clearly made out. On the contrary: Many important and subtle dramatic effects depend on allowing actors to slip in and out of roles, on allowing it to remain ambiguous in certain passages whether actors are in or out of roles, and on thus obscuring the distinction between what is included in our actual world and what is included in some projected world. Most of the "asides" in Elizabethan drama are probably best interpreted straightforwardly as consisting of the actor slipping out of character and talking directly to the audience (either that, or as belonging to a residual play outside the play). But consider the part of the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder's Our Town. The person who plays this part begins by not playing a role, talking instead directly to the audience. His opening lines are these:

This play is called 'Our Town.' It was written by Thornton Wilder; produced andl directed by A .... (or: produced by A ....; directed by B ....). In it you will see Miss C ....; Miss D ....; Miss E ....; and Mrs. F ....; Mr. G .... ; Mr. H ....; and many others.

But then shortly and almost indiscernibly the actor has slipped into playing a role, the role of a guide to Grover's Corners. We find him saying such things as these:

The sky is beginning to show some streaks of light over in the East there, behind our mount'in.

And

We've got a factory in our town too,-hear it? Makes blankets.

WOL T ER RSTO R F F

What makes this structure especially fascinating is that when the actor playing the part of the Stage Manager slips into the role of town guide, then we the audience also slip into a role, the role of town observers. For example, when the person playing the Stage Manager says:

Here comes Howie Newsome delivering the milk,

then he is playing the role of a town guide addressing his tour members - we playing the role of the tour members. The tourists we represent are, it must be conceded, of a rather god-like sort so far as their observa- tional capacities are concerned. They are able to see and hear what goes on in the town without anyone in the town, other than the guide, being aware that they are doing so. But they are tourists nonetheless; and it is we the audience who play them.

Obviously this whole area constitutes a fascinating field for exploration - both artis- tically and theoretically. It would be interesting, for example, to consider those cases of one dramatic world nested within another which occur when there is a play within a play, and then to look for cases in which it remains ambiguous as to what is included in which of the two dramatic worlds. That fascinating Elizabethan play The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Beaumont & Fletcher) would be interesting to analyze with this in mind, as would MacLeish's J.B. and Piran- dello's Six Characters. But with these intro- ductory remarks behind us let us rather turn now to the second of our opening questions: Which states of affairs are to be reckoned as included within the world of a given work of art?

In pursuing the answer to this question I shall be looking for a general rule, a principle. The search will not be guided simply by testing one and another proposed rule against the set of those things which satisfy the ordinary concept of the story or the world of a work of art. This would leave too many unresolved cases. Rather, we shall try to formulate a rule which in addition avoids various absurdities and conforms to the strategies of interpretation followed by reputable critics. A consequence of this


procedure is that by the end of our discussion we will have refined rather than analyzed the ordinary rough concept of the story or the world of a work.

The world which an author projects by way of his text certainly includes the states of affairs which he explicitly mentions. It includes as well those which he suggests with more or less indirectness. Narrations are never wholly explicit. Good ones are far from that. Consider the concluding ptaragraph of Jorge Borges's story "The Streetcorner Man":

Nice and easy, I walked the two or three blocks back to my shack. A candle was burning in the window, then all at once went out. Let me tell you, I hurried when I saw that. Then, Borges, I put my hand inside my vest-here by the left armpit where I always carry it-and took my knife out again. I turned the blade over, real slow. It was as good as nlew, innocent-looking, and you couldn't see the slightest trace of blood on it.5

Borges explicitly mentions here such states of affairs as someone's reporting that he walked the two or three blocks back to his room, someone's reporting that he put his hand inside this vest, etc. What in context he also unmistakably suggests without ever mentioning is the speaker's having stabbed a bully named "Francisco Real."

If some state of affairs is either explicitly mentioned by the author or if he suggests it by what he says, let us say that the author has indicated that state of affairs. And let us call the activity of discovering what it is that an author has indicated, elucidation. Elucidation is often a difficult and compli- cated procedure. We have to discern the presence and force of irony, the meaning of metaphors, the suggestions borne by em- phasis, the presence of ambiguity (double entendre). And sometimes elucidation is stymied. Try as we may we cannot discern what an author mentioned in a certain passage or what he suggested.

But on anyone's practice, the world projected by way of a text almost invariably includes more than what the author indicated by way of the text - more than what he mentions or suggests. For the sake of convenience let us call the activity of deter-

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mining what is included in the projected world beyond what the author indicated, extrapolation. Often elucidation and extrapolation are both called interpretation. But it should be clear that they are de- cidedly distinct activities. Of course there is no sharp line between cases of them. Yet quite obviously the question as to whether in The Turn of the Screw Miles and Flora saw apparitions of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel is a question of extrapolation, not of elucidation.

Now suppose that among thle things some author indicates is the state of affairs of a person named "John"'s being exactly 6 feet tall. We naturally conclude that the world also includes the state of affairs of a 6 foot tall person named "John"'s not being 7 feet tall. And an obvious suggestion as to the principle tacitly at work here is that we must reckon as included within the world projected by way of some text not only what the author indicates but also whatever is required (entailed) by that which he indicates.

But this principle has some rather sur- prising and unsettling consequences. For one thing, by this principle every world of a work will include all necessary states of affairs - that is, all states of affairs which cannot fail to occur. For (to shift over to the language of propositions) a necessary truth is entailed by every proposition whatsoever. Thus by this criterion the most exotic truths of logic and mathematics are included in every work's world. If necessary we could no doubt live with such a consequence, reflecting that there is no reason why the scope of work's world should not extend vastly beyond what a critic's or an author's purposes lead him to be interested in. But another consequence of the principle cannot be viewed with such equanim- ity. Sometimes that which an author indicates is impossible of occurring. Now an impossible state of affairs requires every state of affairs whatsoever. So when an author indicates what is impossible the principle cited has as its consequence that every state of affairs whatsoever is included within the world of the work. But that makes the concept of world of the work

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trivial and useless for such cases. Extrapo- lation becomes an idle activity.

Sometimes the impossibility of what an author indicates is due to a slip on his part. For example, he may at some point have indicated something that he did not intend to indicate. Then the fair thing to do is to revise the text to accord witli his intent and extrapolate from that. So henceforth when I speak of the world projected by way of a text I shall mean the world which is or would have been projected by way of a correct copy of the text. But there are other cases in which the author at all points in- cated what he intended to indicate, but failed to notice that he had thereby contra- dicted himself. He failed to notice, say, that he had ascribed two different birth dates to his hero. In such cases it is possible to com- pose alternative minimal revisions of the text, each of which indicates a self-consistent set of states of affairs. Then without any- thing being lost we could allow the concept of the world projected by means of the text to be applied only to these text-revisions and not to the offending text itself.

But sometimes the composition of such revisions would require massive labor. And more importantly, sometimes the impossibility of what an author indicates is not at all due to a slip on his part. Pirandello's already mentioned Six Characters in Search of an Author is a superb example. For in Six Characters, six characters - not six actors but six characters - walk onto a stage beg- ging for some actors to play them. That could not happen. Yet for such cases too we want a concept of world of the work that applies, and applies without triviality. For it is clear that even for such cases we "flesh out" the world beyond what the author indicates. So for the case in which an author's having indicated something impossible is not the result of inadvertence on his part, there is no alternative but to introduce some refinement into the principle formu- lated. (Some of the prints of M. C. Escher confront us with the same issue in the realm of visual arts.)

One strategy that comes to mind at this point is to work with the concept of a "strand": Assemble what the author has

indicated into conjunctions each of which is possible of occurring and each of which is as inclusive as any such.6 Conjoin with each such conjunction whatever is required by it. Call the result a "strand." Extrapola- tion would then be based on these strands. And the world projected by way of a text could be conceived as including what the author has indicated, plus the strands derived from that.

But quite clearly this would not be satis- factory.7 For suppose that the following sentence occurred in the text of some novel: "Houdini succeeded in escaping from the box which had been submerged in the Cuyahoga. While resting on the bank and doodlling on a piece of bark witlh a pencil lying about he saw, to his amazement, that he had drawn a square circle." By the criterion offered, all the states of affairs indicated with these sentences would be included in the world of the work. By the same token, however, that state of affairs indicated with the words "He saw, to his amazement, that he had drawn a square circle" would not be found within any strand which grounds extrapolation. For of course that state of affairs is impossible of occurring. Yet do we not in fact wish to have it available for grounding extrapolation? On the basis of what is indicated with that sentence do we not wish to say, for example, that included within the world of the work is Houdini's being amazed, Houdini's drawing a mathematical figure, etc.? Evidently we must in some way unravel this impossible state of affairs itself, so as to make what is "con- tained within" it available for grounding extrapolation.

So consider some such impossible state of affairs S. In all or most cases there will be a set of states of affairs, {si... sn}, such that the conjunction of the members of the set is a state of affairs identical with S. Call any such set a conjunctive anzalysis of S. Let us now expand the strands which ground extrapolation to include, beyond those indicated states of affairs which are possible of occurring, those possible states of affairs which are members of some conjunctive analysis of those indicated states of affairs which are impossible.

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We can then say, as before, that the world of the work includes what is indicated, plus the strands derived from that.

For example, the state of affairs of Hou- dini's seeing with amazement that he had drawn a square circle, is identical with this: Houdini's having drawn a circle & Hou- dini's having drawn a square figure 6 Houdini's circle being the same as his square figure & Houdini's having been amazed b Houdini's having seen that he had drawn a circle which was a ::quare figure & Houdini's having been amazed over what he saw. Thus Houdini's having been amazed is a member of a conjunctive analysis of Houdini's having seen with amazement that he had squared the circle. Furthermore, it is a possible state of affairs. Accordingly it is included in a strand derived from what was indicated. Likewise Houdini's having drawn a circle is a member of a strand. And since this requires Houdini's having drawn a mathematical figure, both of these states of affairs are also included in a strand derived from what was indicated. (If an indicated state of affairs is impossible, then it may be that some members of a conjunctive analysis of it will also be impossible. But those will not be included in any strand derived from what was indicated.)

On anybody's practice the world projected by way of a text includes more than can be gotten by following this principle. Consider, for example, this sentence from near the beginning of the Guerney transla- tion of Gogol's Dead Souls: "While the server was still spelling out the note, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov himself set out to look the town over. ... " Neither here nor else- where does Gogol indicate the state of affairs of the servant of a man named "Chichikov" 's being able to see well enough to read. Nor is this state of affairs required by what he indicates; for it is logically possible to spell out a note by extrasensory perception. Yet we can surely conclude from what Gogol indicates that this state of affairs is included in the world of Dead Souls.

How do we arrive at the conclusion that the servant of a man named "Chichikov" 's

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being able to see well enough to read is included in the world projected by way of the text of Dead Souls? Evidently we do so by tacitly appealing to some such (contingent) subjunctive conditional as this: If some strand derived in the way suggested from what is indicated by Gogol would occur, then the servant of a man named "Chichikov" 's being able to see well enough to read would occur. But which (contingent) subjunctive conditionals are we entitled to appeal to, so as to ground our extrapolation? Are we entitled to appeal to any true ones whatsoever which have this same antecedent, concluding that their consequents are included in the world projected by way of the text of the work? And is the world projected by way of a text to be understood as including what the author indicates by way of that text, plus the impossible members of every conjunctive analysis of what he indicates, plus the strands derived in the way suggested from what he indicates, along with whatever else would occur if some strand occurred?

To help us decide whether this general principle of world-inclusion - call it the a-principle - is acceptable let us try to findl a controversial application of it. Suppose it is true that if two men were to exhibit a relationship to each other of the sort delineated by Mark Twain for the characters Huckleberry Finn and Nigger Jim, then there would be a homosexual relationship between them. Are we then to conclude with Leslie Fiedler8 that the characters Huck and Jim had a homosexual relationship - i.e., that two men named "Huck" and "Jim" having a homosexual relationship is included in the world projected by way of the text of Huckleberry Finn

A somewhat similar question concerning Shakespeare's Hamlet has an unproble- matic answer. Those who believe in the substantial truth of Freudian psychological theory have argued that if someone behaved as does Hamlet in Hamlet, that behavior would be due to his having an Oedipus complex. Now Shakespeare himself probably had a theory as to the cause of Ham- let's sort of behavior; namely, that it was due to an excess of bile. At various points

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in his works he suggests that the humors theory current in his day applies to the characters in his works, and most likely this is what the humors theory would say about a Hamlet-like melancholy. To avoid complicating the example let us suppose that in the text of this very play Hamlet Shakespeare clearly suggests that the humors theory holds for the characters in this drama. Now the humors theory is incom- patible with the Freudian theory. And since on our supposition Shakespeare indicates the humors theory with his text, that rules out the use of those conflicting parts of Freudian theory in determining what is included in the world of the Hamlet text. In particular, a person named "Hamlet"'s having an Oedipus complex would not be included in that world, at least if the only ground for thinking it would be is the (supposed) truth of the subjunctive conditional that if someone behaved as does Hamlet in Hamlet his behavior would be due to an Oedipus complex. For even if this subjunctive conditional were true, it would still not be the case that if an entire strand, derived in the way suggested from what is indicated by Shakespeare with the Hamlet text, would occur, then there would be a person named "Hamlet" whose behavior was due to an Oedipus complex. In conducting our extrapolations we must consider complete strands derived from what is indicated, not just some fragments thereof. And that means that if the entirety of what is indicated is possible, then that single strand derived from the entirety of what is indicated is what grounds our extrapolation.

But this point does not help us to deal with the homosexual extrapolation from what is indicated with the text of Huckle- berry Finn. We have learned that we must not ask, "If two men exhibited a relationship of the sort delineated for the characters Huck and Jim, would there then be a homosexual relationship between them?" Rather (assuming that the entirety of what Twain indicates is possible), we must ask, "If the whole of what Twain indicated occurred, would there then be a homosexual relationship between two men named

WOLTERSTO R F F

'Huck' and 'Jim'?" But so far as I know, the answer to this latter question is the same as that to the former. Twain, so far as I can tell, indicates no explanatory theory conflicting with the homosexual theory.

So there is no way of avoiding the issue: Are Huck and Jim to be acknowledged as having a homosexual relationship in the world of Huckleberry Finn, on the ground that if what Twain indicates occurred, the state of affairs of two men named "Huck" and "Jim" having a homosexual relationship would occur? I am sure that many critics would resist drawing this conclusion, and that they would resist drawing it even if they acknowledged that the ground cited was true. By thus resisting they would indicate that they were working with a different principle of world inclusion from the a-principle. What might that different principle be?

Think of this question along the following lines. For any strand Q derived in the way suggested from what is indicated with some text T, there will be an associated set of contingent subjunctive conditionals each of the form: If strand Q2 occurred, then state of affairs S would occur. Let us call that, the conditional set associated with the strand Q. Earlier we more or less took for granted that a certain subset of the conditional set associated with strand Q is such that the consequents of the members of that subset are included in the world projected by way of T. Our question then was: Which subset? An answer which sprang naturally to mind was this: The subset consisting of all those members of the conditional set associated with Q which are true. But applying this principle to the Huckleberry Finn situation brought out that the principle has consequences not acceptable to all critics. The question as to why they are not acceptable was not raised. But probably most critics who dis- like the a-principle do so because on this principle any new discovery, no matter how unexpected or astonishing or shocking to the author, can be used to ground extrapolation - any psychological discovery, any historical discovery, any geographical dis-


covery. The author, once having put some words down, is henceforth irrelevant to his work. At any rate, we are left looking for that subset of a strand's associated conditional set on which those who do not accept the a-principle might Lase their extrapolation.

When an author composes a narrative with the intent of making it available to others he writes with a certain audience in mind. Much of what he says and how he says it is conditioned by what he assumes to be true of that audience. In particular, much of it is conditioned by what he assumes the bulk of that audience to believe. What he assumes they believe constitutes the context within which he does his writing. Specifically it constitutes the basis of the extrapolation which he expects them to perform. Gogol, for example, writes in the expectation that the world he projects by way of the text of Dead Souls will be fleshed out by means of the beliefs that he assumes to be au courant in his intended audience, beliefs as to what would occur if that which he indicates occurred.

Many of us, I suggest, do our extrapolat- ing along the lines of what we take to be those expectations of authors. To flesh out the world of a text beyond what an author indicates with the text we appeal to what we think the author assumes the bulk of his intended audience believes would occur if a strand derived in the way suggested from what he indicates occurred. Sometimes, of course, we have virtually no thoughts of the requisite sort. Particularly is that the case for fantasy. If the states of affairs indicated by Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland occurred, what others would occur? Prob- ably Carroll assumed virtually no beliefs on that matter whatsoever. For such works little extrapolation is possible. But to return to our earlier example: Quite likely Twain did not assume the belief to be au courant in his intended audience that if what he indicated occurred, then two men named "Huck" and "Jim" having a homosexual relationship would occur. Con- sequently by the principle cited this latter state of affairs, the consequent of the conditional, is not included in the world pro-

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jected by way of the text of Huckleberry Finn.

From within the conditional set associated with some strand we were looking for that subset which might be used for grounding extrapolation by those among us who reject the a-principle. I suggest that often that subset consists of those conditionals which are assumed by tlhe author of the work to be believed by the bulk of his intended audience. And here then is a principle of world-inclusion alternative to the a-principle - call it the /-principle: Thle world projected by way of some text T includes what the author indicates by way of T, plus the impossible members of every conjunctive analysis of what he indicates, plus the strands derived in the way suggested from what he indicates, plus what he assumes the bulk of his intended audience believes would occur if some strand derived from what he indicates occurred.9

I suggested a reason that some critics might offer for rejecting the ca-principle and preferring the /3-principle, or something like it. I think that many of those whose response is the opposite would object to the p-principle on the ground that an author's assumptions and beliefs are irrelevant to what is included within his work's world, and to our activity of extrapolation. Once he has inscribed the words of his text his work is out of his hands, and he must live with the consequences of his inscriptions whether he likes them or not. If I am correct in suggesting these as the reasons for the conflicting handling of the Huckleberry Finn case, then of course similar conflicts would arise on very many other cases as well. And then in raising the question as to what is to be reckoned as included in a work's world we are touching on funda- mental questions, highly controversial in the twentieth century, concerning the relation of an author to his work and concerning the relation of an author to the public's interpretation of his work. The resolution of those issues would require a vastly more wide-ranging investigation than we can here launch. So we shall have to drop our inquiry into the principle of world-inclusion at the point of having uncovered two con-

W OLTERST OR F F

flicting principles, each with its devotees. No doubt a modicum of industry would uncover other such principles as well.10

It is time to advance to a consideration of the ontological status of worlds of works of art. A guiding consideration will be that one cannot project, single out, refer to, mention, what does not have being. I begin with what I have been calling states of affairs - entities such as Napoleon's invading Russia and Rockefeller's being Vice- President. With respect to such entities it is crucial to distinguish between existing and occurring (or obtaining, if one pre- fers). I hold that there are no states of affairs that don't exist. Indeed, I hold that there are no entities of any sort whatsoever that don't exist. All that is, all that is real, exists. But though there exists such a state of affairs as Napoleon's invading Russia, that state of affairs is not now occurring - though indeed it once did occur. On the other hand, Rockefeller's being Vice- President both exists and is occurring. There exist other states of affairs which do not at any time occur, such as Napoleon's invading Ethiopia and Rockefeller's being a life-long Democrat. And of these, some could not at any time occur. For example, my being married to someone who has no spouse.

It will be convenient to have some termi- nology for these distinctions among states of affairs. Let us call a state of affairs which can at some time occur, a possible state of affairs. And let us call one which cannot at any time occur, an impossible state of affairs. It is important to be clear on the fact that a possible state of affairs is not one which could exist. It is one which, existing, could occur. And an impossible state of affairs is not one which could not exist. It is one which, existing, could not occur. Further, it makes no difference to some state of affairs' being possible whether it does or does not occur. All that matters is whether it can occur or could have occurred.

My suggestion now is that the world projected by way of an artifact of art not only includes certain states of affairs but is itself a state of affairs. By way of his artifact that artist projects a possible or impossible state

of affairs. That is the reality with which he deals. But it need not be actuality. The state of affairs which he projects may never occur. It may in fact be impossible of occurring.

But which state of affairs is the one that is to be identified with the world projected with some artifact of art? One wants to say: "Whichever one includes all and only those states of affairs which are to be reckoned as included within the world of the work." Yes indeed. But what are we to understand by this locution that we have been using so freely, "included within"? And then too we must not so soon forget that we were left with two conflicting principles of world-inclusion.

Let us try to arrive at our destination by setting out first toward a more precise articulation of the concept of strands than that offered thus far. I begin with a definition of "requires": A state of affairs S requires a state of affairs S' just in case it is impossible that S occur at some time and 5' not occur at some time or other. For example, my (presently) blotting out a line I wrote requires my having written a line. Since we shall need it shortly let us also have a definition of "prohibits"; A state of affairs S prohibits a state of affairs S' just in case it is impossible that S occur at a certain time and 5' also occur at some time.

Next let us pick out from the possible states of affairs projected by some author A with some artifact T, those which are as inclusive as any thus projected. A state of affairs S projected by A with T is as inclusive as any thus projected iff:

(i) S is a conjunction of states of affairs each of which is a possible state of affairs indicated by A with T, or a possible state of affairs which is a member of a conjunctive analysis of what is indicated, or a state of affairs required by any of these; and

(ii) S is possible; and (iii) Every state of affairs S' which is in-

dicated, or is a member of a conjunctive analysis of what is indicated, by A with T, and which is not required by S, is such that (S & S') is impossible.

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In order now to define "strand" we must differentiate between a concept of strand relevant to the a-principle and one relevant to the /-principle. What we may call an a-strand of what is projected by A with some artifact T is a conjunction of:

(i) A possible state of affairs which is as inclusive as any projected by A with T, and of

(ii) Whatever contingent states of affairs would occur if that one occurred, and of

(iii) Whatever is required by the conjunction of these.

Similarly, a f-strand of what is projected by A with some artifact T is a conjunction of:

(i) A possible state of affairs which is as inclusive as any projecte:l l)y A with T, and of

(ii) Whatever contingent states of affairs A assumes the bulk of his intended audience believes would occur if that one occurred,11 and of

(iii) Whatever is required by the conjunction of these.

Then the a-world projected by author A with artifact 7' is the conjunction of what A indicates with T, and of the impossible members of the conjunctive analyses of what he indicates, and of all the a-strandls of what he projects with T. Likewise, the /3-world projected by A with T is the conjunction of what A indicates with T, and of the impossible members of the conjunctive analyses of what he indicates, and of all the /3-strands of what he projects with 7'T.

Finally, a state of affairs S is included within the a-world projected by A with T if and only if S is indicated by A with T, or is a member of a conjunctive analysis of what is indicated, or is required by one of the a-strands of what A projected with T. And so, similarly, for the definition of "S is included within the /3-world projected by A with T."

Throughout my discussion up to this point I have spoken of the world of a work of art. It is now clear that, strictly speaking, there is no such entity as the world of a work of art (at least if we confine the phrase "world of a work" to the concept of an a-world or a P-world). Rather, if a

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work has any world it will normally have both an a-world and a P-world. I slhall respect this point in the small bit that remains of my discussion by speaking henceforth of the worlds of a work of art.

The worlds of a work of art may be aesthetically complete, finished, rounded off, with a genuine beginning and genuine ending. Yet ontologically each strand thereof which is possible, and so an entire world when as a whole it constitutes a possible strand, is inevitably incomplete. To see in what sense this is true let us first have before us the concept of a maximally comprehensive state of affairs: A state of affairs S is maximally comprehensive just in case, for every state of affairs S', S either requires or prohibits S'. Then any state of affairs which is not maximally comprehensive may be said to be incomplete.

The possible worlds of our contemporary neo-Leibnizians may be thought of as possible states of affairs which are maximally comprehensive. The actual world is one among those possible worlds - that one which obtains. And for a state of affairs to be included within a possible world is for it to be required by that world. But no strand of any work's worlds is ever a possible world. No matter how voluminous is a strand of a work's world, if it is possible it will never prohibit or require every state of affairs. Those states of affairs which are the worlds of War and Peace are vast indeed. Yet they do not, for example, either prohibit or require Gerald Ford's being elected president in 1976. Every possible strand, rather than itself being a possible world, is instead required by indefinitely many possible worlds. In that sense all are segments of possible worlds.12

The incompleteness of a work's worlds accounts for some phenomena which are at first sight paradoxical. Consider, for example, that old chestnut of the critics: How many children had Lady Macbeth? In Act I Lady Macbeth says:

I have given suck, and How tender t'is to love the babe that milks

me ... (I,vii,54f.)

On the basis of this evidence surely both the a-principle and the P-principle yield

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the conclusion that Lady Macbeth had at least one child. So, included within the worlds of Macbeth, and thus required by them, is the state of affairs of someone named "Lady Macbeth" having given birth to at least one child. But those worlds (assuming they are possible) do not require the state of affairs consisting of someone named "Lady Macbeth" having given birth to exactly one child, since there is no evidence at all from which we can infer on either principle of inclusion that Lady MIac- beth had just one child. But neither do they require the state of affairs consisting of someone named "Lady Macbeth" having given birth to exactly two children, for the same reason. And so forth, for all other numbers. Yet, to say it once again, they do require, because they include, the state of affairs of someone named "Lady Mac- beth" having given birth to a child.

Possible worlds, being maximally comprehensive, are different. There is no possible world which requires someone named "Lady Macbeth" having given birth to a child which does not also require someone named "Lady Macbeth" having given birth to exactly n children, for some number, n.

So we shall never know how many children had Lady Macbeth in the worlds of Macbeth. That is not because to know this would require a knowledge beyond the capacity of human beings. It is because there is nothing of the sort to know. Like- wise, as Keats himself saw, there are not and never will be any answers to the questions he put to the worlds projected by way of a Grecian urn:

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

Leads't thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

Is emptied to this folk, this pious morn? And little town, thy streets for evermore

Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

1 New Literary History (Winter, 1975), pp. 295-318.

2 A slightly different situation would be that which would obtain if Brecht had seen Gunther

WOLTER STOR F F

Grass's The Plebians Stage an Uprising. Grass insisted that the actor playing the playwright would not be impersonating Brecht. Maybe so. But there can hardly be any doubt that Brecht was Grass's model for the playwright-character in his play.

3In John Barth, Lost in the Funhouse (New York, 1969). The example was pointed out to me by Kendall Walton.

4Brecht, The Messingkauf Dialogues, tr. by J. Willett (London, 1965), p. 51.

5J. Borges, The Aleph, tr. by N. T. di Giovanni (New York, 1971).

6 For a definition of "as inclusive as any," see p. 22.

7The point that follows was first made to me by Robert Howell.

8"Come Back to the Raft Ag'in, Huck, Honey!" in Fiedler, An End to Innocence (Boston, 1966).

9It may sometimes be that this itself as a whole is an impossible state of affairs. If so, then a strand-analysis should be performed on it. I shall not go into the details, since they would follow exactly the strategy proposed for dealing with those cases in which what is indicated is impossible. A few of the formulations that follow, to be fully accurate, would have to be slightly revised to take care of this short of case.

10 For example, one might allow the aesthetic excellence of the resultant worlds to enter into the decision as to whether some state of affairs is or is not to be reckoned as included within the world of a text. Cf. Charles Stevenson, "Interpreta- tion and Evaluation in Aesthetics," reprinted in M. Weitz, Problems in Aesthetics (New York, 1970). And then too, as a variant on the /3-principle one might suggest that the relevant matter is not what an author assumes his intended audience to believe, but rather what his intended audience would naturally take him to believe. (This particular possibility was pointed out to me by Kendall Walton.) Other variants are that the relevant consideration is what the author did believe, or alternatively, what he would believe today.

"For this, and (iii) immediately following, sec footnote 9.

12 Perhaps there is an exception. Suppose that all the states of affairs indicated by way of some text are included in the actual world. And suppose that the analysis that David Lewis provides of counterfactuals is correct, and that the analysis also applies to those subjunctive conditionals whose antecedents are true. Then the world of the work will be the actual world. And that of course is complete. See David Lewis, Counterfac- tuals (Cambridge, Mass., 1973), pp. 26-31. (I was reminded of this feature of Lewis's analysis by Alvin Plantinga and Kendall Walton.)

Helpful suggestions and illuminating examples for this paper have been received from many sources, but especially from my colleagues in the philosophy department at Calvin College, and from Kendall Walton. Research for it was ori- ginally begun during a year of support by an NEH Fellowship.

worlds of works of art

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