What is literature and why do we enjoy it? The Welshman Arthur Machen provided perhaps one of the most controversial definitions of “literature.” He claimed that “literature is the expression, through the aesthetic medium of words, of the dogmas of the Catholic Church, and that which is in any way out of harmony with these dogmas is not literature.”
That’s quite a claim. To say that all the great stories, plays, novels, sonnets, in short, all the prose and poetry that has survived, at least all which is worthy of the title “literature,” is nothing more than an exposition of the articles of the Creed. What about work written by non-Catholics? Did they endeavor in their creative work to merely promote the claims of the Catholic Church? No, only the most ardent of triumphalists could accept such a definition.
Well, let’s look at it a little more closely.
Machen nowhere claims that literature is nothing more than beautifully written apologetics or propaganda. No, what he is claiming is that because the Church teaches the truth about man, any fictional depiction of man that accurately describes him in all his glory and misery, as great literature should, consciously or unconsciously is an expression of the Catholic worldview. (Of course, that is merely one criterion. It should be a work of art in terms of its use of language as well.)
Joseph Conrad was perhaps one of the most magnificent writers of all time. His novels and stories hold well-established positions in the modern western canon. His artistry, especially his use of metaphor, dazzles, even overwhelms the reader. His literary achievement is all the more remarkable when one considers that he was writing in his third language, English, which he didn’t learn until he was a young man.
Undoubtedly, Conrad is a master…and, yet, nary a priest, nor a sacrament, nor a whiff of incense is to be found in his body of work. Personally, the Catholicism of his youth did not survive his passage into adulthood. Still, his writing is suffused with Catholic doctrine.
In his celebrated novel, Lord Jim, a young man of promise fails miserably in his duty and finds himself in the same lifeboat, both literally and figuratively, as the ship’s captain and three other scoundrels after they abandon the ship, passengers, and crew for which they had responsibility.
This depiction of Jim, a “golden boy” if ever there was one, sitting alongside four reprehensible characters is instructive and humbling. We are all subject to temptation and, if we are not vigilant, we, too, can fall. Concupiscence, that propensity to sin and moral weakness, spares no one, the Holy Mother excluded. Did not Peter deny Christ, with whom he had walked and broken bread? Did not David send the husband of Bathsheba to the front lines to be killed so he could indulge his lust? We’re all in the same boat, all fallen creatures who must constantly strive to remain in the state of grace; Conrad is just able to depict that Catholic truth in a way that rises to true art.
The novel is narrated by a man Marlow, who encounters Jim or news of him here and there throughout the Islands. Jim’s conversation with him begins with a note of self-defensive justification. He seems desperate to imply, accusingly mind you, “What would you have done…?” Marlow offers little in return and gradually Jim, in his retelling of the story, eventually comes round to that moment when he fell from grace. “I had jumped…it seems.”
Perhaps we can understand or forgive Jim his qualifying “It seems.” It’s a bitter pill to swallow…that knowledge that we are as bad as we are.
Jim’s discussions with Marlow and his continual flight from his sin highlight the very human need for absolution through the physical act of telling another of one’s transgressions and accepting responsibility for them. It’s a simple matter of acknowledging that “I did what I should not have done, and I failed to do what I should have done.” Alcoholics Anonymous knows as much. Is not one of the most decisive of the 12 Steps something akin to confession? Our society has no less a need for the sacrament of penance; we just don’t go. We either substitute the therapist’s couch or the self-help group for God’s mercy or we justify ourselves using the famous lie, “I’m okay; you’re okay.”
But Jim wasn’t okay, and neither are we. As Conrad noted, “there was some infernal alloy in his metal.” The author may have faltered in the practice of his Faith, but in his zeal as an artist to “tell the truth,” he, consciously or not, assented to numerous of its core doctrines. Rarely has original sin been described so well in imaginative literature.
The latter part of the novel deals with Jim’s drive to redeem himself, to establish his status as a brave, honorable, man to be admired. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but there is something Pelagian about the manner in which he does so. He expends enormous energy, both physical and mental, though seems to rely little on God’s help. Ultimately…well, read the book. It’s a great work of literature, and you know what that means.
(John Moorehouse is the publisher and editor of Catholic Men’s Quarterly, a 32-page print magazine featuring humor, apologetics, travel, military history, sports and more. For subscription information, visit here.)
