Can literature tell the truth better than other Arts?

Answer 1

No ... any art is interpreted by the person controlling it ... therefore any individuals point of view may see it as something other than the truth

Answer 2

No literary work can tell any truth objectively because every one of them are from a perspective of only one person or a few ones... But, I think literature, as the most developed art, has the power to tell the truth better than the other arts. It is all about communication
everyone who look at a picture,
photograph,
who listen a song,
who watch a movie,
and who read an article,
may understand different things... but if we collect the majorities, the most people who understand the same thing, get the same idea, in literature(reading an article), there should be a great majority because words have more precise meaning than brush strokes, melodies, photographs...
So, yes literature can tell truth better than other arts?
...However, I think, cinema is very close to literature, just my idea...

Answer 3

The essential problem is truth. What is that? You expect the truth of the world. But in literature a text has its own semi-world. The values and laws shapes under the roles of this semi-world. Even in the realistic literature, the world is the world of text. As a reader you receive the message and make your own interpretation based on what you perceived from your environment and according to your previous experience with other texts, that is intertextual relationship. So truth, even in the holy texts is not a reference idea, in all the situations the interpretation is your result. This is more tangible in other arts, because they make symbols out of language.

Answer 4

Yes, it can.
Great books are responsible for some major sea changes in world history. No other art form can claim that.
For example: Turgenov's "Notes from a Hunter's Album" is widely accepted as being the catalyst for the Russian Revolution in 1917.
Zola's "L'Accuse" brought down the French government of the day.
Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" shocked French society and was banned. So was D.H Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover."
Unfortunately, these days, so few writers are willing to speak out, for fear of upsetting their readers or causing any kind of controversy to their publishers.
Which is a sad reflection on today's dumbed-down society.

Answer 5

To quote Mr. Scott, the newspaperman from "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance":

"When legend becomes truth, print the legend."

Truth is what you WANT to believe --partially, anyway.

Example:
When Davy Crockett died at the Alamo, we like to think that he died in what we perceive as a hero would --in a blaze of glory. Chances are, he died like any soldier --no less bravely or heroically, but with a bullet fired by any soldier in the other army. But we're going to prefer to think that it was the "blaze of glory", because he was a HERO, and that's how heroes are "suppose" to die.

We seem to prefer legend to truth. Why, is a personal opinion.

Personally, I believe it's because the legends are more fun.

Answer 6

You can read different meanings into literature whereas theatre is presented exactly how the director wants it to be perceived - so I think theatre is better in that respect.

Answer 7

Try looking at Guernica by Picasso.

Answer 8

Oh yes. It has all the tools to conveyevery minute detail of an idea.

Answer 9

Yes, because the "canvas" is so much larger.