On Moral Fiction by John Gardner
**Overview of "On Moral Fiction" by John Gardner**
"On Moral Fiction" is a thought-provoking work by novelist John Gardner that critiques the state of contemporary art and literature, particularly focusing on the moral dimensions of creative expression. The book is divided into two key sections: "Premises on Art and Morality" and "Principles of Art and Criticism." Gardner argues that true art is inherently moral, serious, and beneficial, serving as a vital means of preserving human essence against existential threats. His vision of art encompasses the roles of instruction and discovery, positing that art should inspire virtue and provide a philosophical framework for both creators and audiences.
Gardner emphasizes that artistic works should present clear moral lessons without being didactic, advocating for a vision of art that encourages goodness through choice rather than imposition. This perspective resonates with broader cultural debates during the late 1970s, as Gardner's work provoked varied responses within the literary community, from praise by traditionalists to criticism from those aligned with modern experimental fiction. The impact of "On Moral Fiction" is notable, as it sparked significant discourse regarding the moral responsibilities of artists and the cultural direction of literature, influencing the landscape of American fiction in the following decade.
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Subject Terms
On Moral Fiction by John Gardner
First published: 1978
Type of work: Literary criticism
Form and Content
On Moral Fiction constitutes novelist John Gardner’s “analysis of what has gone wrong in recent years with the various arts . . . and . . . with criticism” and his accompanying “set of instructions” on how to get artists and critics back on track. His text comprises two complementary parts: “Premises on Art and Morality” and “Principles of Art and Criticism.” Of the two parts, the first is by far the more interesting and provocative. The second, probably originally intended as a practical guide for the would-be writer of moral fiction, offers material that Gardner handles more completely and satisfactorily in two posthumously published works, On Becoming a Novelist (1983) and The Art of Fiction (1984).
Necessary to an understanding of this book and, some would claim, all Gardner’s works, both critical and imaginative, is his definition of and belief in “true art,” which Gardner contends is essentially moral (that is, by its very nature) as well as “essentially serious and beneficial.” It is a “game” but one “played against chaos and death,” serving as “a tragi-comic holding action against entropy” and, more positively, as “a conduit between body and soul.” Such an essentialist and therefore conservative definition of art implies the kind of stasis that would necessarily call all distinctly contemporary art into question (as redundant at best and diminished at worst). Such, however, is not Gardner’s position, for part of the function of art is to preserve what is essentially human by rediscovering this antiexistential essence in each succeeding generation.
In addition to its function of preserving the essentially human against all the existential and entropic odds, art serves two other important purposes: to instruct and to discover. Art, Gardner contends, must have “a clear moral effect, presenting valid models for imitation, eternal verities worth keeping in mind, and a benevolent vision of the possible which can inspire and incite human beings toward virtue, toward life affirmation as opposed to destruction or indifference.” The instruction must, however, be neither authoritarian nor didactic. Like Leo Tolstoy, Gardner believes that “the highest purpose of art is to make people good by choice.” Thus the discovery function of true art (that is, moral fiction) Gardner defines as nothing less than “a way of thinking, a philosophical method,” one which enables the writer and the reader to test ideas, values, and assumptions, not merely to represent (or re-present) them mimetically.
True art therefore involves a process of discovery for writer and reader that Gardner carefully distinguishes from the rational: “Fiction . . . deals in understanding, not knowledge.” The writer comes to understand what is true intuitively rather than to know it rationally, and he comes to this understanding in the very process of composing his novel (a process that is for Gardner largely one of rewriting). The reader comes to the same understanding by a similar but by no means identical path—not by reading the writer’s successive drafts but instead by entering that “vivid and continuous dream” that the novel has become, a dream which builds toward a Joycean epiphany that clarifies without ever quite explaining the moral truth that is its reason for being. It is this very nearly mystical belief in the power of true art to clarify and redeem human existence that Gardner rather quixotically uses to overcome, or at least hold momentarily at bay, those forces that have engendered the flowering of postmodernism in the latter half of the twentieth century: Freudian determinism, Sartrian nihilism, and the positivism practiced by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s followers.
Critical Context
In 1978, the critical response to On Moral Fiction was deeply divided. Having just suffered through a decade or so of widely praised literary innovations, beleaguered devotees of the “traditional novel” embraced Gardner as the champion of their own conservative tastes (an odd fact, given Gardner’s own reputation as one of the innovators, especially as the author of the widely popular novel Grendel, 1971). Others reacted in just the opposite fashion, judging On Moral Fiction nothing more than (in John Barth’s words) “a shrill pitch to the literary right.” Surely, the title Gardner chose played right into his opponents’ hands; during the late 1970’s Jerry Falwell’s religiously Fundamentalist and politically archconservative Moral Majority was making headlines in the United States. Conceived in 1965, On Moral Fiction deserves to be read in the context of both the rise of innovative postmodern fiction in the 1960’s and 1970’s and the reaction that began to manifest itself in the late 1970’s not only in religion and politics but also in academic circles. Numerous other works reflected the reactionary trend: for example, The Culture of Narcissism (1978), Christopher Lasch’s exhaustive critique of “American life in an age of diminishing expectations,” and Literature Against Itself: Literary Ideas in Modern Society (1979), Gerald Graff’s conservative but cogently argued study of the ways in which contemporary American writers have failed to establish their own moral authority and aesthetic integrity.
Perhaps the clearest indication of the importance of On Moral Fiction is that the literary world felt compelled to respond to it. On Moral Fiction could be denigrated but not dismissed, and certainly not overlooked. Indeed, for a time it was difficult to escape it. The New York Times Book Review ran a front-page collection of reactions to it, The New Republic featured a Gardner-Gass debate, Fiction International devoted an entire issue to the topic, and a collection of interviews with prominent American and British novelists focused on the questions it raised. It would not be an exaggeration to say that On Moral Fiction and the debate it spawned changed the face of American fiction in the 1980’s, a decade of little innovation and much neorealism. (Whether that was the kind of change Gardner had in mind is another matter.) It was also responsible for a strong and almost entirely undeserved reaction against Gardner’s own fiction—the reviewing of his subsequent work and the reassessment of his earlier work in terms of his theory of moral fiction.
Bibliography
Butts, Leonard. The Novels of John Gardner, 1988.
Cowart, David. Arches and Light: The Fiction of John Gardner, 1983.
Henderson, Jeff, ed. Thor’s Hammer: Essays on John Gardner, 1985.
Howell, John. John Gardner: A Bibliographical Profile, 1980.
Morace, Robert A. John Gardner: An Annotated Secondary Bibliography, 1984.
Morace, Robert A., and Kathryn VanSpanckeren, eds. John Gardner: Critical Perspectives, 1982.
Morris, Gregory L. A World of Order and Light: The Fiction of John Gardner, 1983.