He stands there for quite some time looking at the trio, knowing that only one of those is his flight.Ĭhances are, you don’t even notice any kind of poetic licence here, am I right?Īnd yet, there is one detail that is counterfactual: There is no direct flight connecting Helsinki to Islamabad, and as a result it wouldn’t have been displayed on a monitor. A beam of meaningful, satisfying astonishment explodes on his beardless face. He notices that the flights to Athens, Munich, and Islamabad are all listed one after another. He reaches the airport and goes to the monitors to check the information regarding his flight. The protagonist is about to depart from Helsinki for a destination the reader does not know – an element consistent with the ambiguity describing the ending. This excerpt is near the end of the book. It’s from my book The Other Side of Dreams, so it’s also a recommended case! We’ll see later why. An Example of Poetic Licenceīefore we talk more about different ways of using poetic licence (and which ones I recommend), let’s see a short, easy example. Essentially, the author chooses to focus on affect instead of hard reality, in order to express a particular meaning or emotive reaction. Using poetic licence, in its widest definition, is related to this. when you write beautiful things and you don’t care if they make sense. If you recall my post on negative capability, the one-line definition I gave was this: The use of poetic licence allows the artist to present a “reality” that might not be strictly speaking factual, yet possesses enhanced affective power Poetic Licence and Negative Capability The facts of the photo (I assume and hope!) are that the shark is superimposed on the image and the woman was only in a narrow water tank, alone. In this post we’ll take a look at all these elements – what poetic licence refers to in more detail, ways of using poetic licence, and of course which (and why) are the ways I consider optimal. In other words, there are ways to use poetic licence properly (enhancing the affective power of your novel), but also improperly (muddling the waters and creating confusion). There is a wide area covered by this definition and so, inevitably, some uses are proper whereas other improper. At such a time, there is no place for “art” that arrogantly claims the right to ignore the truth.Poetic license (or artistic licence) refers to ignoring factual truth for creative purposes. Falsifying events inflames emotions, reinforces hostilities and fuels grievances. Were Trump to be elected next year, it would be in large part because of the falsities of Fox News, and the lies that spread on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. These are sick times for anyone wanting to keep the truth at the heart of public debate. A film that portrays and dramatises historical events should be no different. No journalist is proud of being wrong, or boasts “artistic licence”. If errors are made, efforts must be made to correct them. Both are reporters on the past and present, and expected to search for the truth. Much can be learned from journalists, who are like historians in that both occupations require a commitment to accuracy. I imagine even the royal family can survive these distortions. Distant history – as of Richard III, whose sins were reassessed once more in last Saturday’s Channel 4 documentary The Princes in the Tower: the New Evidence – can look after itself. When art is so short of inspiration that it has to steal from history, it should at least respect history’s sole essence, which is truth.
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