Re: "telling the truth" texts
Posted by:
RJAllen (193.114.111.---)
Date: January 22, 2022 04:34AM
A truth told with a bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
The Persian Version by Robert Graves is an excellent poetic example. Pooh Bah's account of the execution of Koko in The Mikado. Falstaff's adventures in war and with Prince Hal and friends. Take a look at Browning's dramatic monologues- you're supposed to assess the narrator's truthfulness there [add Frost and Robinson's monologues too, too].
Unreliable narrators are common in novels: Lolita, for one. Ford Madox Ford's The good Soldier. Compare what the narrators say happened with what probably happened.
George Orwell in many essays [esp Politics and the english Language] looks at lies told for political reasons and Paul Fussell, especially in the Great War and Modern Memory and his essays compare what happens and what people remember or want to remember happening.