Before I begin, I should say that I’m good friends with both John and Brittany—the most satisfying theatrical accomplishment of my life was a direct result of their musical and directorial abilities—so I will refer to both of them by their first names. Also, at the risk of alienating devotees of the dramatic arts, I will spell “theater” the way God and George Washington intended.
Whenever I write about art, I find myself quoting C. S. Lewis’s essay “Learning in War-Time,” in which he argues that education is as important during a war as it is at any other time. People, being people, will think and debate and entertain one another no matter the circumstances. There is no activity so engrossing, whether worship or battle, that it crowds every other human interest—not for long, anyway.
You are not, in fact, going to read nothing, either in the Church or in the line: if you don’t read good books, you will read bad ones. If you don’t go on thinking rationally, you will think irrationally. If you reject aesthetic satisfactions, you will fall into sensual satisfactions.[1]
Lewis is talking about education, of course, but he applies his logic to art, and thereby sheds a little light on the conversation Brittany has begun. Why do we discuss questions like, “What is the highest form of narrative art?” Because art is one of those things we can’t do without. It will be with us whether or not we think critically about it, which means we must think critically. People will inevitably create and receive art, and if we don’t learn to do it well, we will do it badly.
Lewis’s essay also touches on an important aspect of all art, namely, that it is a human activity. It is created by people for people. When artists pretend people don’t matter—or worse, don’t exist—they inevitably self-destruct. The highest form of art, therefore, must be the art that treats human beings most like themselves.
Brittany gives first place to musical theater, and she makes a strong case. Theater is one of the most personal arts. It is immediate. It is engaging. As Brittany describes, audience and actors really perform the show together. The more spirited the one, the more quickened the other. A tough crowd can squash a show, while a house full of energetic participants lifts the company to new heights, sometimes even changing the way the show is performed. To give one example from Hamilton, during the initial performances, the audience responded so enthusiastically to the line “Immigrants, we get the job done” that Lin-Manuel Miranda and co. added extra bars of music to give the applause time to die down. The interaction between artist and audience is more lively in musical theater than in other art forms, which means it has a greater chance of engaging the passions. It’s true, as John points out, that this can be done for good or ill, but if the musical is guiding us toward the true, good, and beautiful, it will engage the passions to good effect.
As I said, Brittany makes a strong case. But I think I can do her one better: the highest form of narrative art is not a theater performance, but a meal.
Lewis argued that we must learn to be better readers, thinkers, and aesthetes because we will do these things whether or not we do them well. It seems obvious that eating is even more foundational. As far as I can tell, the first thing Adam did upon waking was eat. In doing so, he set a precedent for every one of his children: breath, followed by food. The first thing a child does upon being born is taste the air, then mother’s milk. Friendships are forged over meals. Crises are averted. In his final hours, a murderer is given his last meal, as though his whole existence led up to this point. Jonathan Swift mocked the kingdoms who fought over which end of an egg should be eaten first, but the fact is what and how you eat is a foundational part of who you are. I once read an article about a Southern woman who moved to New York and decided one day to make biscuits using her mother’s recipe. The recipe failed. It turned out that there was no way, short of importing flour, to recreate Southern biscuits so far from home. Meals are necessary not only for human life, but for human identity. We are what we eat.
Is a meal narrative art? It has the basic elements: a beginning, middle, and end. Is there plot development? I’m not sure a chef would put it that way, but a good meal creates a world of taste, then expands it, complements it, and finishes it off with a “surprise made inevitable,” as Brittany puts it. Characters? Here, more than anywhere else, a meal shines as art, for in a meal you are the character, taking part in the action as you make the action a part of you. By the end of a meal, you have literally tasted the art and are busy embodying it. You literally cannot eat a meal and remain unchanged.
What of Aristotle’s other dramatic elements? Theme is obvious in a fine meal. Each course is designed to complement those that come before and after. Spectacle is equally obvious. The appearance of a dish is as much a part of it as its ingredients. Think of the oo’s and ah’s that accompany a platter of wonderful food as it is brought to the table. It doesn’t even have to be fancy. A birthday cake, glowing with candles, or a basket of nacho fries at a chilly baseball game can elicit as many gasps of delight as a leg of lamb surrounded by roasted potatoes. Diction? Simple. The language of food is flavor. As to musical motifs, well, every meal is preceded by anticipation and followed by memory, both of which resound like plucked strings whenever that meal makes another appearance in your life. Eggs and bacon bring back Saturday mornings. Fish and chips remind you of the coast. Thanksgiving—turkey. Summer—hamburgers. Camping—marshmallows and burnt hotdogs.
Like live theater, meals are powerful even when they are not made by professionals. Food doesn’t have to be extraordinary to be meaningful because food is personal. People naturally attend to a meal. They thank their servers. Often, they pronounce judgment on the meal as they lick their fingers: “That was good,” they say, or, “Not my favorite.” Live theater turns us all into performers; meals turn us all into artists.
I love Brittany’s description of the Bible as the book of a musical. God’s people have thought of it that way since they first received it. Every Sunday we ascend into the heavenly places to praise God through song, movement, chorus, and motif, becoming more skillful in our praise little by little until we join the final worship service. But Sunday morning worship is not merely song, movement, chorus, and motif. It is a meal. We participate through eating and drinking, passing grace and peace to one another as we pass the food of the Lord’s Supper. As we eat, we grow. As we taste, we see. What more could anyone ask of art?
Christian Leithart writes and teaches in Birmingham, Alabama.
[1] Lewis, The Weight of Glory, p. 52.
Before I begin, I should say that I’m good friends with both John and Brittany—the most satisfying theatrical accomplishment of my life was a direct result of their musical and directorial abilities—so I will refer to both of them by their first names. Also, at the risk of alienating devotees of the dramatic arts, I will spell “theater” the way God and George Washington intended.
Whenever I write about art, I find myself quoting C. S. Lewis’s essay “Learning in War-Time,” in which he argues that education is as important during a war as it is at any other time. People, being people, will think and debate and entertain one another no matter the circumstances. There is no activity so engrossing, whether worship or battle, that it crowds every other human interest—not for long, anyway.
You are not, in fact, going to read nothing, either in the Church or in the line: if you don’t read good books, you will read bad ones. If you don’t go on thinking rationally, you will think irrationally. If you reject aesthetic satisfactions, you will fall into sensual satisfactions.[1]
Lewis is talking about education, of course, but he applies his logic to art, and thereby sheds a little light on the conversation Brittany has begun. Why do we discuss questions like, “What is the highest form of narrative art?” Because art is one of those things we can’t do without. It will be with us whether or not we think critically about it, which means we must think critically. People will inevitably create and receive art, and if we don’t learn to do it well, we will do it badly.
Lewis’s essay also touches on an important aspect of all art, namely, that it is a human activity. It is created by people for people. When artists pretend people don’t matter—or worse, don’t exist—they inevitably self-destruct. The highest form of art, therefore, must be the art that treats human beings most like themselves.
Brittany gives first place to musical theater, and she makes a strong case. Theater is one of the most personal arts. It is immediate. It is engaging. As Brittany describes, audience and actors really perform the show together. The more spirited the one, the more quickened the other. A tough crowd can squash a show, while a house full of energetic participants lifts the company to new heights, sometimes even changing the way the show is performed. To give one example from Hamilton, during the initial performances, the audience responded so enthusiastically to the line “Immigrants, we get the job done” that Lin-Manuel Miranda and co. added extra bars of music to give the applause time to die down. The interaction between artist and audience is more lively in musical theater than in other art forms, which means it has a greater chance of engaging the passions. It’s true, as John points out, that this can be done for good or ill, but if the musical is guiding us toward the true, good, and beautiful, it will engage the passions to good effect.
As I said, Brittany makes a strong case. But I think I can do her one better: the highest form of narrative art is not a theater performance, but a meal.
Lewis argued that we must learn to be better readers, thinkers, and aesthetes because we will do these things whether or not we do them well. It seems obvious that eating is even more foundational. As far as I can tell, the first thing Adam did upon waking was eat. In doing so, he set a precedent for every one of his children: breath, followed by food. The first thing a child does upon being born is taste the air, then mother’s milk. Friendships are forged over meals. Crises are averted. In his final hours, a murderer is given his last meal, as though his whole existence led up to this point. Jonathan Swift mocked the kingdoms who fought over which end of an egg should be eaten first, but the fact is what and how you eat is a foundational part of who you are. I once read an article about a Southern woman who moved to New York and decided one day to make biscuits using her mother’s recipe. The recipe failed. It turned out that there was no way, short of importing flour, to recreate Southern biscuits so far from home. Meals are necessary not only for human life, but for human identity. We are what we eat.
Is a meal narrative art? It has the basic elements: a beginning, middle, and end. Is there plot development? I’m not sure a chef would put it that way, but a good meal creates a world of taste, then expands it, complements it, and finishes it off with a “surprise made inevitable,” as Brittany puts it. Characters? Here, more than anywhere else, a meal shines as art, for in a meal you are the character, taking part in the action as you make the action a part of you. By the end of a meal, you have literally tasted the art and are busy embodying it. You literally cannot eat a meal and remain unchanged.
What of Aristotle’s other dramatic elements? Theme is obvious in a fine meal. Each course is designed to complement those that come before and after. Spectacle is equally obvious. The appearance of a dish is as much a part of it as its ingredients. Think of the oo’s and ah’s that accompany a platter of wonderful food as it is brought to the table. It doesn’t even have to be fancy. A birthday cake, glowing with candles, or a basket of nacho fries at a chilly baseball game can elicit as many gasps of delight as a leg of lamb surrounded by roasted potatoes. Diction? Simple. The language of food is flavor. As to musical motifs, well, every meal is preceded by anticipation and followed by memory, both of which resound like plucked strings whenever that meal makes another appearance in your life. Eggs and bacon bring back Saturday mornings. Fish and chips remind you of the coast. Thanksgiving—turkey. Summer—hamburgers. Camping—marshmallows and burnt hotdogs.
Like live theater, meals are powerful even when they are not made by professionals. Food doesn’t have to be extraordinary to be meaningful because food is personal. People naturally attend to a meal. They thank their servers. Often, they pronounce judgment on the meal as they lick their fingers: “That was good,” they say, or, “Not my favorite.” Live theater turns us all into performers; meals turn us all into artists.
I love Brittany’s description of the Bible as the book of a musical. God’s people have thought of it that way since they first received it. Every Sunday we ascend into the heavenly places to praise God through song, movement, chorus, and motif, becoming more skillful in our praise little by little until we join the final worship service. But Sunday morning worship is not merely song, movement, chorus, and motif. It is a meal. We participate through eating and drinking, passing grace and peace to one another as we pass the food of the Lord’s Supper. As we eat, we grow. As we taste, we see. What more could anyone ask of art?
Christian Leithart writes and teaches in Birmingham, Alabama.
[1] Lewis, The Weight of Glory, p. 52.
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