An Exegesis of Urmson’s essay on Literature as a Performing Art

LITERATURE IS IN LOGICAL CHARACTER A PERFORMING ART BUT ONE IN WHICH WE FREQUENTLY CONFINE OURSELVES TO SCORE READING

Literature as a Performing Art – J. O. Urmson

In this essay I will attempt to explain J. O. Urmson’s argument as to why literature shares many characteristics with the performing arts. I will discuss the argument preceding this conclusion and attempt to provide some additional insight into the discussion.

In order to agree with Urmson’s conclusion, it is necessary to agree with his preceding classifications of art. Urmson defines two categories in which we can loosely fit most classical art forms. He distinguishes works directly created by the creative artists with no executant artist from works where the creative artist produces a recipe or set of instructions with the intention of said instructions being carried out by an executant artist or performer. Urmson creates these categories in order to define some sort of control from which we can judge and categorize literature, in reference to its artistic brethren. However, this seems erroneous to me, as literature is a fundamental pillar of art, alongside visual art and music, and I feel that attempting to define artistic categories without consideration of literature, and then categorizing literature in reference to the other forms of art is tantamount to categorizing a smell in terms of sounds. 

Immune to my criticism, Urmson continuous by explaining how art is either temporal or non-temporal. Non-temporal art is art that consists of physical objects. Things like painting and sculpture fall into this category along with anything that is created directly by an artist without any form of intermediary between the creator’s expression and the audience. The second category defined by Urmson is temporal art. This is art that requires an intermediary to relay the creative artist’s expression to the audience by interpreting instructions laid out by the creative artist. Art in this category often requires a performance from an executant artist as directed by the creative artist; the need for performances muddies the identity of the art in a sense, as the art is recreated separately for each audience, and this is where we run into difficulty with the ontology of performing arts. Unlike a non-temporal piece, for example the Mona Lisa, we cannot define exactly where or what the piece of art is. I can never refer to the Hamlet, but rather a production of Hamlet.

Having defined two categories into which Urmson imagines all works of art can loosely fit, our writer questions if reading literature is analogous to the art forms of either category. Literature appears to have more familiarities with performing art according to Urmson as he considers the possibility that the reader is both the executant artist and the audience. He states that he does not feel it takes the technical or interpretive skills of an executant artist in order to read a book, however I would argue that there is a great deal of interpretation when reading, especially in works of fiction. Do all readers imagine characters and settings to look the same in their minds eye? Or even, in terms of narrative, are we not able to speculate and interpret what motivates key characters in a plot? It is possible that all art is open to such interpretation on some level, from the point of view of the audience, and maybe Urmson is being entirely literal when saying he does not seem to exhibit interpretative skills when reading, referring to how readers are forced to oblige to the words written by the author, and follow the progression of a piece of literature as a passive witness. 

Urmson’s next point is brief. He claims that literature cannot assimilate into the category of non-temporal art due to its true identity being muddied in a similar manner to the muddy ontology of the performing arts. I am of the opinion that our author did not put enough thought into this point, as I am left unconvinced. I am sure that a more intelligent man than myself could provide a convincing argument to support the theory that literature is analogous to painting or sculpture, however James Urmson decided to leave this argument mostly un-tackled.

Thus, Urmson has come to the conclusion that literature cannot be part of the first category and there must be some analogy between literature and the performing arts. He approaches this consideration by prompting the reader to consider the origins of literature. Urmson explains that literature originated from oral performances, and draws a comparison with music by explaining that when stories were first written down, this was to provide a ‘score’ from which a performer can recite. It is also clear that many pieces of modern literature, most notably poetry, are still intended to be performance pieces, and the written words in this case are easily compared to sheet music. Urmson extrapolates this point to support his view that, in essence, literature is an oral art.

Continuing with our consideration of musical score, Urmson explains some essentials of music. Generally, the instrumentalist produces a sound in accordance with the instructions of the composer; however there is something called silent score reading. A proficient performer can look at a line of melody and imagine what it would sound like if it were played. Similarly, an experience chef could, as far as I am aware, read a recipe and recognize how the dish would taste. Urmson and I agree that a proficient chef is not preparing and enjoying a mental feast in the same way that a score reader is not providing himself with a private performance when silently reading a score, they are merely imaging a performance of the recipe. Urmson now suggests that reading a book silently is identical to silently reading a score of music, albeit book reading is a much more ordinary skill to master. His claim is that the majority of literature is intended for score reading, rather than for performance, but in this sense literature is in logical character a performing art, “one in which we frequently confine ourselves to score reading.”

For the most part, I am in agreement with Urmson; however I find his conclusion illogical. While I have been convinced that reading literature is tantamount to silent score reading, I have not been convinced that silent score reading is in logical character a performing art. While I will admit that silent score reading is an artistic process that stems from an undeniable performing art, I am of the opinion that score reading is tangential to the preforming arts and is an artistic process in its own right, separated from performance. I feel that Urmson’s error came with his oversimplification of the categorization of art, where he claimed that an art form is either a sculpture or a painting, or it is a performing art. I would allow room for additional categories because I am not convinced that literature or silent score reading have enough in common with the performing arts to be classified along side them.