Truth (plays)
Truth and Truth: A Grove Play are two versions of a verse drama written in blank verse by American poet and playwright George Sterling. Both versions tell a fantasy story set in and near the imaginary medieval walled city of Vae. The first version was meant to be read for pleasure. The second version was written in 1925 and early 1926 to be performed. It was published and staged in 1926 with symphonic music composed and conducted by Domenico Brescia. 1926 reviewers praised both Sterling's play and Brescia's musical score. A half-century later, musical scholars said Brescia's Truth music “represents the high plateau of classical form, structure, and orchestration... previewing what would become standard film score techniques about a decade later.” A literary historian ranked Truth as “one of Sterling's finest works.”
Synopsis
Truth is set in a fictional medieval walled city named “Vae,” a classical Latin exclamation of pain. At dawn atop the city wall, a guard and the singer Egon see two people approach the city gates. The gates open. Uliun the Dreamer brings in a nude woman who does not speak. She is beautiful, but people cannot bear to look in her eyes. Uliun will not allow her to be covered, but expects people to worship her beauty as he does. A crowd gathers and causes a commotion. The captain of the guards covers the woman with a cloak and takes her to a jail so the king can decide what to do. A guard enters her jail cell for sex but leaves stunned and unable to speak. A second guard enters her cell, looks in her eyes, then says: “This girl is of the everlasting gods.”Soldiers take her to the king. He takes her to his bedchamber, where he dies. With the king dead, the high priest takes control of Vae. The high priest orders a subordinate priest to cast the woman on a bed of fiery coals. The flames do not harm her. The subordinate goes mad. The high priest commands his priests to crucify Truth's follower Uliun the Dreamer and to throw Truth off a high cliff. Uliun dies but Truth is unharmed. The high priest stabs her in the heart and she seems to die. People riot, but the high priest persuades them to worship the dead “goddess.” On a wooded hillside beyond Vae's walls, Egon and his lover have fled the chaotic city. They see the armies of King Corvannon, Vae's enemy, attack the weakened city. On the hill above Egon and his lover, the nude woman appears in a shining light. She holds out her arms to Egon. He identifies her as Truth, and asks her to leave him to his lover's beauty and love, even though he knows both are illusions. Dawn breaks. In Vae, people kneel before the altar of their new goddess. On the hillside, Egon leaves Truth standing alone, glowing on the hilltop.
Creation of the first play ''Truth''
Origin of the title character
Sterling's inspiration for his character Truth could have come from several sources, because Truth has been characterized as a naked woman for thousands of years, although not as the title character of a play.One of the earliest authors to portray Truth as nude was classical Roman poet Horace. In his first book of Odes, published in 23 B.C., ode 24 includes the phrase nudaque veritas, usually translated into English as naked truth—a slight inaccuracy. The Latin word veritas actually refers to a quality a person might have, truthfulness rather than truth. Sterling studied Latin for three years while learning to become a Roman Catholic priest at Saint Charles College in Maryland. He probably encountered nudaque veritas in Horace's well-known poem.
For centuries visual artists have portrayed Truth as a naked woman. For examples, see Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s sculpture Truth Unveiled by Time, Sandro Botticelli’s painting The Calumny of Apelles, Annibale Carracci’s An Allegory of Truth and Time, Jean-Léon Gérôme’s four paintings of naked Truth in a well, Jules Lefebvre’s The Truth, and naked Truth in paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, Adolphe Faugeron, and Gustav Klimt. In 1896, the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress unveiled Henry Oliver Walker’s mural “Lyric Poetry,” which features a naked woman captioned “TRVTH.”
A scandalous movie was a possible inspiration: The 1915 feature film Hypocrites character Truth's onscreen nudity caused controversy in some cities. Hypocrites was written and directed by Lois Weber and produced by writer-movie star-director-producer Hobart Bosworth. On July 26, 1913, Bosworth signed a contract with Sterling's best friend Jack London to produce movies based on London's works. Sterling certainly knew of Bosworth through London and possibly met Bosworth during one of Sterling's projects in Hollywood. Weber wrote the scenario for Hypocrites after seeing Faugeron's painting La Vérité. Weber's movie portrays four stories linked by appearances of the nude Truth and her disciple Gabriel. In Hypocrites, Truth's follower Gabriel is murdered for his dedication to Truth, just as in Sterling's play Truth's follower Uliun the Dreamer is murdered for his worship of Truth.
Writing the first ''Truth''
In June 1921 Sterling stopped writing lyric poems to concentrate on writing a new poetic drama. He wrote to iconoclastic editor and critic H. L. Mencken: “I’ve quit writing lyrics, for a time, though, and am at another dramatic poem I'm calling Truth, showing the dear lady's reception by priest, potentate and populace.”His new play Truth included six songs. Sterling thought the lyrics of three songs were also good poems. He sold one, “Atthan Dances,” to H. L. Mencken for Smart Set magazine. He sent Mencken the lyrics to a second song, “Egon's Song,” asking: “Is the enclosed ditty too frank for your chaste pages?” Mencken replied: “Egon's song caresses me. I shall steal it for my autobiography. Meanwhile, I see no reason why it should not be embalmed in our great family periodical. My best thanks.” However, Mencken's partner George Jean Nathan thought “Egon's Song” was too risqué, so Mencken had to retract his acceptance. Sterling responded: “Nathan didn't care to use ‘Egon's Song.’ I do not blame him, for it's pretty frank. Into your autobiography with it! You won't be lying.”
Finding a publisher
After a year and a half of work, Sterling finished his play in the winter of 1922. Now he needed a publisher. Alexander Robertson, the San Francisco bookstore owner who also ran a small publishing company and had published twelve of Sterling's books, could not print Truth because he was out of money: “He is too much in debt to banks and printers...” Sterling explained to poet Clark Ashton Smith. Sterling couldn't find a publisher. He thought he would have to pay to self-publish Truth, as he had done with his first poetry collection The Testimony of the Suns and Other Poems and his verse dramas Lilith and Rosamund.Sterling was saved by George Steele Seymour, the head of Order of Bookfellows, a Chicago-based national organization with about 3,000 members. Order of Bookfellows published between two and five limited-edition books per year and the literary magazine Step Ladder. Sterling explained: “Seymour is honest, I have been led, so far, to believe, and no one seems to be getting anything but kudos from the books he gets out.... I joined his association out of good nature, long ago, and last winter he wrote asking me if they couldn't print something for me. I was just about to bring out Truth at my own expense, as I'd done in the case of Lilith and Rosamund, and thought it a good chance to save money: all I want is to see the play in print. Then it's off my mind and I no longer give a whoop what becomes of it.” That last remark would prove untrue.
First book publication and critical response
published books for sale only to club members. The club bought no advertisements, ran no publicity campaigns, sent no review copies to book reviewers. Its marketing for a book consisted solely of a small, four-page leaflet that it mailed to members. The inside of Order of Bookfellows’ leaflet for Truth was a synopsis of Sterling's play, ending with the declaration that: “The entire story is worked out with constantly increasing interest and the denouement is not short of tremendous. Every lover of great literature should be proud to possess this book but only a limited number will be fortunate enough to do so.”Page three of the four-page leaflet was unusual. Its headline read: “A Letter from Frederick Coykendall, of the Committee on Publication, Inner Circle of Bookfellows:”
Coykendall was a wealthy businessman, a Trustee of Columbia University, and a member of New York City's Grolier Club of book lovers. Coykendall's portrait is in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery. In large type, the leaflet page read:
My first act of the new year is to send you back the Sterling manuscript. I have kept it longer than I intended because during the greater part of December I was so occupied as to put me out of the mood for fair appreciation of such a lovely piece of writing. I have read it several times and each time it seems better and each time my sense of delight in the theme and its story and in the real beauty of many passages has increased. It is, in my judgment, a work of unusual excellence and one which would set a high standard for the new series of books you have in mind. I very much hope you will be able to publish it this way and that it may have a format in keeping with the rare delicacy of its thought and expression. It has been a treat to me and I am heartily grateful for the opportunity of reading it.
Sterling sent a Truth leaflet to H. L. Mencken, who shot back: “It is amusing to find ‘Frederick Coykendall’ giving his imprimatur to George Sterling. What next, in God's name? Who in hell is Coykendall?”
Each leaflet's back cover was an order form. For each book Order of Bookfellows published, the club counted how many order forms it received, then it printed and bound exactly that many copies, plus a few for the author and for the club's own use. No extra copies were left for bookstores or libraries.
Truth was published December 1923 by the Bookfellows in a deluxe collector's edition limited to 285 copies. Truth sold 250 copies to Bookfellows members. The club printed an extra 35 copies for the author and for its own use. Each copy of Truth was hand-numbered and signed by Sterling.
Because copies of Truth were available only to Order of Bookfellows members, critics were unaware of Sterling's new play. One critic did write a lengthy review, reporting: “the poetry is beautiful, especially the lyrics that are interspersed,” and quoting “Atthan Dances” as an example.
More specific was poet Clark Ashton Smith, who wrote to Sterling: “I read Truth... and admired it. I can see that it would be effective on the stage. The songs are among your best lyrics: two of them still haunt me with ineluctable beauty and strangeness. There is nothing like them in poetry.”