Spielberg's Poetics?

Steven Spielberg's Lincoln

Once upon a time, literature students used to grapple with the question of art and the the accuracy of history. 

In my case, the grappling was grounded in a seminal text on this topic: The Poetics by ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle.

In essence, Aristotle, sharing the concern of other Greek thinkers that art, or a dramatic representation of reality, could beguile people into confusing representation with the real, made one thing volubly clear: art is a second order dramatization of the reality of history. One cannot and should not go to art for accurate information about the past. 

In light of the debate swirling around Steven Spielberg's film Lincoln, the Aristotelian dictum comes to mind.

Critics have been worrying about the film's "historical accuracy," forgetting what historian Philip Zelikow has thoughtfully pointed out: Spielberg and other artists are not to be burdened with the mantle of a "historian", but accepted as folks who are free to interpret a moment in history according to their particular artistic needs. 

Challenging as it is, Zelikow says, to translate the "tangle of history" into good "streamlined art," Spielberg's (and screenwriter Tony Kushner's) Lincoln has accomplished just what it is expected to--a specific view of that moment in history (the passing of the 13th Amendment through the U.S. Congress).