ABSTRACT
I offer some literary parallels to group phenomena. People in groups often say, ‘It’s not like that—we’re not sitting in that order’; ‘He didn’t say that; or, if he did, it doesn’t mean anything’. Yet the characters of high literature manifestly do sit like that and say things like that—very odd actions and speeches occur; and the artist must intend some meaning. What’s more, these events are usually felt to be, as a whole, true to life. So my thesis is that as the artist stands to life so the interpretation stands to the group.
