Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of
Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.
Gustave Flaubert, the stern craftsman of language, once declared: “Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.” These words may seem paradoxical—how can invention be truth, and how can the airy spirit of poetry be likened to the rigid lines of geometry? Yet here Flaubert reveals the essence of art: that what is invented by the imagination is not falsehood, but truth distilled, and that true poetry is not chaos but order, governed by laws as exact as those that guide the compass and the square.
The origin of this thought lies in Flaubert’s lifelong pursuit of perfection in style. He labored for years over single sentences, believing that art must mirror the clarity and necessity of nature itself. For him, invention did not mean fabrication or lies, but the shaping of reality into forms that revealed deeper truths. The poet, like the mathematician, does not scatter words aimlessly, but places each with precision. Just as geometry maps the eternal laws of space, poetry maps the eternal laws of the human soul.
The ancients understood this union of invention and truth. Plato, though skeptical of poets, declared that geometry was the pathway to divine reality. Yet it was also Plato who filled his dialogues with myths and stories, inventions that revealed eternal truths more powerfully than reason alone. Likewise, Aristotle observed that poetry is “more philosophical than history,” for while history recounts what happened, poetry reveals what could happen, what must happen in the nature of things. Thus invention and truth are not opposed, but bound together.
Consider the story of Sophocles. When he invented the tale of Oedipus, he did not record an actual king, but he revealed truths about pride, fate, and blindness to the self that still haunt humanity. No geometry theorem is more precise than this: that man, in seeking to escape destiny, often fulfills it. Here Flaubert’s wisdom stands clear: the invention was true, and the poetry as precise as the geometry of fate.
Even in modern times, this precision is seen. Think of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, wrestling with the weight of existence. Though Hamlet is an invention, his words—“To be or not to be”—strike with the exactness of an equation. Who has not felt that balance, that line of symmetry between despair and endurance? The poet’s invention is not fantasy, but the measurement of the soul’s dimensions, as precise as Euclid’s lines drawn in sand.
What lesson, then, does Flaubert leave us? It is this: do not despise invention, for it is the road to truth. The poet’s work is not vagueness, but clarity of a higher order. Poetry is not the opposite of science; it is its companion. Where geometry charts the visible, poetry charts the invisible. Where geometry reveals the order of space, poetry reveals the order of the heart. Both seek precision, both seek truth, and both remind us that the universe is not chaos, but harmony waiting to be named.
Practical wisdom flows from this teaching. When you create, do not fear that invention makes your work unreal. Know that if it springs from the heart, it carries truth, though shaped in the garments of imagination. When you read poetry, seek not vagueness but the hidden geometry: the balance of words, the symmetry of thought, the exactness of emotion. And in your life, approach your own experiences as a poet-geometer: measuring, shaping, and revealing what is eternal in the midst of change.
So let Flaubert’s words endure: “Everything one invents is true… Poetry is as precise as geometry.” For invention is not falsehood, but the unveiling of hidden order; and poetry, far from a drifting cloud, is a compass pointing to the eternal. To understand this is to see that the imagination is not opposed to truth, but its most faithful servant, chiseling from silence the eternal forms of the soul.
HPtran khac hoang phuc
Flaubert’s quote suggests a fascinating intersection of creativity and precision. If poetry is as precise as geometry, does this imply that the poet should be just as methodical and disciplined in crafting their work? While I see the beauty of structured poetry, I also wonder if this view could stifle the more spontaneous, free-flowing aspects of poetry. Should poets strive for precision, or is there beauty in allowing poems to evolve organically?
HTHien Thu
The concept that everything one invents is true feels like a reflection on the subjective nature of art. Is fiction, then, a different form of truth? And when Flaubert says poetry is as precise as geometry, does it imply that there is an underlying structure in all poetry that is as definite as the rules of mathematics? Could this be a call for poets to embrace more discipline in their work, even while dealing with abstract emotions?
THNguyen thu hien
Flaubert’s view of poetry as being as precise as geometry really got me thinking. Can poetry truly be measured with the same precision as geometry? I understand that poetry has structure and form, but doesn’t it also leave room for emotional interpretation? How does this precision balance with the fluidity and personal experience poetry often represents? I wonder if Flaubert was suggesting that there is an invisible order to all art, even if we can’t always see it.
T1Tran The Hung - To 16
I’m intrigued by Flaubert’s statement that poetry is as precise as geometry. Geometry is a discipline rooted in logic and structure, so does this mean poetry, too, has an inherent order to it? Perhaps this view takes away some of the mystery of poetry, making it seem more like a craft than an art form driven by intuition. Does this approach limit the emotional freedom poetry can express, or is the precision he speaks of actually a framework for deeper creativity?
QTHoang Quoc Tuan
Flaubert’s idea that everything one invents is true really challenges our understanding of truth in literature. It suggests that fiction, while not based on factual events, carries its own truth within its creation. I wonder, does this mean that the emotional or thematic truth a poet or writer conveys is just as valid as objective truth? And when Flaubert compares poetry to geometry, is he saying that poetry, like math, has a precise, logical structure beneath its beauty?