Sherie V

30 September 2010

Verisimilitude – A Summary

When consulting the entry for “verisimilitude” on Wikipedia, the definition is defined as

“the quality of realism in something (such as film, literature, the arts, etc)” (Wikipedia).

However, this watered down definition is only the half of if. The term has evolved over the years,

and branches out into different meanings depending on the nature in which the word is discussed.

Tristan Todorav's article An Introduction to Verisimilitude, gives an in depth analysis of the

multi-layered term.

The article starts by using an anecdote that in the end suggests that two people's version

of the “truth” will always be different from one another. A dispute between two men who appear

in court and give their testimony, and the variance of the testimonies thereof, is an example of

the inability to recreate the truth in a narrative for an event that has already occurred. Todorav

suggests that the remedy to this situation is “no longer to establish a truth, but to approach it, to

produce an impression of it,” (Todorav 80). Therefore, because the true truth is unobtainable, to

discover it is not the ultimate goal of the truth seeker. Todorav explains that rhetoric can be

defined as the consciousness of language of a science which formulates the laws of language and

verisimilitude can be defined as a concept that fills the gap between these laws and their

reference to reality (Todorav 81). So, verisimilitude is a gateway to understanding what

constitutes reality re-imagined from the original state of truth. At the same time, however,
verisimilitude has its own type of understanding when it comes to realism and truth.

Plato and Aristotle had a shared meaning of verisimilitude in that the believed it to be the

relationship of the specific text to another generalized text referred to “common opinion”

(Todorav 82). The french provided another meaning that says comedy has its own verisimilitude

that is different from the verisimilitude of tragedy (Todorav 83). The article makes the case that

every genre has its own verisimilitude. In today's viewpoint, however, verisimilitude is

considered as when the work tries to convince us that it conforms to reality and not its own laws

(Todorav 83). This provides a mask for the text.

Yet, the text of a narrative is does not have complete liberty to with reality, versus truth,

versus verisimilitude. This is because, “the narrative's freedom is limited by the internal

requirements of the book itself,” (Todorav 83). This is to say that whatever genre a book or text

falls into, it must meet the givens of that category. This leads to two more traits of verisimilitude:

as a discursive law, absolute and inevitable and as a mask that relies on rhetorical methods,

(Todorav 84).

Another example of the way verisimilitude works can be explored by using the “mystery”

novel genre. The mystery also has its own interpretation of the term and it's own discourse in

relation to it. A crime is usually the centerpiece for a mystery. The crime is usually full of twisted

truths and discoveries. The character presumed innocent turns out to be guilty and the character

presumed guilty is actually innocent. This play on true truth represents a sort of

antiverisimilitude. The so called “truth,” is the opposite of reality. What the reader, or even the

character at times, thinks is real turns out as just the opposite. This juxtaposition of the term turns

the definition of the word upside down or at least on its side to reveal yet another avenue of

complexities. In this way, truth and verisimilitude often do collide, but gain a chance at merging
somewhere within the text. Ultimately, the question will be asked, “what is truth but a distanced

and postponed verisimilitude?” (Todorav 88.)

Virgil 4

Works Cited
Todorav, Tristan. “An introduction to Verisimilitude.”

“Verisimilitude” Wikipedia