While my adopted state of Florida has many interesting tales, perhaps the most famous is the story of Juan Ponce de León’s quest to find the fountain of youth. As the name suggests, this enchanted fountain was supposed to grant eternal life to those who partook of its waters.
While the fountain of youth is regarded as a myth, it turns out that the story about Juan Ponce de León’s quest is also a fiction. And not just fiction, it is slander.
In 1511, or so the history goes, Ponce was forced to resign his post as governor of Puerto Rico. King Ferdinand offered Ponce an opportunity: if he could find Bimini, it would be his. That, and not the fountain of youth, was the object of his quest. In support of this, J. Michael Francis of the University of South Florida, claims that the documents of the time make no mention of a fountain of youth. According to Francis, a fellow named Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés disliked Ponce, most likely because of the political struggle in Puerto Rico. Oviedo wrote a tale in his Historia general y natural de las Indias claiming that Ponce was tricked by the natives into searching for the fountain of youth.
This fictional “history” stuck (rather like the arrow that killed Ponce) and has become a world-wide legend. Not surprisingly, my adopted state is happy to cash in on this tale. There is even a well at St. Augustine’s Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park that is popular with tourists. There is irony in the fact that a tale intended to slander Ponce as a fool has given him lasting fame is. Given the success of the story, this is a case where fiction is better than the truth. While this is but one example, it does raise a general philosophical matter regarding truth and fiction.
From a moral and historical standpoint, the easy and obvious answer to the general question of whether a good fiction is better than a truth is “no.” After all, a fiction of this sort is a lie and there are the usual moral arguments why lying is generally wrong. In this specific case, there is also the fact (if the story is true) that Oviedo slandered Ponce from malice and this seems morally wrong.
In the case of history, the proper end is the truth. As Aristotle said, it is the function of the historian to relate what happened. In contrast, it is the function of the poet to relate what may happen. As such, for the moral philosopher and the honest historian, no fiction is better than the truth. But, of course, these are not the only legitimate perspectives on the matter.
Since the story of Ponce and the fountain of youth is fiction, it is not unreasonable to also consider it in the context of aesthetics in terms of its value as a story. While Oviedo intended for his story to be taken as true, he can be considered an artist. Looked at as a work of fiction, the story does relate to what could happen. After all, a person can quest for something that does not exist. To use an example from the same time, Orellana and Pizarro went searching for the legendary city of El Dorado (unless, of course, this is just another fiction).
While it might seem odd to take a lie as art, the connection between the untrue and art is well-established. In the Poetics, Aristotle notes how “Homer has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully” and he regards such skillful lies as a legitimate part of art. Oscar Wilde, in his “New Aesthetics” presents as his fourth doctrine that “Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things is the proper aim of Art.” A little reflection shows they are correct, at least in the case of fiction. After all, fiction is untrue by definition, yet is a form of art. When an actor plays Hamlet and says the lines, he pours forth lie after lie. The Chronicles of Narnia are also untrue as there is no Narnia and no Aslan. Likewise for even mundane fiction, such as Moby Dick. As such, being untrue or even a lie in the strict sense of the term does not disqualify a work from being art.
Looked at as a work of art, the story of the fountain of youth seems better than the truth. While the true story of Ponce is certainly not a bad tale (a journey of exploration ending in death from a wound suffered in battle), the story of a quest for the fountain of youth has proven the better tale. This is not to say that the truth of the matter should be ignored, just that the fiction is acceptable as a beautiful, untrue thing.