Why Literature?

"How is this relevant to my life?" students often ask when presented with a literature anthology or a writing assignment. I've been thinking much about literature, in the course of refining my Zeitgeist Literature (www.z-lit.com) series. I'm more deeply than ever convinced of its importance, and yes- relevance- in every area of life.

With a strong foundation in literature, it becomes possible to put life into words. We read of the experiences of others, and they become our own; we are able to place our own experiences in perspective; we can grasp the significance, beauty, or tragedy of an event in a way that is impossible for a person who lacks fundamental literacy. We learn by example how to clearly express feelings, describe experiences, and empathize with others. Literature not only teaches us how to communicate, it also gives us a common basis for understanding one another.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in his 1970 Nobel lecture, said,

"The sole substitute for an experience which we have not ourselves lived through is art [and] literature... From man to man, as he completes his brief spell on Earth, art transfers the whole weight of an unfamiliar, lifelong experience with all its burdens, its colours, its sap of life; it recreates in the flesh an unknown experience and allows us to possess it as our own."

and...

"...literature conveys irrefutable condensed experience ... from generation to generation. Thus it becomes the living memory of the nation. Thus it preserves and kindles within itself the flame of her spent history, in a form which is safe from deformation and slander. In this way literature, together with language, protects the soul of the nation"

and...

"World literature has it in its power to convey condensed experience from one land to another so that we might cease to be split and dazzled, that the different scales of values might be made to agree, and one nation learn correctly and concisely the true history of another with such strength of recognition and painful awareness as it had itself experienced the same, and thus might it be spared from repeating the same cruel mistakes."

Solzhenitsyn asserts that literature serves an irreplaceable transmitter of experience from person to person, generation to generation, and nation to nation. Is this relevant? It is important?

I believe that it is. The transmission of experience is vitally important for many reasons. Think about it...

Good literature broadens our experiences. Without literature, we live alone in the cage of our own experiences. We are limited by the confines of time and space-- until we open the door to the experiences of others.
-We learn to empathize by experiencing the feelings of others.
-We learn to beware of that which is false, temporal, and worthless.
-We learn about consequences by experiencing the suffering and joy of others.
-We learn to communicate from the best communicators of all time (and deep, clear communication is the foundation for healthy realtionships).

Literature shared becomes a "living memory." It opens an arena of common space, a context within which we can move toward greater understanding. It becomes a vivid shorthand with which we can communicate an idea. To describe someone as a Hamlet, or as a Bertie Wooster, offers a far more vivid picture of their personality and character than the use of simple adjectives, but without the common foundation of literature, the comparison becomes opaque.

When E.D. Hirsch wrote about cultural literacy, he warned that without a shared foundation of common knowledge, literacy would be lost. To be literate, you must not only be able to read, but you must also understand what you read and hear in its proper context. You must understand both text and subtext.

If you hear the name 'Hamlet' and don't think of the complex interplay of revenge, indecision, and circumstance as it relates to the topic of conversation, you have most likely missed the point. Ignorance is not bliss-- to misunderstand leads to inappropriate, often harmful responses. You're like a child who is bored by adult conversation-- not because the conversation is truly boring, but because he simply doesn't understand it.

Literature is one of the cornerstones of literacy. It is experience distilled, and it illuminates experience in a way that nothing else can. Great literature is timeless and relevant, and life without it would be an emaciated existence.

I could write more... but I'm back to work on Zeitgeist Lit. I hope to have beta-versions of each level available very, very soon. It looks as though the publication date for the final editions with spiffy layouts and jazzy covers will be early next year. The beta-versions will get you going, though!

***
What I'm reading today: A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken
I'm just a few chapters in, and-- WOW. Talk about a relationship defined by communication! It's a beautiful, deeply moving memoir, and it includes eighteen letters from C.S. Lewis. It a book to savor, but I'm finding it hard to put down.

Another Banner

So if things upload to the Blogger site, what's up with that? I'm going to try another banner. And this time, try to make it point to my site. Learning on the job can be time-consuming! ;-)

New Banner

Nothing is uploading to my website, so I decided to try uploading to the blog! If it works, that will be quite strange.

Comcastic? Please!

High speed internet access seems like a wonderful idea. Especially for someone with an internet business that requires a certain amount of time spent online. Will I ever know for sure? Maybe. Maybe not.

I've been trying since mid-June to get Comcast cable internet installed. So much for the 'be online tonight' idea! It's ticking closer to three months since my first call, and I'm still poking along on dial-up.

All the Comcast customer service people are nice. All the installers are nice. Even the contractors that installed the outside cable and cut the phone lines to half the neighborhood were nice. They worked until 10pm trying to fix the phone lines with duct tape, and managed at least to get my grandmother's phone line connected to the neighbor's fax line. So while the rest of us had no phone or internet service for several days, my grandmother was happily gabbing away on the neighbor's line.

So the problem isn't with the individual people. They are really, really nice. But believe me-- it seems that company policy is 'let not your right hand know what your left hand is doing.' For the first six weeks when I was calling about twice a week to get the process moving, they couldn't even find me in the computer half the time!

After spending well over a month and great wads of cash to get the cable up to the house (and the phone lines cut), I call for installation of the interior stuff. Here's how that goes:

A service person arrives at the door a week or so later, "I hear you're having trouble with your cable." Well, no. I'm not having trouble WITH my cable-- I need my cable installed. Okay, so they install it (leaving bright orange cable wrapped around the house outside, and fat black cable travelling through exterior walls, up the sides of door frames, down around baseboards and up the wall to where I actually want the connection). They hook up the modem. They go back and forth to their vans (two of them) and confer. They depart, shaking their heads and promising that someone else will come in a couple of days.

Half a week later, I call them back to inquire. They had no idea what could be the matter, but within a week, another nice service person shows up. Test, test, test.... everything is working. Except something that is not, and it's something he can't fix. He leaves, promising that the department that fixes this sort of thing will be out within a week.

They aren't, of course. So I call this morning, and after spending 24:23 minutes on the phone, am asked to call back later because their computer system is down.

It's later; I called back, and a recorded message states that they are undergoing scheduled maintenance and to please call back after 6 a.m. and they are very sorry for the inconvenience. Bah!

Why do I persist in trying to get Comcast? Because it's the only player in the game here (I don't want satellite). Too bad Verizon couldn't get its act together fast enough to get DSL out here. There would be no question as to who would get my business.